There are many different names of our Lord
Jesus in the Bible, and one of the
most interesting gives us our theme for tonight.
We've been speaking on these Sunday evenings on
help wanted, the various vocations of the Bible
and their spiritual meaning.
We turn to Mark chapter six, and tonight
we talk about the carpenter.
Mark chapter six, and Jesus went out from
there and came into his own country.
And his disciples follow him.
And when the Sabbath day was come, he
began to teach in the synagogue and many
hearing him were astonished saying, from where hath
this man these things and what wisdom is
this, which is given unto him that such
mighty works are wrought by his hands.
Is not this the carpenter, the son of
Mary, the brother of James and Joseph, Joseph
and of Judas and Simon, and are not
his sisters here with us?
And they were offended at him.
But Jesus said unto them, a prophet is
not without honor, but in his own country
and among his own kin and in his
own house.
And he could there do no mighty work
except that he laid his hands upon a
few sick folks and healed them.
And he marveled because of their unbelief.
And he went round about the villages teaching
is not this the carpenter?
When the Greek philosopher Socrates planned the perfect
community, and it's much easier to plan the
perfect community than it is to build one.
Socrates said that there were four essential workers.
You simply had to have them.
You had to have weavers.
That makes a good sense because you have
to wear clothes.
You have to have farmers and that's sensible
because you have to eat.
He also included shoemakers and I suppose that
may be essential, although in many, many places
people go without shoes.
But number four builders.
Now in the Bible, the word carpenter covers
more than somebody who saws wood.
It means a builder, not only a builder
of tables and chairs, but a builder of
houses, a repairer.
And so Socrates said, if you're going to
have an ideal community, you simply have to
have the carpenter.
Now each of us today is involved in
either building or tearing down.
Now before someone criticizes, let me hasten to
say that sometimes you can't build until you
tear down.
Sometimes in the erecting of a building, and
we see this in Chicago repeatedly, they come
in, they tear down that they might build
up.
This is true physically.
Sometimes something has to be removed before you
can build up.
It's true in human relationships.
Sometimes a counselor has to tear some things
down before he can build some things up.
But basically, even though you're tearing down, you're
tearing down to build.
There are some people who tear down just
to tear down.
I suppose you could go through this congregation
and separate the builders from the destroyers, go
through the city of Chicago and separate the
builders from the destroyers.
A man came up to me at Southern
Keswick this past week and he handed me
a stack of beautiful photographs.
He said, look at these.
And so I looked at them, beautiful photographs
of a beach house.
He was an architect.
He'd built this beautiful beach house.
And he said to me, Pastor Wiersbe, I
hope that sometime you can come down and
stay in our beach house.
I said, well, maybe I can.
You never can tell.
He said, I'll tell you why.
Our family of five was falling apart and
we began to listen to the ministry of
the Moody Church Hour.
And he said, our family's back together again.
And so the ministry of this church helps
some people to build instead of to tear
down.
So you and I ought to be like
the Lord Jesus Christ and be a builder.
Let's look at that tonight.
If you and I are going to understand
what it means to go through life building,
then there are three basic facts that we
have to understand.
Fact number one, Jesus Christ is the carpenter.
He's the builder.
Fact number two, Satan is the destroyer.
That's one of his names.
And fact number three, you and I are
the materials for the building and we are
the tools for the building.
And you and I have to make the
decision whether or not Satan will use us
to tear down or Jesus Christ will use
us to build up.
Now those three simple facts can keep you
from wrecking your life.
Oh, did you say I'm a born again
Christian?
There's no possibility of my wrecking my life.
Oh, let him that thinks he stands, take
heed lest he fall.
Samson never thought he would end up blind,
bound, grinding for the enemy, but he did.
Demas never thought that he would forsake Paul
and go out and live for the world,
but he did.
These three facts must grip your life that
Jesus Christ is the builder, that Satan is
the destroyer, and that you and I are
both the material and the tool for Jesus
Christ to build in this world.
Let's begin with fact number one, Jesus Christ
is the carpenter.
It's interesting how many people think that when
Jesus was here on earth, he was a
shepherd.
Now, spiritually, he said, I am the good
shepherd.
No argument about that.
Some people think that the Lord Jesus Christ
was a sower spiritually.
He was the son of man is out
sowing, but the actual vocation that Jesus practiced
when he was here on earth was that
of a carpenter.
