Sermon Central
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Part 5 - The Acting Pillar Series
Contributed by Pastor Bruce A. Shields on Jan 12, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: This sermon describes how in Christianity today, what you see is not always what you get.
The House of Faith
Part 5 – The Acting Pillar
† SCRIPTURE READING
“22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does.”
PRAYER
† Our protection and benefits in this world are from God.
He is our shield, and our protector, our mighty fortress.
He has given believers the ability to use His spiritual armor to protect ourselves and our families.
† But to be able to use this protection, we must have the foundation of Christ and His teachings. Our lives MUST be founded on the rock, Jesus Christ.
To hold up our protection so it works to the fullest, we must have pillars upon this foundation in our lives.
† The first pillar we must have is our thinking pillar.
Our thoughts and thinking must be filtered so we can avoid the corruption and pollution of worldly thinking.
Thinking on what is holy and pure, meditating on God’s word.
† As we study and fill our minds with God’s word, He writes His word upon our hearts and it begins to fill our hearts like a file cabinet, filled with goodness at our immediate grasp. This next pillar, our believing pillar, is our heart. This pillar is a direct RESULT of the first pillars operation.
As we continue to read God’s word He fills us with it and with His Holy Spirit which in turn over flows from us.
This overflow becomes evident first in our speech.
This overflow is the Holy Spirit flowing like a river of life from us and into this world through us.
† And as a RESULT we come to the next pillar, our confession or speaking.
Speaking goodness and the word of God, through our confessions, speaking those things as if they were and believing in them, we begin to see miracles in our lives and those we pray for.
† This brings us to the last of our 4 pillars, the Acting Pillar.
Unfortunately, in the world of Christianity, what you see is not always what you get.
We read in James a moment ago, that we must be DOERS of the word and not just hearers.
Otherwise we are deceiving ourselves.
A child can HEAR his parents tell him to do something, but if that child does not DO IT, he is disobeying his parents. Living in disobedience ties God’s hands in our lives.
The child must not only HEAR what the parents are saying, but DO what they are telling him.
How many of us would last more than a day at work if we heard instruction from our boss, but didn’t follow them?
Could you sit back comfortably relaxed and say, “I heard what he said!”
Would you feel secure in your job because you can say, “I read the instructions!”
Would it please your boss if you could recite those instructions to others while you sat there, not doing them yourself?
This is Christian mentality today.
“I know what God wants”, but you don’t do it.
“I read my Bible everyday”, but you don’t live it.
“I tell people all the time what they are doing wrong according to God’s word”, what about what you’re doing wrong according to God’s word?
Telling others, but not doing yourself. You just defined a hypocrite.
These instructions in the Bible were written for YOU, not everyone else.
Stop looking at everyone else’s splinters and start dealing with the plank in your own eye! Or barn as the case may be.
You can tell everyone how many times you’ve read the Bible, you could memorize it if you want from cover to cover!
You don’t impress God.
You may be able to impress men with your feats of hay and straw, but in the end, all of that will be burned away before the judgment seat of Christ.
Even the devil has the word of God memorized, do you still think just knowing God’s word does you any good?
What does Jesus say about it?
“24Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
