Gold and Straw

There is Gold

We built paper airplanes again tonight and it’s clear that there was some resources that were better the others to build your paper air plane with.

If you used the cardboard, you probably has some challenges, it was probably hard to work with to mold into the shape that you wanted. However you could put more power into that piece of cardboard than a piece of paper. You can wipe a piece of cardboard far across the room but you can’t do that with paper.

See we are talking about making something this month, something that is firm and strong and can also like the paper airplanes, go the distance. Our faith lifes are the topics, what does it mean to have a strong foundation in Jesus? how does growing in your faith look like over the long scale of a life time?

Last week we talked about how if you want a faith life it has to start with declaring that you are following Jesus instead of anything else.

We talked about ways to cope with the world that are really idols to God, things like relationships, or substances or activies like sports or gaming.

see they take that place of a foundation, the place you run to is that not God is a foundation that is built on the sand, so I hope that last week you were able to think of your own life and check is there anything that is taking God’s place?

This week we want to talk about how Jesus is calling us to continue working on that foundation,

If we follow Jesus at the very core of who we are, we choose to follow him first. Then the second thing we must do is refine that, making it better, strong, practice it.

If you play sports, what do you do to get ready for a big game?

you practice, you cannot step on the court and win a championship game if you have never played the sport before.

the same principles are applied to our walk with God.

Listen to what Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3, but before I read that a little back ground. See Paul is writing to the Corinthians because they are saying that their spiritual leaders are their foundation, they are using them as that sudo God we talked about.

So Paul tells them this:

1 Corinthians 3:9–15 NIV

For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

First note, you are God’s building:

Second is that Paul says “so build with care”, because no one can build on what Jesus has already layed.

Paul is saying there is only 1 foundation that can be laid, that being Jesus Christ, that following the truth that he gives, is the only place that is good.

So take his first point as our first point and the purpose of even this whole series, the bottom line of this month is: We must have Jesus as our foundation (the rock on which we stand, or the place where we ran to when life gets hard)

So if you missed last week that was the whole lesson, but this week Paul extends Jesus parable onto the walls and the roof.

He says if anyone uses gold, silver, costly stone, wood, hay or straw. there work will be shown.

Now what does this mean?

Well looking at the materials it’s kinda werid, why would you build a gold house? doesn’t that show greed or arragonce?

However Paul says that there will be a fire.

Now is straw going to survive the fire? No.

Hay? No.

Both of these would be engulfed in flames.

How about Wood?

well it would burn yes, but some of the house might still stand, wood is atleast better then straw.

How about the silver and gold? how do they translate into the story? can they burn? no. they would survivie in a fire.

Paul wants us to build with Gold and Silver instead of Straw and Hay.

Now Paul is not a construction worker, altough he did make tents for a living.

Paul is suggesting that in your life of faith you need to build with Gold and silver. That looks like how you work at your relationship with Jesus every day.

How are you building your faith life? Here are some examples of Gold:

you read your Bible

you pray

you attend church when you can

you serve the Church

you live out your faith in the way you live your life.

Building with Gold is practicing your faith, I cannot tell you another way to build with Gold becuase there is no other way. If you want to have a faith that is solid, that has no holes when confronted with fire of people saying God does not exisit, or a fire that is life struggles in health or family or friends, or even a fire that is when school ends what does summer look like.

See the fires of the world are there, and we can perpare for them and strengthen our realtionship with Jesus by building our faith with Jesus.

So we need to build with Gold and practice these daily,

Prayer, Bible reading, serving others, loving others, choosing to do what is right.

These are better then building with straw, and the straw is this:

Straw is listening to the pastor without looking into the subject yourself.

I need to explain this a little bit, You can trust me. I promise I preach truth to you guys, but even if you trust me and know I preach true, I need you to still want to go to your bibles and make sure I am not miss speaking. There will be people in your life who will tell you to passages from the bible and misuse them to profit from them.

So be gold in that and double check, I gave you the passage tonight, read through and validate that Liam is not misleading you in your faith.

Straw is praying for things that God’s heart is not in

again let me explain this, if you pray to win the lottery are you praying for God’s heart and passions? No, you are praying for yourself and your ambitions. God is for you and always will be, but he will show his love in his will and gambling is not in his will, make that any sort of Greed or desire. If it is not God’s will do not pray for it because you start to build with straw and make your idea of God someone who he is not.

Straw would look like affirming Jesus but never knowing what he says.

So I plead with you not to build with straw but rather to build with Gold this week. Dig deep in your spiritual practices, that you would want to read your Bible becuase you know what Jesus says is trust worthy, and the only truth.

God’s word is so much better then my word. Reading his book once would be better then a thousand of my messages.

Pray with an earnest heart of wanting to follow God’s will and his heart, being for him and the things he is for.

So this week I want to challenge you, start a Bible plan if you are not currently in scripture. You version bible app, the most popular bible app has plans that are free for you to use and will lead you in both reading and prayer, so my challenge is that if there is 7 days this week, then 6 out of 7 days you would read through a plan, and if you do it I will up the stakes and reward you next week.

What are you good at? (Sports, Math, etc.) How did you get good at it? (look for the word practice).

What does it mean to build with Gold?

Is this building with Straw or Gold? (Why?)

What can you do at home to build with Gold?

What if you fail? (encourage them to keep trying in failure)