Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: Let me tell you something, if you're not building on the rock, when you go down, you're going down hard. You say, "Well, you're being mean." No, I'm not. It's reality. Look around. Look at the people you know. Look at anybody anywhere. When people go down because they build on sand, they go down hard and it is very hard to deal with.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. We're so grateful you tuned into the program. Richard wants to share with you some encouragement, words of hope, and probably a laugh or two. In today's complicated, busy life, that's exactly what's needed.

Richard's talks are always straight from the Bible, filled with truth. Now, you may not be able to hang out with us for the entire program, but you can always pick it back up at our website, richardellis.com. In fact, you can find all of Richard's talks right there waiting just for you, richardellis.com. So, with today's talk, here's Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "The Sham Rock." Obviously, St. Patrick's Day comes along. Unfortunately, St. Patrick's Day has just turned into a drunk-fest for a lot of people. But if you go back and read about this guy St. Patrick, he lived a long time ago. This goes back to the 400s AD.

Little is known about his life. He was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century to a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church. At the age of 16, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave at 16.

If you read on about him, he somehow escaped, saw a vision, got back to Britain, and then decided that he wanted to go back to Ireland, study to be a priest in the Christian church, and went back to Ireland to evangelize it. About 30 years he was there doing that, and he died on March 17th of 461.

One of the things that he used supposedly to share his faith was the shamrock, a three-leaf clover. He would use this little piece of vegetation to explain the Trinity to try to help them understand God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. There were three, but yet they were in one thing. That was one of his tools.

Let me read you just to give you an idea of where this guy was coming from a few quotes from him. Listen to this: "What is more, lest anyone laugh and taunt if he so wishes, I am not keeping silent nor am I hiding the signs and wonders that were shown to me by the Lord many years before they happened, He who knew everything even before the beginning of time."

He also said, "Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me." Not a bad way to view it. Everywhere, completely surrounded from the inside out by Christ. He said, "Before I was humiliated, I was like a stone that lies in deep mud and He who is mighty came in and in His compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall."

The last one: "That which I have set out in Latin is not my words but the words of God and the apostles and prophets who of course have never lied. He who believes shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned. God has spoken." So this guy was cut to the chase and he took this to the Irish people.

The shamrock is really going to be two words, and I'm going to talk to you today about "the sham rock." Let me read you a definition for what a sham is: "something that is not what it purports to be, a spurious imitation, fraud, or hoax." Or it could also be "a cover or the like for giving a thing a different outward appearance." You may have a pillow sham and the intent of even that, the reason we call it a sham, the intent is to give it a different outward appearance.

Now earlier in the service, I walked through the building and I meet people and say hello. Everybody's dressed differently, looks differently, comes from different places. But is what I met and what I see right now, is what people see you as and know you as, is it really all just a sham? Is it just a hoax, an imitation? Are you really just a fraud?

Is everything that you are supposedly supposed to be building your life on—you say, "Well, this is what I'm about"—is it really just a sham rock that you are building your life on? Somehow you have come up with some little plan. Because of your culture, your family, your education, your surroundings, your friends, all this together, you've concocted this thing that you say, "Well, this is what it's all about."

Because you look good, or because you've got a great job, or because you've got a little money, or because you're smarter than other people, or whatever it is you think is your deal, that's what you're building. You literally are building your life on that slab, on that rock. And the test of time, even eternity, you say it's going to survive no matter what.

Most people that I talk to are hanging on by a thread. I meet even sophisticated, intelligent, high-powered people who have climbed the ladder and they've got everything. If you sit with them long enough, you start to see cracks in the slab and they have insecurities like everybody else. They have questions like everybody else. Unless you're a complete fool, you have to at some point think about what happens when you die.

And if there is a God—you say, "Well, I don't believe there's a God." I hope that works out for you because if there turns out to be a God and you actually have to face Him, then whatever you have built your life on better line up with what He says you should have built your life on. A guy like Saint Patrick, even, who's wealthy, gets kidnapped.

Why would you ever go back to a place that you were kidnapped and taken to and made a slave? What compels someone to go back there and spend 30 years evangelizing, literally trying to change that country? Something has to get a hold of you in order to propel you to do something differently like that.

