The Poughquag Pastor
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Sermon 06/01/08 “A Rock Solid Faith”
Owning a home near water has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it is nice to hear a babbling brook or stream or listen to ocean waves. Water has a calming effect when the waters are calm. But when the storms rise up, well I am sure the Bischofs could tell us some stories of how even a quiet babbling brook wreaks havoc. So when Jesus shares the story of two home owners who built their homes in two very different places, we can appreciate the parable on many levels.
But Jesus wasn’t really talking about water and storms. His point was about faith, and how some people have a shaky shifting faith while others have a rock solid faith. So today we want to examine what it takes to have a rock solid faith.
First, we need to talk about the nature of faith itself. The passage in Romans 3 tells us that faith and salvation is a gift. There is nothing you can do to earn it. It is something you receive and hold on to. When we were in sin and ignorant of the price that sin cost, God was patient with us. But when Christ came and died on the cross, he gave the gift of salvation to anyone who would put their faith in him. What Jesus Christ did on the cross paid the price for sin as long as we have faith in him. You know what having faith is like. It’s like trying anything for the first time. In researching what I can do to help David, I learned that many families try going gluten and casein free. This means eliminating wheat and dairy. I went to the organic food store and I bought buckwheat pancake mix. It didn’t sound that appealing to me. But you know what, I made some waffles, and they tasted great. I added a little almond flour and it tasted just like regular pancakes. For the Christian, believing and trusting in Jesus Christ is something that may seem risky, but once you make the leap, it is far better than life without God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
So establishing a faith relationship with God is not difficult. You don’t have to write any essays or even study to have faith. The more difficult part of faith is keeping it in my opinion. And that is what Jesus Christ is talking about in his parable. Jesus uses many parables to illustrate faith like the parable with the seeds that fell on different soils. But today’s parable gives us some tools that we can use to ensure that our faith is rock solid. And so let’s take a good look at some of the things that our wise home owner did right.
First, the wise home owner did his homework. Once he decided he was going to build a house, he researched into where he was going to build. How many of you have really studied your faith before you believed and/or after you were confirmed or had assurance of salvation? It is a mistake to think that after confirmation that you don’t need to study your faith anymore. You need to always be learning. You research into buying a home and then you do what it takes to maintain it. Your own faith is like a house, and you need to take care of it. There are so many resources out there now to help you not only to establish your faith but to grow it as well. There are books, study Bibles, TV programs, CD’s, DVD’s. It is a good thing to regularly fit in some form of Christian education in your life even outside of Sunday worship. Some of you watch other preachers on TV or go on conferences. That’s good. Do your homework. Just because you aren’t in school anymore, it doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped learning, and there is so much to learn about God and the Christian faith.
Secondly, the wise home owner chose security. After all his research, he decided to build his house on rock. Yes, it might have been nice to have a lakeside home, but he decided that he wanted to be able to sleep at night. He decided that he would build where he knew there would not be a large risk of endangerment to his family or his home. How many of you know what it means to have assurance of salvation? I know that as Wesleyans we don’t believe in once saved always saved, but we do believe that we can be assured of our salvation and have our hearts strangely warmed like John Wesley did. If you have not experienced this, then what is the hope of your faith? If you are sure of your salvation and you can nurture your family with that type of assurance then you are just like the wise home owner who can sleep at night even in the worst storm. We often do all the things that other people in the world do. You buy the latest TV’s and drive nice cars. You spend a lot of time working to pay for these things, but does that leave you time and energy to spend on building your relationship with God? Do you know where your relationship with God stands? You can work on building that relationship anytime, even on the way to work. If you have a long commute, consider that a blessing from God because that is one on one time that you probably would not have otherwise. Use your commute time, pop in a worship CD, praise God and talk to him about the crazy drivers around you and all the things going on in your life. If you don’t know where your relationship with God really stands, then work on it and make time until you know that you are saved.
