Pastor Kent Christmas | Building On The Rock | February 21, 2024

We’re watching KC MIT if you’re hungry for the power and presence of god, get ready for the Freshfire Conference presented by pastor’s Kent and Candy Christmas, April 11 through 14th with special guest, Jensen Franklin.
Samuel Rodriguez.
Tony Suarez, Doctor Hans Hess, and pastor Kent Christmas.
For more information, go to www.regenerationnashville.org.
Well, I’m so glad you’ve joined me today.
And, uh, we wanna take our thought from the book of Luke chapter 6 And, uh, I’m just gonna read all three verses, and then we’ll break it down.
Verse 47 of Luke 6.
It says whosoever cometh to me inherit my saints or my teachings and do with them.
I will show you to whom he is like.
He is like a man which built a house and he dig deep.
And he laid the foundation on a rock.
And when the flood arose and the stream beat vehemently, upon that house, it could not shake it for it was founded upon a rock.
But he that heareth and do it not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the stream did beat vehemently.
And immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.
So, um, when Jesus is this particular, uh, portion of scripture is the ending the sermon on the mount.
And so the sermon on the mount are so much of the wisdom that Jesus was released, and it was the sayings of the lord.
So I I wanna talk to you about, um, building your house on the rock and building your house upon the saying, um, in I think it’s in Hebrews chapter 3 in verse 6, it says that you and I or the house of Christ One scripture talks about where the temple of the Holy Ghost.
But in this verse, it says you and I are the house of Christ with the house of Jesus.
And and One verse, it says this Psalms 127 and 1, it says, except the lord build the house.
They, that labor in vain, they labor in vain that build it.
And so You and I are not our own.
We’ve been involved with a price, and we are the house of Christ.
And accept the lord build that house, then whatever’s built is built in vain.
And so you want Jesus to be the one that is putting you together that’s constructing you.
And so He ends the sermon on the mount with this particular parable, and he uses a wise man and a foolish man This really came up my spirit because if you are not careful, The enemy can really mess with you when you see lukewarm people and wicked people who don’t base their life on the principles of Christ, and that includes a lot of sacrifice.
It includes a lot of denying of yourself. It means sometimes going for years, I did.
You go without and you watch the wicked prosper. And in David, he he’s he struggled with this.
And he said, Lauren, he said, I never really got an understanding and a piece over this issue of my life.
He said until I went into the sanctuary, and then I understood.
And so, uh, Jesus spoke about he spoke this about you and me.
He said, one of the ways that you will know that I have built the house or that an individual is the house of Christ.
He said, my house shall be called a house, hallelujah prayer.
And I can tell you this. It is impossible.
I don’t care what anybody says, what the teachings are out there. It is impossible.
To live victorious for Jesus Christ without prayer.
That’s why the heart is staying for a Christian to do.
It’s harder than fasting It’s harder than reading the Bible. It’s harder than going to church. It’s harder than tithing.
There is nothing that is more difficult for an individual to do than to pray because the enemy recognizes that of all of the things that you and I do in our life.
There is nothing that has greater effect in tearing down his kingdom and building you strong than the spirit of prayer.
And so I wanna go back and just kinda, look at what the scripture’s saying.
First of all, he said, whoever hears my sayings and does them.
You know, the Bible talks about it.
He said there’s people that, uh, they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
And, um, you can’t be a Christian and not obey the the concepts and the precepts of the lord.
So he said, whoever hears what I’m saying and does them.
He said, this is he and Jesus said, this is what I think he’s like.
He said, he’s like a man. Who built a house.
It’s funny because the lord kinda, uh, flip flops is here because you can’t build a house first and then foundation.
But he said he’s like a man.
He built a house, but he said The first thing that he did was he dug deep.
He was looking for something He was looking for bedrock.
And if you know anything about geology, uh, sometimes, uh, you have to go down several feet before you ever find rock.
And it it means then you’re gonna have to spend some labor and some expense and some time because, uh, I know up in Alaska, they have something called permafrost.
And, uh, it’s ground that thaws and freezes and thaws freezes.
And they can’t build a foundation on that because when it thaws, then everything begins to teeter and totter And, uh, they have to find out a find a different way to get a foundation.
And the lord said, this wise men He dug deep till he found rock, and then he laid his foundation on a rock.
Now I’m
gonna go back to verse 49, and then he says, but he that heareth and doeth not There’s a lot of people today.
They they hear what god’s saying, but they don’t do it. He said, this is what this individual is like.
He’s like a man. That didn’t have a foundation, but he built a house upon the earth.
