It’s a pleasure to be here and a privilege to be alive. Every minute of our lives counts, so we should ask ourselves from time to time, “What do I do with all the minutes I have with my life, all the seconds of the day”. Maybe 20% of my time for watching tv, maybe 30% of my time is for swimming, maybe 10% for nightclubbing and at the end of the day, the day is gone.
Yesterday I had a challenge, a lady
asked me to show her my nose without pointing.
I said, “look at my face and it’s below my eyes”. She said, “I can’t see it, show it to me”. Sometimes we can’t express what is in our
mind. Sometimes God gives to us the word
which is in front of us but we can’t clearly explain it to ourselves.
In Mathew 7:24-27, there is a story of Jesus
who was telling us that for those who hear the Word of God and do it, are wise
and are like those that build a house on a rock. In opposite, for those who her the Word of
God and don’t do it, they are like the foolish who build their house on the
sand.
My message today is to try to unlock the
padlock to understand the secret of those verses Jesus gave to us. There are two different types of people: God
has given both of them ears and understanding but the one who listens to God
and then decides to do it, is automatically called wise while the one who
decides not to do it, is called stupid.
Who would like to be called stupid?
Who is happy to be called wise? I’m
the first one – I’d much rather be called wise than stupid. But to be wise (according to Jesus) is to do something
which Jesus can’t do for you - you have to push yourself to do what the Word of
God tells you.
Many read books from philosophers and
wise people etc to become wise but to read without practice – your wisdom is empty.
Faith comes from hearing the Word of God.
People tell you that on Sunday they will go to church to listen to the
Word of God to make their faith grow big.
I need faith but you can have faith and you are still called
stupid. You can have a very big amount
of faith and God can consider you stupid even if you do miracles, speak in
tongues etc.
Wisdom is very important in life. Many people consider faith as the first thing
they need because from it they believe they will get healing, money and all the
material things they want. I have faith
in you God, help me. God looks at you
and says, “Thank you for having faith but I want you to become a doer, not just
someone with faith. I want you to do things”.
Today, we don’t want to do things, we
prefer to do things the easy way. We prefer
to go to Burger King instead of making a burger for myself. We buy artificial flowers instead of working
on a garden. We need to see things
happening quickly because today no one wants to work, we just want results
quickly.
Not that long ago, we had dial up
internet and had to wait 20 minutes before getting connected. Today the speed
is so fast and yet we still complain when it takes two seconds, “arggh, telecom my internet is slow” and the
internet provider tries to fix the problem without reminding you that it’s better
today than yesterday. We complain and
tell the internet provider we will leave their company and go elsewhere if they
don’t fix the problem causing it to be slow.
When all we had was dial up, we could only
download one photo a day and yet today we can download books but we are not
satisfied. We can go fast in our cars forgetting
we can kill someone. I’ve seen men go to
the car yard and ask which engine is so powerful even though there is a speed
limit on the road. They will break the
rules but that is what they want. Today,
you will have those who will judge you positively but others will judge you negatively.
The Word of God is in front of you and
God is telling you, “you are my disciple, I love you and you have faith but you
forget to use that Word”. In the Bible, God
used the example of building. He used to
talk about plants and trees but the disciples didn’t understand. This time, He changed the strategy and talked
about construction. When you look at
construction, there is no life in wood but in a tree there is life. God wants to teach you with material that has
no life. When you build a house, the
first thing you need is land. Everyone today
is fighting to buy land and those who have it believe they are rich but those
who don’t have land have to rent and ask others to borrow their land.
I can have a car but if I have no land
to park my car, I have to pay Hamilton City Council (HCC) for a car park. You
can see how important is the land and the house.
Land contains something underneath
it. When you have your land and you have
to build a house, you need a foundation.
Our body is the land because it came from the soil. Do I need foundation or not? My choice will make me appear clever/wise
(someone who pleases God) or dumb (someone who doesn’t please God). God looks at us and wants to see what our
decision will be, putting aside faith – what will our actions be? God has given us all the tools: We have the
HOLY SPIRIT and we have eyes to see (physically and spiritually) and hands to
kneel down and pray.
Before building a house, we have to
design it. We obtain an architect who
will design a plan for the house. For
example, it might have five bedrooms and two bathrooms and we the house owner
will be the boss and decide what we want and the builder has to follow the plan
because that is our house and that is what we want. After telling an architect what we want, he
will draw it on the piece of paper.
