September 8, 2025 • 15 mins
In Built to Last: Storm-Proof Faith, Pastor Lonnie draws from Matthew 7:24-29 to show that resilience and the ability to withstand life’s storms come not from intentions or appearances, but from obedience to Jesus Christ. Like the wise and foolish builders who faced the same storm, our lives stand or fall depending on where we build: on the solid rock or shifting sand. Storms are inevitable, but they don’t have to be destructive. When our foundation is in Christ, we can endure with strength, recover with hope, and live with lasting faith that no trial can destroy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Thursday is going to mark the anniversary of the
September eleven.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Terrorist attack on New York and Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Now, for a lot of us, even years later, that
day is burned into our memory. We remember where we were,
who we were with, and how it felt watching those
(00:43):
events unfold. It was later that evening where this church
was just three months old. You talk about being an infant,
get a call from who manages Wisconsin Memorial Park, the
cemetery down on Capital Drive, and I had done some
(01:06):
special services for them in the past, and he said, Lonnie,
we need to have a prayer service.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I know you planted a new church. Can you all
do something.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It was probably one of the first things we did
outside a movie theater. I'll never forget it. And yet,
at the same time, as you think of this anniversary,
when people talk about what defined our country and our
(01:42):
people in the aftermath, there's one word that just keeps
coming up, and that.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Word is resilient.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Resilient, and that word means to spring back, to have
the power.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
To recover.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And it's the idea that when life knocks you down,
you don't stay.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Down, you get up. And I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
But I hope that really does define who we are,
not just as Americans, but as people of the Christian faith.
(02:44):
And the Bible has a whole lot to say about resilience.
In fact, Jesus tells a story is at the conclusion
of his sermon on the Mountain Kelly. He did a
great job of reading it. And this story, if you
think about it.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It's very simple, but it hits hard.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It's about two men, two men who built houses. And
these two guys, they had a lot in common.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
To think about it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
They both heard the same message. They both built a house,
and they both faced storms.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
They faced some storms, but only one house survived.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
At this point, I have to confess something about my childhood.
When I first heard the story in Sunday school, I
got it confused with the three little pigs.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I was a slow learner.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I remember singing in Sunday School and vividly remember as
a kid, there would be this picture of the wise
man's house and that was a that was a house
of stone, and the not so wise man's house was,
you know, it was just tiny stick shack.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And I was waiting to hear about the.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Wolf coming and huffing and puffing and blowing the house down.
And no, I had a little confusion there. But Jesus
here he isn't talking about different kinds of houses stone
or sticks, not at all. He's talking about different foundations
(04:50):
a foundation. One guy builds on rock and the other
builds on sand. And then Jesus says, this so simple,
so practical. If you put my words into practice, if
you put my words into practice, you are building your
(05:15):
life on a rock, very simple. And if you ignore
my words, you're on sandy ground.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It has nothing to do with how prutty the house
is are necessarily how it has built.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Sorry, three pigs.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Sorry, It's about what's underneath, underneath. So here is one reality,
one truth reality about that kind of housing development, and
it's that storms are inevitable.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
They are inevitable. They're there.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And earlier in this sermon on the Mount of Jesus
he referenced and he said, hey, guys, know this, it's
going to rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And when he talked about that.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
He says, everybody's going to get wet in this world.
There's going to be a storm that everyone is going
to go through.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Everyone will get wet.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Nobody is exempt, no one, And have you noticed this?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
We need to be honest. Bad things happen, whether you're
close to God or not. Bad things happen.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
We all face lost, we all face heartache, heartbreak, lay offs.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
War, fear of the future, and we fear that on
a national level.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And we also fear it on a personal level. Storms
they hit.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
But here is the good news in the midst of
the storm, and that is that storms don't.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Have to destroy us. And I believe that's what Jesus
is getting at.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
The wise man and the foolish man, they face the
same storm.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
We're all in this thing together.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Even if you have a prayer quot, does it mean
that you're not gonna have a storm?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Not at all.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But in these houses, the difference wasn't the storm.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It was a foundation that Jesus is getting at. A
lot of us are scared. I've picked that up.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
We're scared about the economy, we're scared about what's happening
in the world, we're scared for our families, and we're
scared about what the future might look like. But Jesus
reminds us that storms may be inevitable, but storms are
(08:35):
not invincible.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
They do not have to be. They are not stronger.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Than the God we share, They are not.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Than the God we serve. So how do you get
the strength to stand?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You might be saying, okay, Lottie, were you coming from?
