GROVE WOMEN LIVE // Summer Song Vol. 3 // Week 6

Good morning, everybody.

It is Tuesday, July 14th, middle of July.

I was just um reflecting and thinking about the last time I was live with everyone.

I was commenting how it was the beginning of July.

And here it is, the middle of July.

And the next time out that we'll be together and I will be sharing what's on my heart, we'll be um just about getting ready to go back to school for those of um for those of you that have students in school or you're a teacher and you're going back to school.

So the summer is just flying by.

I heard something uh or read it recently where the comment was made.

I can't remember the exact wording, but the comment was made that you know they wish that June and July would go as slow as January does.

And and I think we all um can can say the same thing that we wish the summers would just slow down.

It's just um just to be able to be out here this morning, just before the heat sets in and the humidity sets in.

Just um just a beautiful morning for us just to be together.

So today we're going, it is week six, we're gonna look at the solid rock.

And before we um dive into that, let's open up in a word of prayer, and then we're going to look at the song, look at a scripture, and then I'll just share with you um just what this song has just meant to me, just as I look at the words and look at the truths that are within the song.

Dear God, we just um are so blessed to be together again, and we just um praise you for the God that you are, that you do give us a firm foundation.

And dear God, as we look at the words of this song, as we look at scripture, um, I just pray that um that each woman listening now, listening later, that you would just give them the nud, just give them just a tug as to what direction they're to go, what next steps they're to take, what changes they're to take, and just be an encouragement to them.

Um, we just praise you for who you are, and we love you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, so I want us to start with actually looking at the chorus.

And we're gonna look at the chorus, talk about that for a little bit, look at scripture, and then we'll go back and pull some phrases out of the song, and then most of our time we're actually going to be spent on a particular word in the first verse.

So the chorus says, On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.

So right there we see two types of surfaces.

We see a comparison, we see a rock and we see sand.

And any of us who have walked on rock, have walked on sand, you see the difference between the two.

And a scripture that this most likely came from is in Matthew 7.

And this is the very end of what we know as the Sermon on the Mount, and that would be Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And this is at the very end of chapter 7.

And I'm gonna start in verse 24 and read through verse 27.

So verse 24 says, Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

So, right there we have the rock.

Though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against the house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock.

But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish.

Like a person who builds a house on sand.

When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against the house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

So there's a couple of things that just stand out to me.

First of all, the wise man and the foolish man, or the wise person, the foolish person, or wise woman and foolish woman, they all heard the teachings.

They all heard, but yet it's what they did with that.

And they all actually built.

And to me, that just shows that we all are building our lives on something.

It um could be rock, like a firm foundation, Jesus, or it could be sand.

And and we'll get into this a little bit later.

But everyone, we all build our lives on something.

So what are we building our lives on?

Is it the rock or is it the sand?

And when I think about just this concept of building on rock versus building on sand, if you live in the northern Kentucky, Greater Cincinnati area, you know that we are preparing to have a new bridge built across the Ohio River.

Um, they're already starting, you know, preparation for that, just you know, with the exits on the expressway, just getting ready for that project to begin.

In the meantime, a new bridge is being built between the cities of Newport and Covington.

And I read just a couple weeks ago just where they are on that process, because obviously that bridge is not um as large, it's not going to carry the traffic that the one over the Ohio River will.

But they are at the point where they are putting in the supports that will carry the weight of the cars, the weight of the bridge.

And I read something a couple weeks ago where they were talking about how they have to, how far down they have to drill to be able to hit the bedrock to put these supports on, because these supports are gonna, they're gonna carry the weight of everything up above.

And just reading this, I know what we read in Matthew talks about when the storms come, but I think, and we all have those times in life, we all have seasons in life where we deal with storms, but ladies, I think every single day, if we really think about it, we think about just the weight that we carry, just the weight of the world, just being an adult, just living life, has a certain amount of weight to it.

And when I go across that bridge, whether it be the bridge over the Ohio River or the one over the Licking River between Newport and Covington, I want that support to be in the bedrock.

I don't want it to be in the sand.

I don't want them to think, oh, we can just go down a couple feet and through the sand of the river and and all the muck that's down there, and that's going to be secure because it's not.

It's not gonna be able to hold that weight.

And as um as as women and this weight that we, you know, that's so easy for us to carry and so easy for us to feel, we need our support in rock.