My grandfather punished his wife by
building a house without a toilet. God
is so good, the day they moved in, my grandfather had diarrhoea. The wife said, “you were so wise what you did”
because he was punishing himself. Once
you choose your plan, God will tell you to go ahead now. The plan is in front of you, you have all the
tools and you can employ people to do the job for you but remember not all
contractors are serious and you will lose money, time and peace.
Many years ago you had to dig the ground
with a shovel to get a foundation strong enough to hold a building. When you dig the ground, you put the soil
aside and you have to use your physical strength (not spiritual). It can be hot or cold weather but you have to
do the job. Some will dig 30 cm but the builder
says, you better go deeper otherwise when the wind blows or storm comes, your
house will collapse. The more you go
deeper, you find yourself sinking in the hole you are digging. Your body is now inside the earth.
After digging, you call people to see what
you have done and you point out where things will go such as the plumbing and electrical
wires which are all under the ground.
The foundation will again be covered with soil. This analogy reminds us that we were given a
body with the strength, capacity and ability to see and do things and God is
asking us now to go deep inside of ourselves and make the foundation and
structure of how we should live our lives.
Does the world see you flashing light or
like a small torch? Everything you do
should reflect the Lord God. We tell
God, “God I’m weak, I need the HOLY SPIRIT” but God is telling us, “No, the HOLY
SPIRIT can’t do your job for you. He can
teach you but you have to dig and find out your actions and know if they are a
good foundation for your faith. The Holy
Spirit can give understanding but you have to search My Word”.
Jesus would tell people, “Your faith has
healed you but you also have to walk to this place and wash in this water”. Imagine, you come close to God and say, “I
want to see” and He spits on your face and tells you to walk to the water and
wash it off. We might think, “God are
you fair? Can you see what you are doing to me?” How often we complain to God when things
don’t go the way we want.
Dig and discover how deep your
foundation is. You can know all the
verses by heart but that means nothing if you are not putting these verses into
action.
Once our ground is ready (the foundation
is made) we have to build on the foundation a strong building. This analogy reminds us to build our faith,
to make a decision to pray every morning: “God really, is that what you choose,
good we will start with that”. The
problem is that first day we start to dig and we feel tired, on the second day
the phone rings, on the third day we decide to do it tomorrow and on the fourth
day, we no longer care. For example, we
might say, “Even if I don’t go to church, who cares, it’s between me and God”. Very often when we try to encourage others to
work for God, they respond by telling us not to judge them and that it is
between them and God.
When we start doing things our way and
forgetting to build on the foundation, God starts to
Wonder if we are really the ones that He
chose. He starts to ask Himself why He
gave such a privilege to this person to be His child while He didn’t give the
chance to everybody. Many people don’t
even get to hear the Word of God. You
and I are chosen as disciples of Jesus and He gave us everything we want – now
is the time to use it but we have excuses and excuses to not work for God.
When we see the structure, we say what I
beautiful house and ask who built it? Do we stop and think about the
foundation? We never do. For some reason you can be in your 6 million
dollar house and your house can collapse in 2 seconds in a sink hole. Very often we don’t look at the
foundation. We can say we are fervent in
prayer, we love you God but God says yes, you appear flourishing but how is
your foundation?
One day I cut a rose at my place and
sniffed it and it smelt good. So I
decided I should smell the roots because it created the flower. It smelt bad.
This is the root which gave this flower beauty and smell but the root
smells bad. The tree can look attractive and green but the colour of roots are
dirty and muddy and ugly but they hold something precious. Your body can look ugly and uncomfortable and
you don’t like the way your body looks but let it bear the good fruits by
making the right decisions. Before making any decision, we should ask
ourselves, what does the bible say I should do?
If the bible says this is what I should do, and I promise God to do it,
then do it and then you will look wise.
Wisdom doesn’t mean everyone will agree
with you. Those who are foolish will believe you are a show off person because
your ideas will be opposite to theirs.