What's this all about?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
To stand?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
How do we get that strength to stand? When the
storm comes? In a very practical way, And Jesus gets
right to the point very quickly, and he says this,
everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them
into practice, that's the key, putting faith into practice.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Living a pragmatic faith following Jesus.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Now, I'm sorry, there's no partial credit on the scorecard
for good intentions.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
No partial credit.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
We may think, well, my heart goes out to the poor,
my heart goes out to the hurting, my heart goes
out to people who are far from God and they're
on the self destruction course. That may be good, But
(10:13):
Jesus is pushing for a different paradigm. He's saying, do
your hands go out? Does your calendar go out? Does
your wallet go out? How about your energies?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
What you have? Does that go out to make a difference?
You see, resilience can never be.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Built by good intentions going nowhere.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Can't be a storm proof.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Faith is built by faithful actions consistently. So here's the
big question I'd like to leave you with today, and
that is, if you don't build your life on Him,
Jesus Christ, what are you going to build it on?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
A big point of Adaline's baptism today.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Was an intentional decision on how this life is going
to be built. And there's a whole community that has
embraced that and says we are building this thing together.
The family made a wise choice, and that's the choice
before us. All faith in action means choosing.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Again and again.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
To build on Jesus, to keep laying down our trust
in Him as the foundation, okay, the foundation.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Of our lives.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So today here's the challenge.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Don't just admire Jesus's words.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We're going to be digging deeper into what does it
mean to admire Jesus as opposed to following Jesus the
beginning in two weeks and we'll be spending a number
of weeks about the difference between admiring and following from
the pulpit during that time. But to put into practice,
(12:44):
we build the life on the rock and here's why,
Because when, not if the storm comes, and the storms
and storms will come, you will still.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Be standing.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
When you wonder how in the world you could get
through it. It will not tear you down, it will
not knock you out. It will give you the strength
you never imagine you could have, not because.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Of your strength, but because of His.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Amen. Let us spray or Heaveny Father, on this solemn
week of remembrance, we pause.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
To honor those lost in the storms of tragedy.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And to thank you for the strength that you have
given us as a people. We acknowledge Lord that the
storms of life, they are real. They come with pain,
with uncertainty, and with fear. Yet we also confess that
(14:09):
no storm is greater than your power. No when can
topple the life that is built upon the rock of
Jesus Christ. So, Lord, give us courage to obey you
when it's costly, give us the compassion to reach out
(14:31):
when it's inconvenient, and faith to trust you.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
When the future feels uncertain.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
May our nation, our families, and our lives be marked
by resilience, not in our own strength, but in the
unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and as we
go from this place, help us to stand firm, to
(15:06):
live faithfully, and to shine as a testimony to your
sustaining grace.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
May we be builders who choose.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The rock over the sand, and may our lives bring
glory to you in every storm and in every season.
In the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and
our Rock, we pray Amen.
This Thursday is going to mark the anniversary of the
September eleven.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Terrorist attack on New York and Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Now, for a lot of us, even years later, that
day is burned into our memory. We remember where we were,
who we were with, and how it felt watching those
(00:43):
events unfold. It was later that evening where this church
was just three months old. You talk about being an infant,
get a call from who manages Wisconsin Memorial Park, the
cemetery down on Capital Drive, and I had done some
(01:06):
special services for them in the past, and he said, Lonnie,
we need to have a prayer service.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I know you planted a new church. Can you all
do something.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
It was probably one of the first things we did
outside a movie theater. I'll never forget it. And yet,
at the same time, as you think of this anniversary,
when people talk about what defined our country and our
(01:42):
people in the aftermath, there's one word that just keeps
coming up, and that.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Word is resilient.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Resilient, and that word means to spring back, to have
the power.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
To recover.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And it's the idea that when life knocks you down,
you don't stay.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Down, you get up. And I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
But I hope that really does define who we are,
not just as Americans, but as people of the Christian faith.
(02:44):
And the Bible has a whole lot to say about resilience.
In fact, Jesus tells a story is at the conclusion
of his sermon on the Mountain Kelly. He did a
great job of reading it. And this story, if you
think about it.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It's very simple, but it hits hard.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It's about two men, two men who built houses. And
these two guys, they had a lot in common.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
To think about it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
They both heard the same message. They both built a house,
and they both faced storms.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
They faced some storms, but only one house survived.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
At this point, I have to confess something about my childhood.
When I first heard the story in Sunday school, I
got it confused with the three little pigs.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I was a slow learner.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I remember singing in Sunday School and vividly remember as
a kid, there would be this picture of the wise
man's house and that was a that was a house
of stone, and the not so wise man's house was,
you know, it was just tiny stick shack.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And I was waiting to hear about the.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Wolf coming and huffing and puffing and blowing the house down.