Now he could have been anything he wanted
to be.
He could have been a farmer, could have
been a shepherd, but he was a carpenter
and this is what they called him is
not this the carpenter.
Now, why was Jesus Christ a carpenter?
What was there in the plan of God
that made Jesus Christ a carpenter?
May I suggest to you at least four
reasons why Jesus was a carpenter.
I just think about them.
When you're stalled in the traffic this week,
meditate on this when you're lying in bed
at night and you're just thinking, think about
this, that Jesus was the carpenter.
Reason number one, obviously he was born in
a carpenter's home.
Back in the gospel of Matthew in chapter
13 in this parallel passage, we pick up
a little bit of information.
Matthew chapter 13 verse 55 is not this
the carpenter's son.
So Joseph, the foster father of our Lord
Jesus was a carpenter.
Now you'll recall when I spoke to you
about Paul, the tent maker, I said this,
that every Jewish father taught his son a
trade.
That's a tragedy when children grow up and
don't know how to work.
Here is the Lord Jesus Christ who at
a very early age was taught by his
foster father how to be a carpenter.
He got slivers in his fingers.
He knew what it was to go out
and get a big piece of lumber and
carry it in.
He knew what it was to work on
the wood.
The Jewish rabbi said he who does not
teach his son a trade teaches him to
be a thief.
We have mothers and fathers today who don't
expect their children to do any work and
they wonder why they drift.
Now the Lord Jesus was born in a
carpenter's home.
The Jews didn't expect their Messiah to come
as a carpenter.
They were looking for a king.
They were looking for someone to come in
great glory and splendor.
And there he was in Nazareth, a poor
little town in a poor little family working
in a poor little shop, making yolks, making
chairs, repairing things.
The Jews thought that their Messiah was going
to come as a great soldier.
And yet Jesus didn't come that way.
He came as a servant.
I have said this so many, many times,
not only from this pulpit, but from other
pulpits.
But I think it bears repeating.
The Lord Jesus Christ gives the example to
us of working.
Nobody has a right to be a ruler
who has not first of all been a
servant.
And my Lord came and humbled himself and
he became a servant.
He became an everyday carpenter.
He was born in a carpenter's home.
There's a second reason why Jesus was a
carpenter.
That's because he came to do a carpenter's
work.
What does a carpenter do?
He builds and repairs.
Now this is one thing that our Lord
had always been doing.
One of the greatest preachers of this past
generation, a man who now, because of infirmity
and age, has his lips closed to preaching
was Dr. Robert Ketchum.
If you never had the privilege of hearing
Dr. Robert Ketchum preach, you missed something.
I can recall sitting in a hot country
church in downstate Indiana on a hot August
night when there were as many mosquitoes in
the congregation as there were people.
And Dr. Ketchum in the pulpit preaching on
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
And he preached for an hour and 20
minutes and nobody moved.
And I recall him preaching on Jesus Christ,
the carpenter.
Now it's not the sermon I'm giving you.
His message was far greater than anything I
could say, but he made one point I
have never forgotten.
He said this, do you know why God
the Father made his son a carpenter?
He said, I think the answer is this.
When Jesus Christ came to this earth, he
gave up everything, gave up his throne, gave
up his glory, took upon himself the infirmities
of human body.
And God the Father said to his son,
son, you're going to be down there on
that earth for over 30 years.
It's going to be a different kind of
a life for you.
I want to give you one thing that
will always remind you of who you are
and what you've done.
I'm going to make you a carpenter because
from the very beginning, Jesus was a builder.
He built the universe.
All things were made by him and without
him was not anything made that was made.
He is building the church.
Jesus said, I will build my church.
I'm not building the church.
He's building the church.
If I'm available to him as his material
and his tools, he can build his church.
He built the universe and it runs perfectly
until we interfere with it.
He's building the church.
He's building a home for us up in
heaven.
I go to prepare a place for you.
He is building our lives.
Jesus Christ came to do a carpenter's work.
He came to build.
There's a third reason why the Lord Jesus
is called the carpenter.
He follows a carpenter's methods.
Now I must confess to you that I
almost failed woodshop.
The dear instructor was so patient with me.
They should have given him a medal because
my two brothers who preceded me were master
craftsmen.
They can take a piece of wood, a
piece of metal, and without even thinking about
it, turn it into a beautiful piece of
whatever you want to make.