The other day I was working at the warehouse and a man wanted a bike but
I was too short to get it down so I called Richard to help who was taller but
the man said, “I don’t like people of colour while he was Maori and Richard was
white”. Why not? Sometimes people will hate you just because
of who you are. When that happens, it’s
like digging the soil and you hit the rock and it hurts but you have to
continue without a word. Sometimes you hit an electric cable and you realise
you shouldn’t have dug there and now you have to start again. We have to keep
trying and trying without giving up.
One day the judge will come (JESUS) and
he will separate the sheep from the goats.
They look almost the same with the same body shape and colour and
horns. They both make nice meat. Saved and non-saved can both have faith and
believe in Jesus but when He comes to separate us, He will look at our
deeds. What did you do when you went you
through trials? Did your house shake or
not and if it shook – then look at your foundation. How much control do you have over your
body? When you say you are not eating,
your stomach won’t punish you. You can
close your eyes. You can decide to walk
rather than use the car. You can decide
today to not go swimming regardless of the heat and you won’t.
In Australia, this man said that the day
that we allowed children to eat too much ice-cream, they will die in
water. Buying ice cream won’t stop you
from swimming any more. Children die
when they swim in water but we blame the ice cream. We start to blame: when I read the bible or
pray, that is when problems arise in my life so I start to change the reality
of my faith to something else. If I
drink one glass of wine it’s ok as long as I don’t get drunk but tomorrow it
will be two glasses and then it turns into a tank.
Yes Jesus paid the price so you can be
free but don’t you have any price to pay?
He said, love your neighbour as you love yourself. It’s the hardest thing to do. Do I really love my neighbours? Mostly not.
We can be so happy to know what is happening in the lives of others and
gossip but we don’t love them because when it is time to talk to them about the
gospel my body starts to shake and heart beats fast. I can talk about other things like rugby but
fear to talk about God.
We tell God, I’ve done my part, it’s up
to you now God and when we do that, our foundation is shaking just to talk to a
human being just like you and me. All we
have to say is simply, “Jesus loves you, do you love him back? Why not?” Do you believe God can forgive, it would be
better for that person to run from you than for you to run from God. We love the easiest ways. We only want to talk about Jesus and bible
when we are with other Christians.
Last week I found a guy (let’s call him
Caleb) who works at the Warehouse and I knew he was a Christian. During a meeting I said, “praise the Lord,
Caleb” and he was embarrassed and he didn’t want people from the warehouse to
know he was a believer. This reminded me
that when the storm comes, you will be exposed.
This beautiful shape of your house will be turned up and people will see
all that was inside it. They will see
the bed and all that was under it, all your documents etc. It’s better to make your foundation solid.
In New Zealand we use concrete to build
the foundation which is sand, water etc to make a solid. Sand is soft and flows
through our fingers and can’t hold a house up on its own. This reminds us not to minimise yourself and
believe you are weak because once you put your actions with the Word of God
(water) you will be solid and nothing will shake you. You can be poor now and tomorrow you will be
rich or vice versa. You can be lonely
today and tomorrow have a child or vice versa.
We often say, God why only me but if we
loved our neighbour as ourselves, we will say, “God look at them, why are they
are crossing this?” When death is next
door, you don’t care but when it knocks on your door, you cry and suffer but
you don’t cry for others. When we put
our lives into the lives of others, then you are making the solid foundation
and God will call you a wise person. To
be wise is to put yourself in the shoes of others. Once you know that, you will please God and
the Kingdom of God will be there for you.
When Jesus left, He said, “I am going to
prepare a house for you but in the meantime start also to prepare a place –
shape yourself”. We think that it is
just Jesus’ job to build the house. My
job is to pray and His job is to work.
No! Your job is to pray and do (Eph 6:11) and Jesus will decide if it will work or
not. We have to put on the armour of God,
we have to use our hands, eyes and brains to put it on. 90% of Christians today are waiting for God
to put the armour on them. We tell God, “I
have a lot of problems” and most of the time it is money or wanting a handsome
husband or travelling which is our foundation but God says, your foundation in
Christ first.
The lawyer of the offender said to the
jury, “now I know you are going to decide but in one minute the person who was
dead will walk through the door” and they looked at the door. They found him guilty but the lawyer said, “how
can you find him guilty? You looked at the door and therefore you had doubt”. But the jury said, “the offender didn’t look
at the door because he killed him”. God
knows everything and you can try to hide things from God and find strategies to
get passed God but your conscience will find you guilty.
