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The following is part two of a two part program. Do you feel like you're on a religious treadmill? Do you feel like Christianity is just a system of rules and regulations?
I can do this, but I can't do that. Do you feel like your efforts to reach God, find God and please God are futile? Do you feel like your faith is dead or alive? Today, Pastor Russ Andrews will walk us through scripture to answer these questions. Join us on Finding Purpose, glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and Finding Purpose, you can visit us online at findingpurpose.net or connect with us on Facebook. Now, let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious.
Of course, I've entitled tonight's message, Weathering the Storms of Life. And not once I thought back, have I ever heard Maggie in all those sixty eight years ever say a bad word about anybody in the white neighborhood, the black neighborhood, about anybody? She was just a wonderful woman. And because she had no children of her own. My two sisters, I became her children, I became her son and she became my second mother.
And what a great mother she was. I've tried during the last seven years of her life to visit her as often as I could. My sisters have done the same thing, as well as my boys and my grandchildren and Catherine's children and grandchildren, Joan's son. And Maggie thinks of all of us as part of our family. She thinks of my sons as her sons or her grandsons and my grandchildren as her grandchildren. How are my boys doing? She'd ask, I got five grandsons and a daughter.
Are they doing great? Maggie, they love you. And they would stop by from time to time and visit her.
Maggie lives in a very simple home in the black section of Bethel, which, you know, some of these East North Carolina towns are still segregated. And it was my privilege to go to that white house, which was not much, and sit in her home with her. And every time I went with her, you know what she was doing? She'd be sitting in the corner of that den in her chair. She'd greet me with a huge smile when I've come through the door. And right to her left, she would have a Bible. And I would, Maggie, what do you do with all your time? Because she eventually was just sitting there, couldn't eat. She said, I pray for you guys and I read my Bible.
I spend time with my Savior. I could go on about Maggie forever, but let me just say this. Maggie was prepared for every storm in life that came to her, including the one she was facing this past Sunday evening, the final storm of her life, the final page of her life, death, which for the Christian, the Bible says it doesn't refer to us departing this life as death, but as falling asleep. And I watched Maggie start to fall asleep Sunday night. How was she so prepared, you might ask?
I can tell you guys is very simple. She built her life on her solid rock, Jesus Christ, and she made a solid foundation for her life by living according to the preaching, excuse me, to the precepts, the commandments and what the Bible says. She lived her life according to what it says. In other words, she trusted Jesus and obeyed his word.
And that's really the recipe. If you want to have a blessed life and you want to be to make it through the storms of life. So what can we learn not only from God's word, but also from this life of a godly woman? Well, we should learn that we we've got to trust and obey like she did, like those disciples were forced to do when Jesus come the storm. So verses 46 to 49, as Jesus concludes this powerful message to his disciples, he offers three simple stages, men and women, that we all have to pass through if we want to follow his example in Maggie's example, to have a solid foundation first, but his stage one does. We must come to who?
Jesus. We must not only hear what Jesus says, but we we've got to understand what he says. And finally, not only must we hear and understand, but we must do what he says is really that simple. And yet it's so difficult. Do you know why we have a world telling us to do the exact opposite?
Commercials, magazines, the media live a life now. Grab all the gusto you can even preach it. Live your best life now. That's not what Jesus is. Here's what he says. Look at verse 26 to follow with me. We go look at these verses carefully. Verse 26 is Jesus to his disciples. Now, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Many people call Jesus Lord, Lord. They do it every Sunday when they attend church. However, not many people who attend church actually do what they say they believe. How do I know? Because I'm listening and I hear what they say and I watch what they do. You see somebody in church on Sunday and on the Gospels he's using GD, every other hope. You got to be kidding me.
Something's not lining up there. And so Jesus gives a very strong warning in Matthew to religious people who say one thing but do another. Here it is in Matthew 7 verses 21 to 23.
Send your outline if you have it. This is the other conclusion. This is so important. It's right after Jesus warned about watch out for the Pharisees. And then he gives this warning to religious people. And then he concludes by telling us how to build our life on a solid rock.
Why do you stick this right in here? Well, it's a warning because this is one of the major traps in this world that Satan has. He has captivated so many different world religions, including churches. Jesus is 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, what day? Judgment Day, Lord, Lord. Did we not prophesy in your name?
That word prophesy simply means to preach. Did we preach your name in your name? And in your name, drive out demons and perform many miracles. In other words, didn't you sit doing all these good things supposedly in your name? And then Jesus said, I'm going to tell them plainly.
I never what knew you. Depart from me, you evil doers. I don't think he's going to say that with any joy in his heart. God said he does not wish anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. He takes no delight when the wicked perish.
But he's a God of justice. And he's provided us one way. And that one way is you have to come through Jesus and you have to know him personally. And if you say, Lord, Lord, man, then you should your life should convey to everyone around you that Jesus is your Lord and you should obey him like you would do any Lord on this earth. If you were a Lord back in the day when they had the castles, you better obey the Lord or you'd be executed.