I can't do that.
I'm sure if my sister had taken woodshop,
she would have done better than I did.
First, we learned how to plane a board
and all I had were shavings.
And then he said, now we're going to
learn how to use the drill press.
And you should have seen where those holes
were in my piece of wood.
And so I admire anybody who can work
with wood.
I really do.
I have watched men in various building projects
that I've been involved in as they have
been handling the tools of the trade and
I admire them.
I've watched my brother in his woodshop with
his lathe and his other equipment making beautiful
things.
Jesus follows a carpenter's methods.
Now what is a carpenter's method?
Well he gets a piece of material and
he can see potential in it.
Now you and I can pick up a
piece of wood and not see anything.
A carpenter picks up a piece of wood.
He can see some potential there.
He looks at a tree and he sees
a table.
He looks at a piece of wood or
some lumber and he sees a beautiful chest.
Now I'm not made this way.
I can't look at something material and see
tremendous potential in it.
A sculptor is the same way.
A sculptor looks at a slab of granite
or marble and says, ah, there's an angel
in there or there's a statue in there.
I can't do that.
Now maybe you can.
Jesus Christ looks at us.
He doesn't see a great deal, but he
sees the potential.
Suppose you had been standing by with all
of the guidelines we have today from the
Harvard Business School on how to choose leaders.
The books are written now, big, thick books
on how to choose leaders.
And you'd seen the Lord Jesus selecting his
disciples.
Peter, I want you, not Peter.
You'll never make a thing out of Peter.
But he did.
Matthew, Matthew, the traitor, the publican.
Matthew, he made something out of Matthew.
Saul of Tarsus storming down the highway like
a raging bull.
And the grace of God prodding him and
trying to bring him to his senses.
You can't do anything with Saul of Tarsus.
But he made something out of him.
That's the grace of God.
As you go through your Bible, find the
failures.
And God made something out of them.
He made something out of Moses, the failure
who hid for 40 years after murdering a
man.
He took David, a little shepherd boy, and
turned him into a great king.
He calls people.
John Mark, one of the greatest stories in
the Bible, is a story of John Mark,
the nephew or cousin of Barnabas.
And John Mark flunked out of the mission
field.
He took off for the mission field, raised
his support, was great to write his first
prayer letter, and got homesick and turned around
and went home.
And when Paul and Barnabas start out for
their second journey, you'll remember, Uncle Barnabas said,
let's take Mark along.
Paul said, if Mark goes, I stay home.
I'm not going with you.
And so they split up.
But later on, Paul had to admit that
Jesus Christ had taken that unlikely material and
made something out of it.
You look at yourself in the mirror and
the devil says to you, you're pretty poor
material, pretty poor protoplasm.
There's not much there.
Not much there.
Jesus says, wait a minute, I'm the carpenter
and I can see a tremendous potential in
you.
When D.L. Moody went to join the
church after he'd been converted, he couldn't even
answer the simple questions they asked him.
He just didn't have the answers and they
postponed his membership until he could get some
answers.
But God took D.L. Moody, who didn't
have much beyond a fifth grade education.
And he made something out of him.
A carpenter sees the potential in the material.
Secondly, a carpenter has a plan.
I suppose the big problem when I was
in woodshop was this.
I never followed the blueprint.
There was a reason for this.
I don't know how to read blueprints.
I think I missed that lecture when the
fellow told us how to read blueprints and
the building programs I've been through in every
church I've been in.
We had building programs.
I go to these meetings, they spread out
the blueprints and I look very omniscient and
I shake my head and I let the
experts take over.
You see, a carpenter, if he's going to
make something, he draws a plan.
He said he looks at his material and
he says, now, I think I can make
two beautiful bookends out of that.
And so he sits down and he he
gets his his triangle and his T-square
and all of this equipment.
And he draws a plan.
And if you follow the plan, you'll end
up with something.
Now, Jesus does this.
I suppose young people get tired of hearing
us elderly people saying, look, God's got a
plan for your life.
I counsel with kids and they say, oh,
I'm just so anxious.
Wait a minute.
God's got a plan for your life.
I recall a young lady talking to me
some, oh, it's been quite a while ago
now.
She had a serious problem.
And to her, it was serious.
She felt she was in love with two
different boys.
I said, no, you're probably not in love
with either one of them.