So here's what I'm after: is the rock that you are building your entire life on really just a sham? If we could fast forward 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, are you going to get to the end and look down and go, "I have absolutely nothing to show for the only life I have"? You say, "Well, no, I'll have something." Okay, what are you going to have? "Oh, I'll have money." Okay, great. Are you going to take that with you? No, you're going to leave that to a bunch of kids who didn't make it and they're going to waste it.

You say, "Well, no, I'll be educated and I'll do amazing things for the world." You know what? I say, "Okay, great. You're going to do, let's say you're a doctor, you're an educator." You're going to do amazing things for the world, but what if this is what happened? What if you literally changed the world, found the cure for cancer, and you were all that?

Then you died and faced your Creator and He said, "You've got nothing." You go, "What do you mean I've got nothing? I cured cancer!" He said, "But you didn't cure you. You didn't cure you, and I am the only cure for you." Now what are you going to do? You say, "Well, isn't that going to count for something? I gave money to charity, I cured this, I did that."

Let me tell you something, if all that could add up to fixing it, Jesus would never have come. We don't need Jesus down here. I don't need Him coming down here. I don't need Him living this life down here. I don't need Him dying on a cross, being buried, raised from the dead. I don't need Him going through all that. I can handle it, Jesus. You stay there; we've got this covered.

But that may be the sham that you're building your whole life on: "I've got this, God. You stay there; we've got this." The reason Jesus came is we don't have this. No matter what you do, no matter how nice you are, how good you are, how moral you are, ethical you are, it will not add up to enough to fix your problem because the only person that could fix the problem is Jesus. That's just the way it is.

You say, "But what about all the other religions?" Let me tell you something, I'm not banking my eternity on some religion. I am banking my eternity on a payment made by God Himself. Every world religion is man's attempt to get to God. Christianity is the only religion that even claims that God came down here, paid a price, fixed it for us, made it available. If you're in, take it; if you're not, you can pass. Then He left and all we've got to do is get in on the deal.

Now let's jump in here into some scripture in Matthew chapter 7. Why am I going to read you the scriptures? Because these are His words, and I'm going to tell you something worth building your life on. Matthew chapter 7, verse 21. This is Jesus talking. He says to them, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' calling out, 'Oh Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."

"Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you.'" You better make sure you're not just claiming to know God. You better make sure God knows you. This isn't about—you say, "Well, I know things about God." I know things about Justin Bieber, but I don't know Justin Bieber.

He says, "I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." Therefore, this is the point of this little story: "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on what? The rock. The real rock, not the shamrock, the real rock."

"But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand." Are you building your house on the sand? No fool would go buy beachfront property or say, "You know what? I don't have to buy any property; I'm just going to go build in the ocean," and then you wonder why your house is gone in about a week. It's because the waves just beat on that thing; it doesn't have any foundation.

"So everyone who hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall." Let me tell you something, if you're not building on the rock, when you go down, you're going down hard. You say, "Well, you're being mean." No, I'm not. It's reality.

Look around. Look at the people you know. Look at the politicians, anybody anywhere. When people go down because they build on sand, they go down hard and it is very hard to deal with. These are the people I end up talking to that come in and go, "I'm dying here. I want to die. I can't take this anymore. I've made very bad decisions and my whole world is collapsing on me." You say, "No, I'm having fun."

One of my girls just finished spring break down in Alabama, the other one just started spring break down in Florida. I texted the one that's down there in Florida at two in the morning and I said, "How's it going?" She said, "It's nice to be able to help people." She says there are people out on the beach, drunk girls out on the beach, and they're trying to help some of them. You say, "No, she was really drunk and had a friend text that."

You know what people say? "Don't you worry about your girls going to Florida for spring break?" You know what? I kind of know my girls. If I don't know my girls, I'd be worried about that. It's a big old bad world out there. Forget spring break; they're going to go to work one day. That's hard enough. Reality is hard and doing it your way is going to get harder because it does not work.

I didn't even know this was going to be a part of this, but here we go. Let me tell you what's going on in the world. My daughter told me this story just two days ago. One night she and her roommate were hungry at three in the morning and they went over to a pizza place to get a pizza. There were a bunch of boys, one of whom she knew, gathered through the glass in this pizza place in a waiting area.

My daughter's over there in her sweats, they ordered a pizza and were leaving, and one of the boys comes out and walks up to my middle daughter who is a beautiful girl inside and out, and they had been drinking. He came out and he said, "Hey, the five of us were wondering, we all agreed we'll give you 50 bucks apiece if you'll come back to our apartment with us." Short of clawing their eyes out, she got up in their business.

