Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today.

We are building a life in and I want us this morning to just think about our lives for 2014. Every dad here this morning, every husband especially, as the head of your home, as God has termed that. I want you to listen this morning and I want you to analyze, you know, what would I like to see God do in my family, in my marriage, and even more importantly in my personal life this year. Matthew chapter 7, look at verse 22. You got to understand the whole context of this passage to understand exactly what's being said here. Verse 22, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. Obviously here the Lord is giving us a brief glimpse into what will be. There will be those that will, in the day of judgment, they'll say, Lord, you know, we've done a lot of things for you.

God, we've cast out devils and we've done all kinds of wonderful works and we've done all these things. Look at verse 23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work in iquity. Now I've shared this here before, but you never know who you have in an audience.

And I'm going to share it again. I have used this verse over and over again when I give my testimony, when I usually preach my testimony. But in verse 23, the Lord says this, then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. You got to understand that this verse teaches that you can have eternal security in Jesus when you get saved.

You do not have to keep getting saved and get saved over again every time you do wrong. If this were the case, if it was possible for you to get saved and then lose your salvation and get saved and lose your salvation, what he would have had to said in verse 23, and then will I profess unto them, I used to know you. But he says here, I never knew you. God doesn't lie, does he?

So either he knows you or he doesn't. That's the way it goes. Look at verse 24. For whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, notice that, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. 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. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, notice that, these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house.

And it fell, and notice this, and great was the fall of it. Lord, we need your help this morning as we preach on this subject. Lord, as we notice two different builders, two different houses, two different foundations, and two different results. Lord, I just pray you'd help us to look at our own lives, our own family, and I guess so to speak, Lord, our own houses, how we're building them. In your precious name we pray.

Amen. Once you notice on the screen, we have a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Many of you have seen that. It was built in 1173. That's a very, very old building.

And I know you all are familiar with this, but I was, I did a little research on it this morning because I felt it went long good with what we had to say. But every year scientists from all over the world, they have an organization, I don't know the name of it, I didn't, I wasn't able to find, but it's a resource organization. And they bring the best scientists from all over the world every year for two days. And they come in and they study and analyze the Tower of Pisa. And they report that the 179-foot tower, 179 feet, it moves about one-twentieth of an inch per year. It will fall.

We know it. It's going to fall. But they say that almost one-twentieth of an inch a year, and this building now is 17 feet out of plumb, they call it.

It's leaning. Now they're trying to come up with ways that maybe they could go underneath infrastructure, but it is so top-heavy and the foundation is so shallow that they can't really get under it and lift it to try to support it because just doing that it will fall. In fact, where Pisa was built is a very sandy region there. And when they built this back in 1170, they didn't have all the things to study it, but it is a very sandy foundation. And that foundation has shifted every year for a twentieth of an inch because it's sandy.

And it keeps dropping and dropping and dropping. In fact, the word pizza means, or Pisa, not pizza, the word pizza to me means bad dreams, but the word Pisa, it means marshy land. And they intentionally built it there, not knowing. And literally the building was built wonderfully. Structure-wise with the walls and the infrastructure of that building, they say it's an architectural masterpiece.

The problem is that they put it on marshy land. And while that building was so well designed, it's going to fall. And it's gradually getting worse and worse. And I'm afraid that that is exactly what's happening to a lot of our families and a lot of our homes.

It looks really good on the outside. But if the foundation's not right, you are slowly, gradually falling every week, every month, every year. That's why we hear reports of things sometimes that happen to a marriage or it happens in a family and we think, man, I cannot believe that. Those people, that husband and wife, that marriage, those children, I would have never seen.

Oh, listen to me, dear friend, it started falling years ago because the foundation wasn't right. I want us to look at this as we call it a tale of two builders. And I want you to see a couple of things.

And I'll let you go this morning. Number one, I want you to consider the comparisons of these two individuals. Consider the comparisons. Number one, look at verse 24. It says, therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, look at verse 26, and everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not. What we find is in both of these gentlemen, both of these individuals that built these houses, number one, we find this, that they both heard the words of Christ. They both heard the same thing. I cannot tell you, it does not make sense to me in life how some individuals can sit in the same church, hear the same preaching. Some people grow and some people don't. I've watched children grow out of the same house and one child has had the same training, has heard the same things from mom and dad, and one child will grow up and serve God, and one child will grow up and want to do right, and another child will grow up and do everything wrong you could possibly do.