Because when the real one comes along, there
can be no competition.
Oh, she said, I'm so concerned.
I said, God's got a plan for you.
There are many of us here tonight who
could stand and praise God unashamedly.
That we did not follow our plan for
our lives, that God stopped us.
He's got a plan for you.
He sees the potential in you.
And there's something else about a carpenter.
He has the patience to work with it.
He has to work on this wood.
He has to measure it and he has
to mark it and he has to cut
it.
He has to plane it and he has
to polish it.
He has to sandpaper it.
And if the wood could speak.
You'd hear nothing but groans and grunts.
That's what the Lord hears from us as
he works in our lives.
He marks on our lives and said, now,
here's what I want.
Here's what you can do.
But Lord, I don't want to do that.
I know you don't.
We're going to do it anyway.
And then he has to cut off and
he has to sandpaper.
Sometimes he uses other people to sandpaper us.
If somebody is abrasive in your life.
The carpenter may have his hands on that
person using him to polish you.
I can recall in some of my educational
experiences.
Administrators and some instructors who were rather difficult.
But I look back now and say, thank
you, Lord.
And it was a great experience for me.
They did for me what I couldn't have
done for myself.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the carpenter has patience
and he takes pains with us individually.
Aren't you glad that the Lord doesn't put
us on an assembly line?
Did you ever really watch an assembly line?
It's frightening.
Everything goes through at the same pace.
Everything goes through the same way.
And they're stamping this and cutting that and
fixing this.
And they're all alike.
Now, some churches are this way.
Some churches have what I call cookie cutter
Christians.
They all come out the same way.
God doesn't want it that way.
God wants variety.
And God doesn't put you on an assembly
line and say, OK, put him through plan
C.
No.
No, he has his own hands upon you.
Sometimes it's a mother's hands, a father's hand,
a dean, an instructor, a pastor, a friend.
But it's always the hand of the carpenter
patiently taking pains with us, and he always
uses the proper tools.
The Lord, when he works in your life,
will never use the wrong tool.
I've used the wrong tools.
I've learned you can't drill holes with screwdrivers.
You can use a pipe wrench to pound
a nail, but it's not the best thing
to use.
The Lord Jesus never uses the wrong tools.
I recall when I worked for Rockwell Manufacturing
Company, occasionally I had to go over to
the tool bin, not because I was using
the tool, but I had to deliver certain
things from the office.
And they had a big sign up there,
use the right tool for the right job.
And the Lord always does this.
He knows how to use suffering and when
to use suffering.
He knows how to use that fine little
knife that cuts away some of the dead
things that shouldn't be there.
He knows how to use the sandpaper.
He knows how to use the Word of
God, how to use prayer.
He uses the right tools in our lives.
I say this once again, and I preach
to myself, sometimes a person comes into your
life and seems to make life miserable for
you.
Before you complain, before you run away and
before you fight, ask the carpenter if maybe
this person might not be a tool that
he's using in your life.
Something else about Jesus Christ as he follows
the carpenter's methods, he sees the potential, he
has a plan, he patiently works, he uses
the right tools, and when it's all over,
he has great pleasure in the finished product.
Do you know what carpenters used to say
in Greece when they finished something was all
done?
They would put it up and they would
say the same thing Jesus said on the
cross when he died to tell us it
is finished.
Our Lord Jesus is working in our lives,
and as you know, he's not finished with
us yet, and because he isn't, don't get
impatient with yourself.
You say, Lord, I've been praying about this
thing for months.
Don't get impatient with yourself and don't get
impatient with other people because there's no such
thing as instant maturity.
We have everything else instant today, but there's
no instant maturity.
Nobody gets saved on Sunday and Monday.
He's full grown and mature.
He may think he is, but by Tuesday
he'll find out that he's not.
There's no such thing as instant maturity, but
one of these days when the carpenter comes
back and we get to glory, the product
is going to be finished.
And not only is he going to look
at it and say it is finished, I
have pleasure in this.
He's going to get glory from it throughout
all eternity.
That's why he saved you.
That's why he's working in your life.
Oh, you say, Lord, here's an area that
needs work.
He'll get there.
Don't worry about it.
He knows what he's doing.
And one of these days, the finished product
will bring glory to his name.
He was born in a carpenter's home.
He came to do a carpenter's work.
He follows a carpenter's methods.