One of the boys that she knew, who knew better, apologized. You say, "Well, but what if she had said yes? They'd have had fun." Let me tell you something, if you're screwing around for cash, you are already down. That's the kind of world we live in. That's where you've got to make this work because people who live those lives and go that way, when that thing unravels and they show up with some STD or they show up pregnant and then they add an abortion to a pregnancy and then it all starts to just cave in on them.

And doing a little drinking a few beers turns into smoking a little weed that turns into doing a few lines that turns into shooting up a little heroin that turns into getting a DWI or DUI, all of a sudden we're not having fun anymore, are we? You end up in some jail cell going, "Jesus, help me." You know what? I am imploring you to cry out, "Jesus, help me," right now before you get there. Get His help now.

One more: Matthew chapter 16. Let me try to explain this one more time. People say, "Why do you get all wound up? Why do you get all loud? Why do you cry? Why do you do that?" Because whether in this room or somewhere somebody gets handed a CD or downloads a podcast or listens on the radio, whatever it is, they have got to understand that someone, if it's not just one voice crying in the wilderness, someone believes this stuff and that it works.

You say, "Well, dude, you're crazy. You're just some messed up, deranged religious guy." Maybe so, but I will not have your or their blood on my hands. One day I will give an account for whether I did what I was supposed to do. Right now, what I'm supposed to do is try to make this simple enough that your life and eternity could be changed if you just made an exchange.

Matthew 16, verse 13. When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Do you believe that? Is that who He is? I'm not talking about intellectually; I'm talking about, do you get that personally? Because if you do, look what He says here. Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Now listen closely.

If you are here or beyond here and you hear this message, if anything goes off in your brain and in your heart and something inside of you says, "I believe He is the Christ, the Messiah, the chosen one, the anointed one, the Son of the living God, that He is God's literally God's Son, He is the one that the whole world has waited for," if you believe that, you cannot arrive at that belief by yourself.

Only God can reveal that to you. So let me tell you something. If you hear His voice, if something inside of you stirs and you say, "Wow, that's crazy, I actually believe that," do not walk away from that. You say, "Well, God never talks to me." He is talking to you right now because you cannot grasp that by yourself. The faith to believe that even comes from Him.

So you have been visited by the most high God right now. He has opened your eyes, He has opened your ears, He has opened your heart, He has let you receive truth. You cannot take that lightly. "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. And I say also that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church." Now there's a whole another sermon about this that some people would say is a whole another shamrock, that Jesus somehow was saying it was Peter and the Bishop of Rome and all this.

I'm not attacking anything; I'm not trying to do that today. That's not my intent. What He says here to him is this: "On this rock I will build My church." He says, "You are Peter. On this rock I will build My church." What is the rock? I'll read you some verses in a minute. Jesus is the rock. The rock is what Peter just said: that "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

That's what you build your life on. It's Him that you build your life on. I'm not building my life on Peter; I'm building my life on Jesus. "And on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and raised the third day. That is what He came to do primarily.

Then Peter—now if it's all about Peter, watch this—he's just said some amazing things, Peter speaks up for the group: "We know that You're the Christ, the Son of the living God." Just a few sentences later here, "Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'Far be it from You, Lord, this shall not happen to You. Stop this nonsense of going to Jerusalem and suffering; we will not tolerate that.'"

Then look what He says to him. He's given him the keys one minute, then He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan." How can you go from getting the keys one second to being referred to as Satan the next? "You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me"—you want to follow Jesus? This is what it's going to look like.

This is what even a guy like Saint Patrick figured out. You go, "What is he, crazy? He's going to go over there, get killed, kidnapped again." Look what He said. This is what Jesus said: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself." And that's where I get lost right there. Forget whatever else it says. I don't want to deny me. And most people that I know now more than ever are just doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it.

Last night, I'm going through all this, working all this, and I get frustrated, I'm praying, I'm struggling. I go, "I know what'll fix it. I'll eat a bag of chips. That'll fix it." That ain't going to fix anything. My flesh says, "Oh no, it's a spiritual question, but let's put some food on it just to be sure." And then a bowl of cereal. Of course that's a staple, so you can eat that.

You say, "I'm all this and that." You know what? Everybody's sneaking around feeding the flesh somewhere. Why? Because the flesh is, "You know what, dude? You've been doing good for a while. We need to celebrate a little bit. We need to take care of me a little bit, right? Let's do a little something-something for me." And you go, "That's right! What about me? I don't want to deny me; I want to do what me wants to do."