So how do we do this? Verse forty seven, listen to what he says, I will show you what he is like, who comes to me and hears my word and puts him in a prayer seat, everybody that day that was listening to him, all the people, all the disciples. And it's probably numbered in the hundreds and maybe the thousands, because Jesus, he drew crowds. And they come to Jesus, so they took the first step. And why did they come to Jesus? Because he was healing the sick and they'd never seen a teacher who spoke with the authority and the power that he did. So they all came to Jesus. He had their attention.
But the question is, did they really understand what he was saying? So you may have come here not to see me or hear me, but I believe you come here because you want to see Jesus right up close and personal. And I believe that you come here because you know you don't hear the word of God. And the question is that we must all answer, do we truly hear and understand the word of God when you hear it from me, when you hear it on the radio, when you hear it from another preacher? See, many times when Jesus finished a sermon, he would say this, let him who has ears hear.
What did he mean by that? When he wasn't talking about these ears, he was talking about the spiritual ears that are in you, the inner ears of your heart. You see, it's one thing to hear what God's word said.
It's another thing altogether different to actually understand it. You have spiritual understanding. First Corinthians 2.14 describes the man who has ears to hear. In other words, he may read the Bible or listen to a sermon, but he, excuse me, the man who does not have ears to hear. In other words, he may read the Bible, he may have sermon, but he doesn't really get it, it doesn't really connect with his heart. Here's what Paul writes. The man without the spirit, that's the unbeliever, does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, for they're foolishness to him and he cannot understand them.
Why? It's just because they are spiritually discerned. It takes spiritual discernment. Your spirit has got to come alive. We are born with dead spirits. That's what it means to be born again. And this is what happens. Listen, when a man places his trust in Jesus, in him alone, and you, you want to be one of his true disciples, then one of the evidence that you really are is spiritual understanding. You have to have ears that hear.
And here's how it happens, guys. You place your trust in Jesus. He sends his Holy Spirit, just like he said in John 14, he said, I'm going away, but I'll send another comforter.
I will come to you. It's the spirit of Christ that comes and indwells you. And John 16, 13 said, and the spirit himself, the spirit of truth, he will guide you into what?
All truth. So the Holy Spirit, you know, gets inside of you. I remember when I was a 10 year old reading my J.B. Phillips paraphrase of the Bible.
I got it. And I was 10 years old because my mother led me to Christ. Maggie was there telling me about her Jesus. And the Holy Spirit came into me as a young boy. And I sat there 12, 13, 14, not every night, but I read my Bible. And it was like Jesus was in the room with me.
You know what? He was. He walks with me. He talks with me. And he tells me I am what?
His own. So the question is. Is the Holy Spirit in you? And here's the probably the most important spiritual test we all need to take. Remember, first Corinthians 13, 5 says, examine yourselves to see if you are in Christ. Well, this is a spiritual test. Do you understand God's word?
Is it connected with your heart and your mind and your soul so that you you know that you have ears to hear? And by the way, men, this is why the greatest teacher in the nation of Israel came to Jesus at night. A man by the name of what?
Nicodemus. And he came and asked him, he didn't really ask a question. He made a statement.
We know you're a great teacher. He's come from God because no one can perform the powerful miracles that you're doing. And Jesus bypassed that statement and went to what he was really there for. Why was he there? He was the greatest teacher in all of Israel. But he lacked the most important thing.
He had not been what? Born again. He said, I'll tell the truth, Nicodemus. No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. That is what it means by seed.
I was explaining it to the guys yesterday in our fraternity Bible study. I said, you know, when did you first see that two plus two was four when your father pulled out four marbles? And that's what I had to do with my boys. I said, if you got two marbles here, you got two marbles there. One, two plus two, go what?
Three, no, four. Well, they finally could see it. That means they understood it.
They got it. That's what it means to see the kingdom of God. You understand spiritual things. It's because it can only happen then if you've truly been born again.
So have you been born again? You heard that little idiom, the proof is in the pudding. Who has never heard that the proof is in the pudding? You never heard that one?
Well, there must have been one from Eastern North Carolina that probably Maggie told me. And what it means is this. Before you can know if the pudding is good, you have to what? Taste it. And so the proof that we belong to Christ is the taste, the aroma of our lives. And we're to be fruit tasters. What does a man's life sound like? What does it look like? Look at verses 43 through 45. Y'all bear with me tonight.
I got to tell you a little bit more about my special lady. She says, no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.
People do not pick fig trees from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. The good man brings good things out of the good stored in his heart. And the evil man brings evil things stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.
For out of the overflow of his heart, the mouth speaks. There's another idiom. What's in the well comes up in the bucket. You heard that one? Stefan, what are y'all doing down there at St. Croix? Y'all heard that one, hadn't you?