And there's a fourth reason why our Lord
is a carpenter.
He died a carpenter's death.
They got hammers and nails and a tree.
And they nailed the carpenter to a tree.
There is a wonderful preacher over in Wales
whose name is Ian McPherson.
And I enjoy reading his books because Ian
McPherson is a good preacher.
And he has a masterful sermon called What
the Carpenter Made Out of His Cross.
It's one of the sermons I wish I
had thought up, but I didn't.
So I'll just pass along what Ian McPherson
said.
He said the greatest thing that Jesus ever
made, he made out of the cross.
He took a symbol of shame and turned
it into a symbol of glory.
He took a means of punishment and through
it brought about a means of redemption.
He took an instrument of torture and through
it released grace.
He took a piece of wood, says Mr.
McPherson, and built a bridge to take us
to heaven.
That's beautiful and it's true.
He died a carpenter's death.
Now today, Jesus Christ is alive and he
bears on his body the marks of the
nails.
And he's still building.
He's still building.
He sent the Holy Spirit down and he's
building.
He's building.
But the problem is there's someone in this
universe who is destroying.
And this leads us to our second fact
quickly.
Satan is the destroyer.
Over in Revelation chapter 9 and verse 11,
the Apostle John gives two names to Satan.
They had a king over them who is
the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name
in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, and in
the Greek tongue has his name Apollyon.
And both of these words mean destroyer.
Remember the last time you read Pilgrim's Progress,
you say, well, I've never read it.
Then go read it.
Pilgrim is going down the road and he
meets Apollyon and he has to pull out
his sword and fight and he almost loses.
There is a destroyer loose in this world
today and it's Satan.
Now, I know people say Satan is a
myth.
Satan is only the figment of our imagination.
Satan is the principle of evil in the
world.
I have news for you.
Satan is a destroying fallen angel.
And if you don't have a proper respect
for him in your heart, you're going to
get in trouble.
I don't worship the devil, obviously, but I
respect him.
Every name that is given to Satan in
the Bible ought to put the proper kind
of fear in our heart and we ought
to turn to the Lord for help.
He's called the thief.
John chapter 10, verse 10.
Jesus said, I'm the good shepherd.
The thief, Satan, cometh not but for to
steal, that's destroying, and to kill and to
destroy.
I am come that they might have life
and have it more abundantly.
You say it'll never happen to me.
It can happen to you.
It can happen to me.
He wants to steal your reputation.
He wants to steal your purity.
He wants to steal your honesty, your integrity.
He wants to destroy your body.
He'd do it if he could.
Peter tells us, and he ought to know.
Peter tells us, be sober.
Be vigilant.
That means you don't go to sleep.
For your adversary, not your friend, your adversary,
the devil, goes about as a roaring lion.
And when a lion roars, he's pretty confident
of himself.
Otherwise, he'd scare away the game.
Somebody asked us if we saw any lions
when we were in Africa.
No, we didn't.
We could have gone, if we'd had time,
we could have gone down to that area
where they are.
But I don't want to get too close
to them.
I love cats.
I really do.
I have a very lovely cat at home.
But I don't want to have a lion
at home.
Have I told you about the time when
a lady came in to see me about
a family problem?
This was in a previous church that I
pastored.
And she came in and sat down.
And she said, Pastor, we've got an awful
problem at home with my mother.
She was still living at home with her
mother.
And I said, what is the problem?
She said, my mother doesn't like my lion.
And I thought she meant a stuffed lion
that was taking up too much space in
front of the TV set.
It was a live lion cub.
I said, well, you know, I sort of
sympathize and agree with your mother.
Satan is a lion, a roaring lion who
is going about seeking whom he may, what's
the next word, class, devour.
He wants to devour.
He wants to devour your budget, waste your
money on a lot of sin.
He wants to devour your time.
He wants to devour your energy.
He would devour your body if he could.
One thing you never want to do is
to take Satan lightly.
He's the destroyer.
And I have lived long enough and ministered
long enough to know that even in the
best run Christian homes, Satan can get in
and destroy if we aren't sober and vigilant.
He's called the serpent.
He's called the dragon.
He came into Eden.
He attacked Eve's mind and deceived her and
they lost paradise.
He came to Job and attacked his body.
And apart from the restraint of God would
have taken his life.
He destroyed Job's wealth.
He destroyed Job's family, except for his wife.