Thirdly, the wise home owner was prepared. The rains came, the wind beat against the house, but the house stood firm. You know, God doesn’t promise us a trouble free life. If He did, then this parable would not have been necessary. If having faith meant that our faith would never be challenged, then the Bible is useless. God tells us that we will encounter hard times, and we will face many challenges, but if we did our spiritual homework and chose the security of our souls then we will stand firm also. Many years ago, Methodist used to really be heavy into retreating. I went on many youth retreats. And this is basically what would happen. I would go to a retreat feeling pretty normal, then at the retreat I got spiritually pumped up. Then I came home and I would fall from the retreat high and think that something was wrong. This is common for people to encounter, and the only way to lessen the down after the retreat is to constantly feed your spirit. You need Bible study and devotion time. You need to gather with other Christians regularly. If you are not prepared, your faith will be challenged and you will fall apart just like the foolish home owner. Now it doesn’t say this in the Bible, but I can imagine that the foolish home owner probably said, “God, where are you?” And I think God would say, “I was trying to tell you to do your homework, and choose a secure place, and to be prepared for the worst, but you didn’t listen. You still went ahead and built that house on the sand in spite of all my attempts to warn you. Even so, I will help you to get back on your feet, but let’s do things the right way.” This is the point of the parable of the prodigal son. Always have a Plan B.
These three practices are part of faith that is called the sanctification process. It is the process of making us into saints. And if you are wise, you will be like the wise home owner. Not only was he wise, but he was cautious, prepared, practical, thorough, resourceful, detail-oriented, and faithful. He could sleep when the storms raged and the winds blew because not only was his home structurally secure but his soul also was spiritually secure.
Now I suspect that some of you are very much like the wise home owner in regard to your worldly dealings. You are practical and prepared, but in regard to your faith life, you may perhaps be more like the foolish home owner. You don’t really know where you stand with God, and you are probably not prepared to meet Him if today was your last day on earth. But even more immediately, if you are not in a process of always learning spiritually and putting into practice your assurance of salvation, then you will not be prepared in your heart when times of trouble come and any faith that you have will be strangled by worldly cares.
You all know that God is good, and that God only wants to bless you, but not only do you need faith, but you need to build it. Today if there is something hindering you in your sanctification process, then ask God to help you to get focused and do what you are supposed to do to build it up. I pray that all of you will be wise and build a rock solid faith. Let’s pray.
Owning a home near water has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it is nice to hear a babbling brook or stream or listen to ocean waves. Water has a calming effect when the waters are calm. But when the storms rise up, well I am sure the Bischofs could tell us some stories of how even a quiet babbling brook wreaks havoc. So when Jesus shares the story of two home owners who built their homes in two very different places, we can appreciate the parable on many levels.
But Jesus wasn’t really talking about water and storms. His point was about faith, and how some people have a shaky shifting faith while others have a rock solid faith. So today we want to examine what it takes to have a rock solid faith.
First, we need to talk about the nature of faith itself. The passage in Romans 3 tells us that faith and salvation is a gift. There is nothing you can do to earn it. It is something you receive and hold on to. When we were in sin and ignorant of the price that sin cost, God was patient with us. But when Christ came and died on the cross, he gave the gift of salvation to anyone who would put their faith in him. What Jesus Christ did on the cross paid the price for sin as long as we have faith in him. You know what having faith is like. It’s like trying anything for the first time. In researching what I can do to help David, I learned that many families try going gluten and casein free. This means eliminating wheat and dairy. I went to the organic food store and I bought buckwheat pancake mix. It didn’t sound that appealing to me. But you know what, I made some waffles, and they tasted great. I added a little almond flour and it tasted just like regular pancakes. For the Christian, believing and trusting in Jesus Christ is something that may seem risky, but once you make the leap, it is far better than life without God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
So establishing a faith relationship with God is not difficult. You don’t have to write any essays or even study to have faith. The more difficult part of faith is keeping it in my opinion. And that is what Jesus Christ is talking about in his parable. Jesus uses many parables to illustrate faith like the parable with the seeds that fell on different soils. But today’s parable gives us some tools that we can use to ensure that our faith is rock solid. And so let’s take a good look at some of the things that our wise home owner did right.
