What About the Storms? Wise or Foolish

Nobody likes to be called a fool, but we definitely don’t want to be called a fool by God. When Jesus gets to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he uses a parable to basically illustrate everything and to sum up everything he’s been talking about. It’s a very simple parable.

It’s a parable of two different men building on two different surfaces. One who is described as the wise man builds his house upon the rock. And when the winds and rain come, it stands firm.

The foolish man builds his house upon the sand. And when the storm comes, it collapses. And great is the fall.

What’s the difference between the two?

INTRO

  Well, it’s the foundation that they put it on. But notice in the parable, Jesus tells us what the correct foundation is. The foundation is those who hear the word of God and act upon it.

Those that do are considered wise. Those that do not are considered fools. You see, it’s the action that matters.

It’s not just hearing the word. It’s putting it to action, to task, to doing something with it, to making it doable. You know, here, Jesus is telling us that foolishness is found when we don’t put ourselves on a strong foundation.

You know, any home builder will tell you that a foundation is important. If you’ve ever had a house that had foundation problems, you know the difficulty that it is. They may have to come in and put beams, do something to sure up that foundation.

For the parable and what Jesus is trying to emphasize to us is the foundation of our faith. The foundation of what makes us wise is when we hear the words of God and put them into action. We actually do it.

But notice in that parable, both houses were built the same. Both houses were built strong, and I’m sure both houses looked really good. But it wasn’t until the storm came that you saw the difference.

And see, I think that’s what happens in a lot of our lives as well. We think we’ve done something well. We think we’re good and safe until the storms of life come. And when the winds blow and when the rain falls, that’s when we begin to see that we haven’t done what we needed to do. You see, the difference in this parable is the wise did more than just listen. They acted.

You know, we see that throughout the scripture. James tells us in James 1:22 to “be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” You see, not doing something, we think we’re in a safe state when we’re really not. We’ve heard it, but we’re not doing anything with it, and we’re fooling ourselves.

Later, James would talk about being foolish in James 2:20. “Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?” Once again, James is echoing the words of Jesus.

It’s foolishness to think that we have faith if our faith doesn’t do anything. A faith that doesn’t do anything is dead, and dead things don’t help us. That’s why we need to be active and alive in our faith.

That’s why I need to make sure that when the storms of life come that we have a strong foundation because we’ve done the will of our Father.

Sometimes it takes the storm to come. Think about the prodigal son. The prodigal son was living his life thinking everything was great until what happened? Until the famine hit. Until there was a great famine, and then he realized the mistakes of the things that he had done. That his life, the way he was living it, was not good. But he never would have saw that until the storms come.

Maybe you’re going through a storm in your life. Maybe something that’s come along that’s shaken your foundation, and you realize that faith that you thought you had is not near as strong as what it was because you haven’t acted upon it.

Let me ask you today to do something with your faith. Don’t just hear these words, but do something about it. Plan an action. Plan something that you can do to strengthen your faith. Maybe it’s something as simple as sitting down and reading your Bible.

Maybe that starts with getting a Bible. We can help you out. We would love to, if you don’t have a Bible and want to study the Word of God, we will make sure that you get one. You can contact us through our page, through the phone number that’s on the screen right now. You can either call us or send us a text, and we can help you out.

We can help you maybe if you’re interested in saying, what does God want me to do? And to look at the plan of salvation. We have some several great videos about God’s plan of salvation and how it can lead us to make sure that we’re doing His will and that our faith is alive and active.

There are several video series that you can look at on TimelessTalks.Net. And while you’re there, why don’t you go ahead and subscribe there and send us a message so that we can know that you’re out there and help you in any way. Maybe you need a prayer request. Maybe you need someone to talk to. We would love to help you in any way.

You know, faith that isn’t foolish is an active faith. Let’s make sure that we’re putting our faith into action and living for God today.

Thank you so much for joining us today and have a great day.