And Job had been better off without her.
Satan even spoke to Job through his wife
when she said, why don't you curse God
and commit suicide?
He's the destroyer.
Wherever you find demonic activity in the Gospels
or the Book of Acts, it's bent on
destruction.
This father brought his only son to Jesus
and the boy is throwing fits.
And it's the demons throw him in the
water, trying to drown him, throw him in
the fire, trying to cremate him.
And Jesus said, how long has he been
like this?
He said, since a child.
Do you mean Satan attacks children?
Yes, he does.
And we had better have a holy hush.
Without joking, when you contemplate Satan, the destroyer,
and so these two forces, these two persons
are at work in the world today.
Jesus is the builder and Satan is the
destroyer.
Now, who determines what is done?
You and I do.
The third fact that we have to get
a hold of is the fact that the
believer is both the material and the tools
to do the building.
Now, we're the material.
Over in First Peter, chapter two, Peter talks
about the building of the church and he
says, you and I are living stones being
built up a holy temple for the Lord.
Paul says the same thing in Ephesians.
The God is building his church.
That church is a temple and we are
the living stones.
Once we were dead stones down in the
quarry of sin, but he lifted us up
out of the miry clay, out of the
pit and he put life into us.
And now we're living stones in his temple.
We're living members of his body.
He's building a body.
We're the materials.
Remember that parable Jesus told?
He said, wait a minute, what man of
you, if he's a king and he has
an army of 10,000 soldiers, he's facing
an army of 20,000 soldiers, doesn't first
of all, count to see whether or not
he can have his soldiers win the battle.
Jesus is the captain.
We're the soldiers.
We're a minority.
He said, what man of you building a
tower does not first of all, sit down
and count the cost to see whether he
can finish it less when he doesn't get
it finished.
They say, oh, this man couldn't finish.
And I've heard people say that we're the
builders.
Oh, no, Jesus is building.
We're the materials.
And he looks at us and says, can
I build anything out of these people?
Are they going to be faithful?
Are they going to be living stones cemented
into my tower, my temple?
You and I are the materials and you
and I are the tools.
When the Lord Jesus wants to build something
in this world, he'll get ahold of your
hands, your brain, your eyes, your tongue.
God has no hands, but our hands to
do his work each day.
He has no feet, but our feet to
guide men in his way.
And God uses us.
This is what Paul talks about in Romans
six.
Paul says, look, as you have yielded the
members of your body, instruments, and that word
means tools, instruments of sin and unrighteousness.
Now that you've been saved, yield the members
of your body as the tools of righteousness
to do the will of God.
He says it again in Romans 12, present
your body a living sacrifice.
Is there a book to be written?
God will take your brain and your fingers.
Is there a sick patient to be healed?
God will take your training, your skill.
Is there a building to be built on
a mission station?
Is there a room to be renovated in
a church building?
God gets ahold of people who say, Lord,
here are my hands, here are my feet,
here's my brain.
We are the tools.
And why is it some of us are
not building?
Why is it when we walk into a
room, we tear things down?
Why is it there are some people you
get them on a committee and things fall
apart?
Other people, you get them on a committee
and things are built.
Why is it there are some people who
just seem to be a part of construction?
There are other people who are a part
of destruction.
Well, Paul tells us in his various letters
how you and I can build.
Now, I'm going to quickly name these verses
and point them out to you and leave
you to preach the sermon to your own
heart.
How can we become builders?
How can we be the kind of materials
and the kind of tools that God can
use to build?
You know what the first essential is?
Love.
Look at First Corinthians, chapter eight.
First Corinthians, chapter eight, verse one.
Now, as touching things offered to idols, we
know that we all have knowledge.
The Corinthian saints were so proud of their
knowledge.
Knowledge puffeth up, but love builds up.
Do you think the most important thing in
the Christian life is getting real smart?
Knowledge without love becomes a weapon for tearing
down.
Now, love without knowledge can be fanaticism.
God wants both.
God says you take the knowledge and you
mix it with love because love builds up.
When you love, you don't want to tear
down.
This may be one reason why some people
tear down.
Their lives are filled with selfishness, malice, criticism,
judgment, love.
How about Ephesians, chapter four?
Paul has a good deal to say in
Ephesians four about building.
He talks about the gifts that God has
given to us.