And a mom and dad will sit over on the side and think, what in the world have we done wrong? And I don't understand. We must have been failures and different things. And yet they came out of the same background, the same place. Both of these men heard the words of Christ. Number two, both of them built houses.

I'm just giving you the comparisons. They both built houses. You say, what is this an illustration of, preacher? Well, they did, both of these people, both of these individuals, listen to me, according to the scripture, they built a house based on their understanding of the gospel because they built it based on these words of mind that Jesus said. Now, each man built a house based on his interpretation of who Jesus was. This means that both men believed the gospel message to a certain point, but it ended there.

You know, I know a lot of people that believe, they say, but dear friend, may I challenge you, salvation is not just believing that Jesus lived. Number three, they both built in the same location. You say, well, preacher, wait a minute. Now, the Bible says one man built his house on a rock, the other man built his house on the sand. Listen to me, the Bible says that the great storm came and it affected both houses. So they were both in the same vicinity. They both faced the same storm. So they were both built in the same location, the same storm affected both of the houses. And by the way, so many individuals, the same trials affect you as affect me. Why do some houses stand?

Why do some people seems their faith grows stronger in a storm and some fall apart? Once you notice number four, as far as comparisons go, both built similar houses. Now, nothing is said about their houses being different. They used probably similar materials. Most likely they had a similar design. From the outside, these two houses probably looked very, very similar. In fact, they were so similar that you might not have been able to even tell the two houses apart. Now, listen to me this morning.

I want you to get this. The problem was not in the design of the house. For some reason, we think that the guy that built his house on the sand, he just put up this old shack with a few boards fastened here and there. And the guy that built his house on the rock, he had this beautifully masterpieces house. And all of a sudden, you know, here comes the storm and that old shack that the guy built on the sand just blew away. And as a kid, we sing the songs. And I think over the years, that's what I thought. Listen to me. That man that built his house on the sand built just a good house as the man did it build it on the rock.

Did you know that? You see, listen to me often, you cannot tell the difference between a solid built life from an unsolid built life. Oftentimes, both can look exactly the same sitting in a church. And you don't ever know the difference till the storms come. Then you find out who built on the rock, who built on the sand.

Both built similar houses. You see, this is a picture of people, how they respond differently to the gospel. Remember what we read in verse 22 through verse 24. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and cast out devils?

And I'll say, I'll never knew you. We're talking about salvation. We're talking about the judgment of Christ here.

That's what we're talking about. And oftentimes our lives can look good and our families can look good. And we can give on this facade that everything's right. Everything's perfect. And everything's wonderful. And our house might look just as good and just as beautiful as anybody else. But you got to worry about when the storm comes and when the judgment of God comes, have you really been saved?

Have you built your house on the rock or not? What is the gospel, by the way? I know you know what it is. Let me read it to you.

Very, very, very, very, very, very, very simple. First Corinthians chapter 15 verse three. Now listen to me. You say, if I've heard this, you just listen to it again. It's not going to hurt you to hear God's word, right?

Listen to this. That if thou shalt, excuse me, first Corinthians 15 verse three, for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. That's the gospel. The gospel is the fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He was buried and that he rose again. That's the gospel. Now from that point, look at me, this is how simple this thing is. From that point, from that gospel, you determine how you were going to build on that.

Either your entire life is going to be based off that or just the looks of your life is going to be based on that. Just because you believed it happened and just because you believed that he died on the cross for your sins does not mean that you have put your faith and trust in him. There's a difference. Listen to me. I want you to understand this because these guys built their house in similar locations and they built similar houses.

Listen to me. They weathered the same storms. They worked the same jobs. They did the same things. They went to the same churches. They heard the same preaching. They lived the same kind of lives.

From the outside, they looked absolutely the same as everybody else. In fact, the Bible talks about it later with the wheat and the tares. And the wheat and the tares look awful similar.

You almost can't tell them apart. But when judgment day comes, the tares are going to be cast away and the wheat's going to be taken. And I'm here to say are you sure, 100% sure, that you have been saved by the grace of God for this year 2014? And if you've been saved by the grace of God, are you willing to build your life totally, solely, completely on the Word of God?