First, the wise home owner did his homework. Once he decided he was going to build a house, he researched into where he was going to build. How many of you have really studied your faith before you believed and/or after you were confirmed or had assurance of salvation? It is a mistake to think that after confirmation that you don’t need to study your faith anymore. You need to always be learning. You research into buying a home and then you do what it takes to maintain it. Your own faith is like a house, and you need to take care of it. There are so many resources out there now to help you not only to establish your faith but to grow it as well. There are books, study Bibles, TV programs, CD’s, DVD’s. It is a good thing to regularly fit in some form of Christian education in your life even outside of Sunday worship. Some of you watch other preachers on TV or go on conferences. That’s good. Do your homework. Just because you aren’t in school anymore, it doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped learning, and there is so much to learn about God and the Christian faith.
Secondly, the wise home owner chose security. After all his research, he decided to build his house on rock. Yes, it might have been nice to have a lakeside home, but he decided that he wanted to be able to sleep at night. He decided that he would build where he knew there would not be a large risk of endangerment to his family or his home. How many of you know what it means to have assurance of salvation? I know that as Wesleyans we don’t believe in once saved always saved, but we do believe that we can be assured of our salvation and have our hearts strangely warmed like John Wesley did. If you have not experienced this, then what is the hope of your faith? If you are sure of your salvation and you can nurture your family with that type of assurance then you are just like the wise home owner who can sleep at night even in the worst storm. We often do all the things that other people in the world do. You buy the latest TV’s and drive nice cars. You spend a lot of time working to pay for these things, but does that leave you time and energy to spend on building your relationship with God? Do you know where your relationship with God stands? You can work on building that relationship anytime, even on the way to work. If you have a long commute, consider that a blessing from God because that is one on one time that you probably would not have otherwise. Use your commute time, pop in a worship CD, praise God and talk to him about the crazy drivers around you and all the things going on in your life. If you don’t know where your relationship with God really stands, then work on it and make time until you know that you are saved.
Thirdly, the wise home owner was prepared. The rains came, the wind beat against the house, but the house stood firm. You know, God doesn’t promise us a trouble free life. If He did, then this parable would not have been necessary. If having faith meant that our faith would never be challenged, then the Bible is useless. God tells us that we will encounter hard times, and we will face many challenges, but if we did our spiritual homework and chose the security of our souls then we will stand firm also. Many years ago, Methodist used to really be heavy into retreating. I went on many youth retreats. And this is basically what would happen. I would go to a retreat feeling pretty normal, then at the retreat I got spiritually pumped up. Then I came home and I would fall from the retreat high and think that something was wrong. This is common for people to encounter, and the only way to lessen the down after the retreat is to constantly feed your spirit. You need Bible study and devotion time. You need to gather with other Christians regularly. If you are not prepared, your faith will be challenged and you will fall apart just like the foolish home owner. Now it doesn’t say this in the Bible, but I can imagine that the foolish home owner probably said, “God, where are you?” And I think God would say, “I was trying to tell you to do your homework, and choose a secure place, and to be prepared for the worst, but you didn’t listen. You still went ahead and built that house on the sand in spite of all my attempts to warn you. Even so, I will help you to get back on your feet, but let’s do things the right way.” This is the point of the parable of the prodigal son. Always have a Plan B.
These three practices are part of faith that is called the sanctification process. It is the process of making us into saints. And if you are wise, you will be like the wise home owner. Not only was he wise, but he was cautious, prepared, practical, thorough, resourceful, detail-oriented, and faithful. He could sleep when the storms raged and the winds blew because not only was his home structurally secure but his soul also was spiritually secure.
Now I suspect that some of you are very much like the wise home owner in regard to your worldly dealings. You are practical and prepared, but in regard to your faith life, you may perhaps be more like the foolish home owner. You don’t really know where you stand with God, and you are probably not prepared to meet Him if today was your last day on earth. But even more immediately, if you are not in a process of always learning spiritually and putting into practice your assurance of salvation, then you will not be prepared in your heart when times of trouble come and any faith that you have will be strangled by worldly cares.
You all know that God is good, and that God only wants to bless you, but not only do you need faith, but you need to build it. Today if there is something hindering you in your sanctification process, then ask God to help you to get focused and do what you are supposed to do to build it up. I pray that all of you will be wise and build a rock solid faith. Let’s pray.
Labels: sermon
posted by Sung # 6:38 PM 
Archives
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]