Verse 11, he's given apostles and prophets and
evangelists, pastors and teachers for the perfecting of
the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the building up of the body of
Christ using our spiritual gifts.
Now, just as you have chaos if you
use a screwdriver for a hammer or a
pipe wrench for a screwdriver, so in the
church you have problems if somebody without the
gifts is trying to do the work.
Every church member has the obligation of saying
to his pastor or to whoever speaks to
him about a responsibility, I'm sorry, that's not
my gift because you get the wrong gift
in the wrong place and you get trouble.
So in love, using our spiritual gifts, how
about Ephesians, chapter four and verse twenty nine,
let no corrupt communication proceed out of your
mouth.
But that which is good to the use
of building up our speech.
Oh, so often our speech tears down instead
of building up and we should so be
filled with the spirit that in our daily
conversation, we leave people with something to grow
on speech.
Colossians, chapter four, verse twelve, gives us another
essential if you and I are going to
be used of God to be tools for
building up.
He talks in Colossians four, twelve about Epaphras,
who is one of you, a servant of
Christ, greeteth you always laboring fervently for you
in prayers that you may stand perfect and
complete in all the will of God.
A prayer.
You say, oh, there's somebody in my life
who is just not being built up, pray
for that person.
When you and I are yielded to the
Lord in love, when we use our gifts
in the power of the spirit, when we
speak as God wants us to and when
we pray as we should, then God uses
us to build people up.
I've had the experience in my life of
being built up by the saints of God
with just two or three sentences.
I can recall occasions when I've had lunch
with a man of God and I've shared
a problem and all he has said is
just two or three sentences.
That's what I needed and it built me
up.
He'd been praying.
In Acts, chapter 20, verse 32, Paul says,
I commend you to God and to the
word of his grace, which is able to
build you up.
God's word.
When God's word comes into our lives, it
builds us up.
When the devil's lies come into our lives,
they tear us down.
Over in Romans, chapter 14, Paul talks about
the importance of a good example.
Some of the Gentile saints in the Roman
churches were criticizing the Jewish saints because they
were observing special days.
They wouldn't eat certain things.
Some of the Christians said, oh, you can't
eat this.
Others said, look, we can eat anything.
There was a split.
Paul said, look, build each other up by
your example.
You do have the privilege of eating anything
you want to eat, but he says, don't
do it to tear somebody else down.
Now, we shouldn't let people stay babies.
I realize that.
But first of all, we must create the
kind of an example that helps them to
grow so they won't stumble and fall over
little things.
Our example.
When we want to be the right kind
of example before the Lord, then God can
use us to build.
Jesus Christ is the builder.
He's the carpenter.
Now, he wants to build your life.
And as he builds your life and my
life, we reach out and build other people.
Are you having that joy of seeing other
people built up because God's building you?
That's one of the greatest joys in the
world.
Did you know that Jesus didn't send us
out just to make converts?
Our Lord sent us out to make disciples.
What's a disciple?
A learner.
Who's going to teach them?
We are.
There's more to evangelism than just passing out
a tract and praying a prayer.
We've got to take people and by our
example and our love and our ministry and
our prayers and the word of God, build
them up.
Oh, what a thrilling experience this is.
For as we're building others, God is building
us.
And so we come to that place we
come to at the end of each sermon.
We ask ourselves the question, where do I
fit in?
Has Jesus Christ saved me from the destroyer?
Are you tonight truly saved?
Has the carpenter gotten a hold of you?
Are you a brand plucked out of the
burning?
Has Jesus Christ, because you've trusted him, rescued
you?
You say no, then you ought to come
and be saved.
Let him save you.
You say, but I am a Christian.
All right, then we always have to ask
this question.
Which of these two is using my life?
Is Satan using my tongue?
The members of my body to tear down,
tear down a home, tear down the work
of God?
Or is Jesus Christ using my life to
build up?
Heaven is a place for builders.
Hell is a place for destroyers.
Jesus said, I will build my church.
Are you having a part in that?
Gracious Father, we do want to yield our
bodies, the members of our bodies, not as
weapons for Satan to use to tear down,
but as tools for you to use to
build up.
Our hands, our feet, our minds, our tongues,
every part of our being, Father.
May we be a part of the great
construction that's going on to the glory of
God.
To that end, apply this word to our
hearts.
And may someone here tonight who is bent
on destruction be rescued.
For Jesus' sake, amen.