If not, it's going to crumble every time the wind blows. We've considered the comparisons number two. I want you to consider the contrast.

We've seen how they were the same, but now let's see how they're different. First thing is this. One man built his house on the sand.

That means this. One man built his house with little preparation. He found a spot and began to build.

That was it. There's a problem with sand. Sand is unstable. Sand is always changing and moving. Sand offers no stability. Sand is not a good place to build a house. Sand never provides a firm foundation.

It just doesn't. Now, in this context, building on the sand, or what I would call sand builders, speaks of people who hear the gospel, but instead of believing the gospel coming to faith in Jesus, they believe that somehow they can save themselves on the shifting sands of human philosophy, human wisdom, human opinion, and religious achievement. Now, that's a pretty fancy statement that I typed out. Let me read it again.

Do you all mind if I read it again? Sand builders speaks of people who hear the gospel, but instead of believing it and coming to faith in Jesus, they believe that they can build their lives on the shifting sands of human philosophy, human wisdom, human opinion, and religious achievement. Listen to me. They are often driven by outward religious appearance and faith in themselves. Sand builders are always putting on a show. They always want the house to look just as good as everybody else's, and they can get away with it because you can't see the foundation.

All you see is the outside. Sand builders hear the gospel and choose to save themselves. Sand builders believe God's word is open to interpretation.

Listen to me. Sand builders choose to follow God on their own terms. Once you get all this, if God commands sand builders to do something, they will obey if they choose to.

If they don't like it, they won't do it. They build the house on their lives of self-will, self-fulfillment, self-sufficiency, self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness. Theirs is a work-based religion that has the appearance of being right. It's funny, there's a verse for that in 2 Timothy 3.

The Bible speaks of those having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Listen to what God says to do. From such turn away, get away from them.

These people that look the part, act the part, but there's a problem with the foundation. God says get away from them. You know why I think he says get away? Because you don't want to get hurt in the fall. When a house is getting ready to be torn down, you don't stand right there by the house. Like, hey, it's getting ready to blow.

You get away. You know why? Anybody near it's going to get hurt. Why is it that we hear during the days preachers falling, preachers having adultery, preachers pastoring great churches, and they mess up with a woman or they mess up with money or whatever the case might be. And, you know, we always talk about all the things that can mess preachers up.

Look at me. You know why people are hurt? Because they have been under the care of that pastor and because of sin, because of faulty foundation, because he wasn't right with God in the heart.

He had this outside facade. When they fall, people get hurt. That's why. Dads, I want you to know something. When you fall and you mess up and you go down that road you're going to head on, you're going to hurt your family. You're going to hurt your wife and you're going to hurt your kids. And moms, when you go down that road and you just complain life's just horrible and I'm just going to run off and find me a better life and different things, you're going to hurt a family. You're going to hurt a church. You're going to hurt friends.

You're going to hurt people around you. And it all comes from building our lives on the sand. Building your house on the sand requires little effort. People build on the sand because it's easy. I can just put on a show at church and I can live however I want during the week. A little change here, a little change there and they can fool themselves and everyone around them into thinking that they're right with the Lord. A life built on the sand requires no commitment, no sacrifice and no faith.

Sand builders believe they can pray a prayer, sign a card, join a church and all is great. Am I meddling this morning? I don't really want to meddle. I'm just trying to preach what the Bible has to say.

But for 2014, I don't know about you, I want to see God do something at this church. I do not want to play games. I do not want to waste your time.

I do not want to waste my time. If we're going to make the effort to run buses, if we're going to make the effort to study for Sunday school classes and have Sunday school classes and have a choir and have a visitation program and have Upwards and have Awanas and have all these ministries, if we're going to go to all the effort and make all the work and do all this, I want it to be worthwhile. I want God to do a work in our hearts and it's not going to work if we all have this facade of our good little houses and yet the foundation is crumbling. When God makes demands on sand builders and He calls for total surrender, they make excuses.

Let me give you an example of that and I'm going to, the rest of it's going to go quicker but I'm going to spend my time on the sand builders here. Luke chapter 9 beginning verse 57, let me just listen to this. And it came to pass that as they went in the way a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head.