And no, I had a little confusion there. But Jesus
here he isn't talking about different kinds of houses stone
or sticks, not at all. He's talking about different foundations
(04:50):
a foundation. One guy builds on rock and the other
builds on sand. And then Jesus says, this so simple,
so practical. If you put my words into practice, if
you put my words into practice, you are building your
(05:15):
life on a rock, very simple. And if you ignore
my words, you're on sandy ground.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It has nothing to do with how prutty the house
is are necessarily how it has built.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Sorry, three pigs.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Sorry, It's about what's underneath, underneath. So here is one reality,
one truth reality about that kind of housing development, and
it's that storms are inevitable.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
They are inevitable. They're there.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And earlier in this sermon on the Mount of Jesus
he referenced and he said, hey, guys, know this, it's
going to rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And when he talked about that.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
He says, everybody's going to get wet in this world.
There's going to be a storm that everyone is going
to go through.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Everyone will get wet.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Nobody is exempt, no one, And have you noticed this?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
We need to be honest. Bad things happen, whether you're
close to God or not. Bad things happen.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
We all face lost, we all face heartache, heartbreak, lay offs.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
War, fear of the future, and we fear that on
a national level.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And we also fear it on a personal level. Storms
they hit.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
But here is the good news in the midst of
the storm, and that is that storms don't.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Have to destroy us. And I believe that's what Jesus
is getting at.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
The wise man and the foolish man, they face the
same storm.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
We're all in this thing together.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Even if you have a prayer quot, does it mean
that you're not gonna have a storm?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Not at all.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But in these houses, the difference wasn't the storm.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It was a foundation that Jesus is getting at. A
lot of us are scared. I've picked that up.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
We're scared about the economy, we're scared about what's happening
in the world, we're scared for our families, and we're
scared about what the future might look like. But Jesus
reminds us that storms may be inevitable, but storms are
(08:35):
not invincible.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
They do not have to be. They are not stronger.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Than the God we share, They are not.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Than the God we serve. So how do you get
the strength to stand?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You might be saying, okay, Lottie, were you coming from?
What's this all about?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
To stand?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
How do we get that strength to stand? When the
storm comes? In a very practical way, And Jesus gets
right to the point very quickly, and he says this,
everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them
into practice, that's the key, putting faith into practice.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Living a pragmatic faith following Jesus.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Now, I'm sorry, there's no partial credit on the scorecard
for good intentions.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
No partial credit.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
We may think, well, my heart goes out to the poor,
my heart goes out to the hurting, my heart goes
out to people who are far from God and they're
on the self destruction course. That may be good, But
(10:13):
Jesus is pushing for a different paradigm. He's saying, do
your hands go out? Does your calendar go out? Does
your wallet go out? How about your energies?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
What you have? Does that go out to make a difference?
You see, resilience can never be.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Built by good intentions going nowhere.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Can't be a storm proof.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Faith is built by faithful actions consistently. So here's the
big question I'd like to leave you with today, and
that is, if you don't build your life on Him,
Jesus Christ, what are you going to build it on?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
A big point of Adaline's baptism today.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Was an intentional decision on how this life is going
to be built. And there's a whole community that has
embraced that and says we are building this thing together.
The family made a wise choice, and that's the choice
before us. All faith in action means choosing.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Again and again.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
To build on Jesus, to keep laying down our trust
in Him as the foundation, okay, the foundation.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Of our lives.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So today here's the challenge.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Don't just admire Jesus's words.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We're going to be digging deeper into what does it
mean to admire Jesus as opposed to following Jesus the
beginning in two weeks and we'll be spending a number
of weeks about the difference between admiring and following from
the pulpit during that time. But to put into practice,
(12:44):
we build the life on the rock and here's why,
Because when, not if the storm comes, and the storms
and storms will come, you will still.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Be standing.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
When you wonder how in the world you could get
through it. It will not tear you down, it will
not knock you out. It will give you the strength
you never imagine you could have, not because.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Of your strength, but because of His.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Amen. Let us spray or Heaveny Father, on this solemn
week of remembrance, we pause.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
To honor those lost in the storms of tragedy.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And to thank you for the strength that you have
given us as a people. We acknowledge Lord that the
storms of life, they are real. They come with pain,
with uncertainty, and with fear. Yet we also confess that
(14:09):
no storm is greater than your power. No when can
topple the life that is built upon the rock of
Jesus Christ. So, Lord, give us courage to obey you
when it's costly, give us the compassion to reach out
(14:31):
when it's inconvenient, and faith to trust you.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
When the future feels uncertain.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
May our nation, our families, and our lives be marked
by resilience, not in our own strength, but in the
unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and as we
go from this place, help us to stand firm, to
(15:06):
live faithfully, and to shine as a testimony to your
sustaining grace.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
May we be builders who choose.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
The rock over the sand, and may our lives bring
glory to you in every storm and in every season.
In the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and
our Rock, we pray Amen.
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