Didn't it make sense? What's in the well comes up? What's in your heart will come out. Just hang around me long enough, I don't like some things coming out. So what, what's in the well?
What is coming out of your well in your bucket? What do your friends see in you who claim to be followers of Christ? What do you hear, what do they hear coming out of your mouth? Do they see you treating others? How do they see you treating others? Are you generous to those in need? I want you to remember this, God sees everything.
Including the deep recesses of your heart. Again, Jesus is explaining three stages about who must, what we must do. If we want to follow Jesus, first we must come to him. We must hear and not only hear, we must understand. And then we must put what we hear to practice. In other words, we need to obey him. And then Jesus says, if a man does this, he is like a builder who builds a strong house.
Look at verse forty eight. He's like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid a foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but did not shake it because it was well built and a lot of you guys I know in here are builders. And I know that some of you are very wise builders.
I hope all of you are. And you all know better than I do that a wise man, he finds a good piece of a good lot. And the first thing he does, he digs deep until he hits solid ground. And then he carefully lays a strong, secure foundation, use all kinds of equipment, bulldozers and backhoes. And and then he fills the soft areas with rock and porous, you know, usually five or six inches of concrete to make sure he's got a solid foundation.
So why don't you get all this trouble? Because he wants to make sure that when the storms, when the hugos of this world come, that his house is the only one of the block standing. No matter how strong the rains are and how strong the wind is, his house will be standing tall and firm, no matter how powerful the storm. So what equipment has God given us to build our foundation? He's given us the indwelling Holy Spirit. First and foremost, he's given us his word. He's given us fellowship with other believers in in a local church and the Bible says like this.
We need one another way to be that band of brothers. And he's given us what? Prayer. That's all you need, man.
Jesus and his word and communication with the father that you have to the Holy Spirit. The standard rock lighthouse is one of the most famous in the world, situated on Lake Superior, it is known as the North American light station, the most distant from land, 25 miles from land to the west and 42 miles to the south, and you've seen pictures of it. You'll see a couple here in a minute. In August 26, 1835, the legendary navigator, Captain Charles Standard, he was out with his boat and I think he bumped into a reef and he never dreamed that that one day there'd be a lighthouse standing there. And yet. Can you imagine how shocked he must have been? He's 30 miles away from land in the Lake Superior is about 1300 feet deep and he runs up on a rock. And so his shipping activity increased. The danger of that rock became more and more perilous because it was really just south of a very busy shipping lane ship is referred to as one of the most treacherous reefs in the entire Great Lakes.
The U.S. Lighthouse Service knew the reef needed a navigation light. But the question was, could they really build one tall enough on that on that single reef, which was like a rock? And it was exposed to a 100 mile radius of water. And I don't know this, but fresh water.
I didn't know this. That's why the Sea of Galilee got so rough somehow it because of its smallness and the quality of the water. It is more susceptible to winds and it will kick up quickly. But they decided they will give it a try to put a lighthouse there. And so after building a massive concrete base that they called a crib in 11 feet of water, they started that tower, the tower sandstone blocks, which weighed anywhere from 12 to 30 tons were acquired at Kelly's Island on Lake Erie, and they brought the standards deal by barge.
And to be certain, every block fit before being transported. The entire tower was built on shore. And then they hold it out to this reef piece by piece and then reassembled it.
They hold out men more than 240,000 tons of rock and iron and steel. And they've got such a strong foundation that a century later is still standing centuries later. The new light was first eliminated July 4th, 1882, a classic 19th century tower standing tall and proud against the empty lake and sky. However, as you all know, violent Northwest storms constantly hit that lighthouse with 30 foot waves to the point where the waves that the spray would go over the top of a 110 feet tall, go over the top of it. Now, here we are, 140 years after it was first illuminated and that lighthouse, even though it's not functioning longer, is still standing.
That's the way you want your life to be. And that's where Maggie was. She reminds me of that lighthouse, that lighthouse reminds me of her, she was stood the battering storms of racism, heartache, loneliness and pain because she built her life upon a rock, Jesus and his never failing word. Thus, this past Sunday, she was prepared to enter and pass through her final storm. And so this past Sunday, even when I when I arrived at Button Hospital, it was about 7 p.m., I went up to the door.
It was cold and dark outside, rang the bell a couple of times. This man came up and let me in, along with one of Maggie's nieces. Her name is Catherine.
She's also a nurse. And we got there before Maggie arrived and they took us down to, I'll never forget, room 101 down the hall. And we stood there. We saw them bring Maggie in. I couldn't see her, but I knew they were coming in and they took about 30 minutes to get her ready. And Loisanne and Catherine and I were standing outside a room waiting for the green light.