One of the most difficult parts of a building a house is laying the foundation.
It’s the most critical part of building the house.
Uh, when when I when I read this story, The issue here is not the house, not for the wise men or the foolish men.
It’s very possible that both of the houses look the same.
They might have had the same design, the same square footage, the same, uh, look to them.
God said it wasn’t the house itself that was problem.
He said it was what the house was built on.
Pastor Kent will be right back after this message.
Uh.
Hard for you.
For more information or to donate to Destination Miracle, go to regeneration nashville.org.
So out of your abundance and make a difference today.
We live in an hour where it’s very difficult just from a glance to tell the difference between the counterfeit church and the real church.
Uh, there are there are many, many churches that that never I was just recently listening to a man talk about a mega church that he went to.
And he said, I’ve been here over 20 years, and we’ve never done a call call.
And he said, I’ve never seen anybody give their heart to Christ in a service.
Well, I’m sorry, but the church is about birthing souls.
And but there are so many secret friendly churches. They sing the listen.
They sing the same praise and worship songs that churches that are really hunger for god’s sake.
They might have the same format to a degree.
They’re using the same Bible but the lord said one of them doesn’t have foundation because they did not tie take time to go deep And so he said, the wise man, Doug Deep, and It just it just you can’t you can’t build a house on a foundation and have depth quickly.
And this is why god, many times, has has taken so many of you a process of time.
Boy, he did with me. I mean, um, you know, 47 years in ministry far.
I ever saw god open the heavens over my ministry.
And I think many of you can say pastor, I’ve just You know, it’s been 20 years, 25 years.
I’ve sought god. I’ve prayed, but what you don’t realize is that the entire time you’ve been you’ve been digging deep.
Oh, yeah. Till you can find the rock of ages.
And you’ve learned by the digging deep that you’ve got a hold of bedrock in Christ, and you have built yourself on the lord.
And so, digging deep produces roots.
And this is why so many trees in the south where I live.
There are so many pine trees.
And every once in a while, we’ll have a storm come through, and you can drive down the freeway.
You’ll see pine trees laying everywhere. And the reason being is because that species of tree doesn’t have deep roots.
And they they do great.
They’re to look at in the summertime and when it’s the weather’s great, but they cannot endure a storm.
This is why so many Christians when they encounter adversity.
When the flood comes, they just fold because they’ve not taken time in their life to dig deep.
This is why you can’t give up going to church and you can’t give up your prayer life and you can’t give up reading the word of the lord and you can’t stop living by faith just because what you declare does not happen.
But every time you make the decision, I’m gonna stay on the rock. You’re digging deeper in the lord.
So the the the counter side of this is the Bible says, then the foolish man, he built a house too.
But the key was he wanted it immediately.
He didn’t wanna take the time to dig deep.
Um, you know, our our Everybody wants it all right now.
And, you know, we live in a generation now where our children want everything.
It took their parents 30 years to accumulate. It’s the same thing in the lord.
Um, you cannot walk in the fullness of god overnight.
It takes time, and this foolish man uh, he wanted the house.
He he wanted to get in it and relax and be comfortable and sit on the front porch and drink a cold drink and And, um, I when you read this, you know, from the way it sounds, uh, the foolish man finished his house quickly.
And across the street, you’ve got the wise man, and he’s he’s living in a tent because he’s still dealing with building the foundation.
Never let the side of where you are dominate your thought process that you’re not successful in God.
I always prayed. I always fast. I always saw god.
I gave it my best when I only pastured forty people.
And now that god is blessed and open newness of heaven, it doesn’t live me because my foundation is in Christ.
There are many of you that you wonder, lord, am I failure?
You’re not anybody that’s taking time to dig deep it’s gonna be a payoff.
And the wise man, you know, he it took him a long time.
And so nowhere does it say here that when the foolish man finished his house, the storm came.
It never came. He’s living in sunshine. Why?
Because if the storm would have come then before the wise man finished his house, He would have perished.
Same thing with Noah. God let Noah’s generation just live in blatant sin but the day that Noah finished the arc 7 days later, it began to rain.
And One day, the wise man has put in his last window.
He’s hung his last door. Uh, he’s It’s weather tight, and it’s finished.
And then the Bible says this, that a flood arose.
Floods don’t happen over time. They’re almost immediate.
It’s just when all of a sudden, it’s an unusual amount of rain begins to come and the channels that hold the water can’t hold him anymore, and it just begins to flood.
The Bible said that when the wise man finished his house, that the floods came and they began to beat vehemently.
This literally means it’s like a tsunami.