And that's where you're getting in trouble. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross." The cross represents death. You say, "Well, I don't want to die. I don't want to be gone." "To take up his cross and follow Me." Let me tell you something, if you hold on to your life, you are going to lose it.

Look at the next sentence: "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." You say, "Well, if I die to me and give up me, then I'll lose me and I won't have a life." If you hold on to you to the day you die, you're going to lose the only shot at life you get. You're so busy, I'm so busy, trying to keep me happy and comfortable and where I want to be doing what I want to do.

It's all about me. Jesus says, "You know what? It isn't about you anymore. I own you, if you're a Christian." And this is so hard to tell people. Maybe this'll help. You've got kids maybe. You've got kids, you've been a kid, that's kind of everybody. If you've got kids, you go, "Gosh, if these kids would just obey me, life would be so much simpler." What does that mean? "Oh, if you had obeyed me, then I'm really going to drop the hammer on you!"

That's stupid, that's crazy. What parent thinks that? "Oh, I'm going to punish these children for obeying so much!" You don't do that. Why do you think God's going to do that? What do you do with kids when they obey? You go, "Wow, this is a dream! What do you kids want to do for spring break? Where can we go?" You want to bless them, right? Because they get it.

And you're not having to drop the hammer all the time. So God comes along and says, "Look, just trust Me. If you try to hold on to your life, you're going to lose it. If you abandon it, lose it for My sake, I'll help you find it." You say, "What if there's suffering involved?" You're going to suffer anyway. You are suffering or you wouldn't be listening to me.

And then the next one: "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" What is the sham rock that you are building on that you have basically said, "Okay, here's the deal, I will trade my entire life to keep this"? What is it? Some career, some number?

People actually have numbers, did you know this? Business people I talk to, they've got a number. What's your number? You ask some guy who's trying to get rich. What's your number? Sometimes they'll tell you, sometimes they won't. "Five million." A guy'll tell you his number is five million. "I hit five million, I'm set. But until then, it's my life." Do they say this out loud? No, they just live this way.

You can watch them. The kids get screwed up. Talked to a billionaire's son-in-law the other day who told me that the billionaire's daughter—not once, he said—she told me that not once in her life did her dad ever ask her about anything she was doing. And we prop these people up and go, "Oh, billionaire, millionaire, that's the ticket!" Follow them around for a little bit and see if that is the ticket.

Now you say, "Well, does that all those rich people?" I'm not saying that. But if that's what you're going to build your whole life on, having money, getting money, I'm going to tell you something, it ain't going to work out because you take none of that with you. You say, "Ah, but I'm going to do good things with that money."

And now you think that's what's going to get you before God. "Oh, but God, look at my ledger." He says, "You know what? That ledger don't work up here. I want to see the ledger where My blood's written over your name. Show Me that."

Guest (Male): Before Richard comes back to wrap things up for us today, I'd like to share a couple of important things with you. Let me encourage you to take a minute and check out our website, richardellis.com. You'll find today's talk right there in the talks page along with all of Richard's audio and video messages. You can even forward them to a friend so they can hear them too.

You'll also find the Prayer Wall to add your prayer requests, a link so you can connect with us, the contribute page for you to be able to give to this ministry, all of our social media links, and much more. So check it out, richardellis.com. And Richard's back now to wrap up today's talk.

Richard Ellis: All right, one more. First Corinthians chapter 3. Part of the reason I'm going to read one more verse is this: I know some of you I will never see again because you go, "Dude, I don't need this. I'm here one time; I'll never be back." So I'm going to read you one more verse because this may be the last verse you hear for about 20 years. But try to remember the verses because when the storm hits, you're going to need Him.

First Corinthians chapter 3. And just for the sake of time, this is Paul writing, and let's jump in at verse 10. He says, "According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it." And look at verse 11: "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is what? Jesus Christ."

You say, "Well, I got another slab." I pray that works out for you. Then he goes on to say, "Now if anyone builds on this foundation"—so you say, "Okay, I'm a Christian, I'm building on this foundation of Jesus Christ"—"if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is.

If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." I don't want my whole life, even if I say I'm building on the slab, I don't want to build with wood, hay, stubble and the fire hit it and it be gone. How about gold, precious stones, something that'll last?

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