Which means this, if you're going to follow me it's not going to be easy. And he said unto another, follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer or allow me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, let the dead bury their dead but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee but let me first go bid them farewell which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. All these individuals said, hey, I want to follow you and God said, all right, follow me. Well, let me go do this first.

Well, let me go do such and such first. Dear friend, sand builders always have excuses. People who build their lives on religion, self righteousness, they'll never serve God. They will only serve God when it's convenient for them.

Listen to me. Sand builders will not sacrifice. They will only take the easy path. They like instant results, instant rewards.

They want instant satisfaction and they want instant pleasure even at church. Sand builders are shallow people who love the heights but they hate the depths. They are hot then cold. They are in then out.

They are up then down. That's how God describes the man that built his house on the sand. The second man, number two, one man built his house on the rock. One man built on the sand, the other built his house on the rock.

This word rock in the New Testament, it refers to a large outcropping of rock or the bedrock. While one man built his house on the sand, listen to me, because they were similar areas, the other one dug deep. You see, they both, I believe, were sandy areas but one in a hurry to get instant satisfaction just built right on the sand. And the other dug and worked and dug and dug and dug until they found something solid. It takes work to get something solid.

You don't just get up and sing a little song and have a little emotional movement and all of a sudden you've got a great church. It takes work. It takes faithfulness. It takes digging in the dirt. It takes work. And you got to work and work and dig until you find solid ground. Then you can build.

But not till then. I wonder sometimes if as a church, if maybe at Kerwin Baptist Church, maybe we might still be in the process of getting through some sand, separating between the sand builders and the rock builders and getting to the point that as a church we can actually grow. Not just a number but grow deep. Our marriages become stronger. Our relationships with God become stronger. Our children become stronger. Our music program becomes stronger, not louder, not more entertaining, but stronger. May our preaching get stronger.

May everything we do, our bus ministry and our bus classes and our wanna ministry and our uppers, everything ought to get stronger, not more popular, stronger. I guarantee you this guy that built in the sand, he got a whole bunch of people looking at his house and admiring it way before the guy that had to spend weeks digging deep. But when that storm came and his house was gone, the man that spent that time digging deep was sure thankful that he did. Building on the rock speaks of people who hear the gospel, listen to me, and they believe it to the point that they build their lives, their entire lives on it. Rock builders hear God's word and they conform their lives to it. Sand builders try to take God's word and conform it to their lives. And rock builders hear God's word and they conform their lives to the word.

Rock builders hear the truth about Jesus and they believe it. They embrace it. They yield to it. The message literally changes their lives.

It affects every decision they make. What God tells them to do in His word, they do. What God warns them not to do, they avoid. They pay any price, walk any path, do anything that the Lord tells them to do. The house built on the rock is built by somebody who believes that God deserves the best. They sacrifice, they work, they try to honor the Lord, they love Him, they honor Him, they obey Him. Rock builders hear the word of God and they literally make it the foundation for their lives. You know, the Bible speaks of this in 1 John chapter 2.

Listen to this. And hereby do we know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. He that sayeth I know Him and keepeth not His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in Him. But whoso keepeth His word in Him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in Him. He that sayeth He abideth in Him ought Himself also to walk even as He walked.

Dear friend, that's one of the fruits and the signs that you know that you're saved by desiring to follow His commandments. Listen to me this morning. One of these houses describes the life you're building. Did you hear me? I don't care who you are, where you're from, what area of life you're in, what you have in your bank account, what you don't, what kind of house you live in. Listen to me. I can boil everybody in this building down to two categories. You are either building a house on the sand or you are building it on the rock.

But either way, you are building one type of house in your life today. Number three, consider the consequences and we'll be done. Consider the comparisons, consider the contrast.

Most importantly, third, consider the consequences. I want you to look if you would at verse 25. The Bible says, And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew it and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock.

Watch the verse 26. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened to a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell. That's the consequence.

And great was the fall of it. All of a sudden we have two consequences. Either your life will stand or it will fall. So you got to determine right now as a husband if you want your marriage to stand or fall. You got to determine right now as a parent, right now as a wife, you got to determine right now I either want a marriage, a life, a ministry, whatever it might be in your life, I either want it to fall or I want it to stand because you are going to do one of the either. I want you to notice this. The parable tells us that the rains came, the floods came, and the winds of destruction came. Look at me.

They always will. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The current Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.