And, uh, I wanna stop here and say this that judgment and blessing can happen overnight.
You can go for years, and there seems to be no payoff either way.
You see the wicked prosper and you see the righteous suffer.
But I’m telling you, and I’ve seen this in my own life that judgment and and blessing can happen overnight.
There are suddenlies in god.
Bible talks about, um, you know, that we carry along, but when he comes, he will come speedily.
There are God operates. It it will seem like god isn’t doing anything and all of a sudden, he will operate speedily.
We are in a season where we’re getting ready to see god, Lucy flood.
One of it is gonna be a flood of blessing on the righteous and the other gonna be a flood of judgment on the wicked.
And both of these houses are being hit at the same time with the same flood.
This is what it says about the wise man’s house.
The flood beat violently on that house.
And it could not it couldn’t shake it for it was founded upon a rock.
The judgment that’s getting ready to hit the earth and hit the wicked for those of you that have chosen to build your life on Christ and it might have been he’s might have gone decades and not really seen what you wanted to see.
God’s saying, hold on. Because there’s a suddenly a blessing coming upon you.
The same flood that couldn’t shake the wise man’s house, the Bible said that it hit the foolish man’s house, and then it says this immediately, it fell.
Um, I’m just telling you by the spirit that we’re coming into a season of immediately.
Immediately, the heavens are gonna be open over god people. And the blessings are gonna be so much.
There’s not room enough to contain it.
Immediately, the judgment of god is gonna come and it’s gonna fall on the wicked.
And the Bible said, great. Was the fall there, of the foolish men’s house.
I think that Number 1, when you read this, this wasn’t god that brought this flood because if you go back to Genesis The lord, I think it’s in Genesis chapter 9 in verse 11.
God told Noy, he said, I will never send a flood again.
So this flood that’s coming, it was it it came from the enemy.
And it came to destroy the wise man’s house.
And all it got was the foolish man’s house.
There is I believe that god is gonna take some of the things that the devil, remember the scriptures of what the enemy is intended for evil, God will turn it to good.
I believe, boy, I feel this in the spirit that god is gonna take some, uh, things that the enemy is gonna try to do, and he’s gonna flip flop it.
And what the devil thought was gonna destroy God’s people is gonna become a blessing.
And so don’t Be discouraged in how long it takes for you to build your house on a rock because you could mark it down when the flood came and hit the wise man’s house, and he’s sitting on the inside.
And he’s watching this, he thinks.
Oh, I’m so glad that I took the time to dig deep because my house won’t be moved.
And the foolish man, I’m sure, great sorrow came on him because he thought he realized I should have taken the time.
To build my life on Christ. Do what god says.
He who likens or builds his house on a rock as like the man that hears my saints and does them.
So I wanna encourage you Don’t be moved by how the delays and how long it takes.
You’re getting ready to see us suddenly come on people have got. God bless you.
I hope this has helped you today. I’ll see you next week.
For more information about Kent Christmas Ministry International or regeneration Nashville, go to Kent Christmas.org, or regeneration nashville.org.
My dad, I lost my dad when I was twelve years old at Christmas time, but, uh, I can still hear my dad probably.
And as a very young man, I made a commitment to the lord to pray an hour a day.
And before I went through that process, and being alone in divorce, you know, I wasn’t an easy man.
I don’t think I had a lot of compassion. I had a quick temper where god needed me to go.
That person couldn’t go there. So he had to take me through this horrible breaking.
So I wound that, uh, homeless.
I slept my car.
So, um, I remember I looked up, I was standing in front of Starlight Nightclub there, and the enemy just said, why don’t you just go in and get drunk and throw in the towel?
And I, I stood there that night and I looked through the heavens.
I said, Lord, I said, you didn’t do this to me.
And I won’t leave you.
I’ll say that when you could come out of these valleys, intact, but change then you feel the pain of other people.
When she act it kind of showed some maybe interest, you know, I mean, I thought, wow, you know, when we did get married, uh, I still wasn’t preaching.
I was just piped it. The first time I ever ministered again was the first time the prophetic error came on me.
It’s like something just comes on you. I begin to hear the Lord.
You know, it’s kinda like when you’re you got an earbud and you and hear somebody speaking into your ear while you’re speaking.
I begin to prophesy. I didn’t know what it was and never done it.
And it just it just rolled out of me.
I thought that after 20 years or 30 years, that I would see fruit in our ministry, and I knew that for us to reach the world.
We have to have people that are on fire for God.
I don’t have to pursue the things of my dreams because he just makes them happen because I couldn’t first.
The success that that I see in life now that I only God did.