And we got it. I walked in there. And Maggie was laying there, comfortable, her eyes closed with a very peaceful look on her face, and I walked over to her and I leaned over her and I looked at her and said, hey, Maggie, it's Russ. And guys, I wish you could see her face. I thought she thought she was seeing the face of Jesus. Her eyes opened up.
A smile formed on her face. I took her by the hand and I began to talk to her and tell how much we loved her. And then I took my cell phone right there because Joan couldn't get there. And neither could my sister Catherine. So I FaceTime with them and then each one of them, I held up over Maggie. And then I FaceTime with my wife, with Rushman, with Smith and my nephew Sam.
I couldn't reach all the other nephews and nieces because they were out of state. And every time she saw one of those faces, her face just lit up. And all the my boy said, love you, Maggie. Everybody said, I love you, Maggie. She said, I love you more. You couldn't talk well, but she she was alert. After the final FaceTime call, I reminded Maggie.
This is really why I wanted my Bible. I reminded her that she was headed to that she knew it. She was heading to a place. That she longed for. Heaven, and guys, it was a place. That she'd already seen.
Don't hear that happen. Back when she had that surgery in 2014, Maggie told everyone after surgery that she was transported in the spirit to heaven. Guys, I don't know how well she knew Revelation, but I listened to her story. And first of all, I believe Maggie because I believe Maggie. And she told the same story for seven years and it never changed.
And it totally matched up with what Revelation had describes heaven. Here's what she just said. She's always fluted on my back in a river, a river that was clear as crystal water, and I was on my back. And so Maggie hated the water. That's why I believe it's true that she was transported there. She was afraid of water.
I couldn't get to go to the beach with us because she didn't like the water. And she said she on each side of the banks were beautiful trees just lying in lush grass, and she came to a golden gate and that gate opened. And there was Jesus all dressed in white with a big smile on his face. And she says she saw thousands upon thousands of beautiful flowers and children running and playing everywhere. And basically the Lord, my understanding, implied to her that it was not her time, she still had more work to do. And Maggie said and Maggie then woke up on the operating table. And she really believed that God sent her back to sit in that house by herself with her Bible and prayer, and that was her son.
You know what she was doing? Praying for my family. Sunday night, I shared this story with Maggie. Lois and Catherine and one of the nurses who was standing there listening to everything that I was to my prayer and what I was saying, and then then I took my Bible, this right here. I turned to Revelation chapter twenty two. And this is what I read to Maggie.
You think about her vision or being there in spirit. Revelation twenty two, verse one says, then the angel showed me this is John, who's out on the island of Patmos. And the Lord appeared to him and gave him these visions about heaven and the last days. And he said, write these things down, John, because this is true what you see. And he said, then the angel showed me that the river of the water of life is clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the land down the middle of the great street of the city.
On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yearning its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer would there be any curse.
That's the curse of death. The throne of God in the land will be in the city and his servants will serve him. They will see his face. Maggie's seen his face now and his name will be on their foreheads. There'll be no more night.
They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun. For the Lord God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever. I told Maggie, I'm in it. I'm in this, Maggie.
I wish I could trade places with you. Because, listen, the death of a Christian is just simply falling asleep and waking up in paradise, and that's the destiny of every follower of Christ who places, who comes to Jesus, hears his word, understands it, and then obeys him. And listen, he will bless you in this life, not necessarily with money, but with himself and his guidance and his presence. When you go through the storms of life.
I thought about this. Maggie is probably, and I should remove probably, the greatest person I've ever met in my life, ever. A woman of true faith in Jesus Christ, who stood firm upon his word and was able to withstand all the storms that came her way, including the final storm death. So I prayed with Maggie and I left her. I stayed for about an hour. I really didn't want to leave. But I left her knowing that that would be the last time I would ever see her this side of heaven alive. Last night, at eleven fifteen, I got a call from Lois Ann to tell me that Maggie has slipped on into heaven. Let me leave us all with this question, this question. Upon what foundation are you building your life? Is it truly a foundation like a rock?
Remember, all of the ground is sinking sand. Maggie is a great example of a life well-lived in Christ, in Christ alone. And all I know is this. I want to be more and more like Maggie.
Don't you have to hear it about her? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for these men's patience that I went, I went about 50 minutes. I pray, Lord, that you would bless these men as they go to their groups. And Lord, we, we just ask you to tell Maggie hello. And I look forward to joining her in heaven one day, along with my sisters and everyone who knows her will have a great time forever. And I hope the Lord will cook me some more fried chicken.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Being a Christian is not about being religious, but about having a dynamic, alive relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Pastor Russ Andrews, glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. You can discover more about finding your purpose in life by checking out the resources at findingpurpose.net or connect to Finding Purpose on Facebook. Pastor Russ would also like to extend a special invitation for you to join him and over 300 other local men to study God's word together every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in downtown Raleigh. Find out more at findingpurpose.net. This is the Truth Network.
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