And so I was just thinking, um, just people, myself included, but people that I have regular contact with on a weekly basis.

So this is not anything that I'm getting from social media or you know the news.

These are people that I have face-to-face contact with.

And I started thinking about some of the weight that myself or my friends carry, just and and it's heavy.

And I know there's just so much more I could add to this list.

So just some things that I listed down, and and I know you all probably can relate to this, and just think about the weight that you carry.

Um, cancer, divorce, addiction, loss of a job.

Um, recently a friend has a child who was diagnosed with a medical issue, and it totally is changing his career path.

And that that's a huge weight to carry.

Aging parents, maybe decisions that your adult children are making that you're like, uh, don't know if that's the best thing.

Job security, and we can just add on and on to that, but this is the weight that seems to be on our shoulders all the time.

So we want that support of a solid rock.

We don't want our support to be like the foolish person who built their house up on the sand.

So just something to think about in terms, yes, this talks about a storm in Matthew, but I also think about just the weight of the world and that weight that we um contend to carry all the time with us just because life happens, and and this is all just part of life and part of the world that we live in.

So when I look at the song, I'm going to look at each of the verses and pull some phrases out and just share just some thoughts about those.

So in verse 2, there's um a line in that verse that says, I rest on his unchanging grace.

And just thinking about that, first of all, just the concept of grace.

Like, you know, that God gives us the grace that he gives us, that that is something that is continually giving.

And then it says, unchanging grace.

Just so thankful for this, and just so thankful that it doesn't depend on my attitude for the day or how I act or what I say.

It's unchanging grace.

It's the grace that's always there and it never changes.

And then in verse three, this line, it says, When all around my soul gives way.

And ladies, I'm sure just like me, you have felt this way that um that there can be times where your soul is just crushed and you just feel like it's just beyond repair.

But to know that he is there when that happens, and we can go and we can rest in him, and we can have our soul just replenished and and just um and and just have him pour into us.

And we're gonna talk about ways that that can happen too, but but just knowing that that is a possibility, we have some place to go, we have someplace to land.

And then verse four, I'm gonna read all of this first.

This verse, I don't care how old I have been, I don't care what the situation is, but when I hear this verse, this verse just gives me chills.

I love this verse.

It says, When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

And just that last line, faultless to stand before the throne.

Such a promise that we will stand before him and we will be faultless.

If we have put our trust and our faith in him and we're followers of Jesus, we are going to be, because of Christ's blood, we are going to be faultless before his throne.

And there's a verse I found in Jude.

We put we usually um don't hear a lot from Jude.

Um, but in Jude 124, it says this now all glory to God who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.

So just think about that, without a single fault.

Like that's just unimaginable.

I'm sure I have sinned, I don't know, several times today already.

And and I will continue to sin today.

We just that we live in a world of sin, we are sinners saved by grace.

But when I stand before him, that I am going to stand there faultless.

So I just I I love um love that verse.

And then the rest of our time, I want us to land in verse one.

So let me read verse one, and then we're going to look at a particular word in that verse.

Verse one says, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

And just that phrase, my hope is built on nothing less.

And the word hope just stands out to me.

Um, I looked up the word hope.

I know what I thought the word hope meant, but I looked it up in the dictionary, and this is what it says.

And this is just Merriam Webster, just a secular dictionary.

And it says, to expect with confidence.

That's what they define hope is, to expect with confidence.

And so, my hope in Christ, it's not even just what I expect, but it is what I know.

And so when I think about um just that that word hope and just what it entails, I want us to dig into that just a little bit more.

And I started thinking about where do people put their hope?

Because we know not everybody puts their hope in Christ, but where do people put their hope?

And I started thinking about even where sometimes I put my hope, maybe even unknowingly.

But when I reflect back, I can see, oh, I did put my hope there.

Or just people I have conversation with, people I know, where do they put their hope?

So I just made a list, um, just off the top of my head, just wrote some things down, and these are the things that just immediately came to mind.

One is education.

So many people put their hope, um, particularly people who have a number of degrees, they put their hope in education.

And I started thinking about that, and all of these that I'm gonna talk about, they're all good things, they're not bad.

No, it's not a bad place, it's not a bad thing to have these, it's not a bad thing to want these.

Putting our hope there is a different story because we're gonna see that these things are not lasting.

And and when I think about the education I have, yes, the education I have allowed me to have the job I have, which has allowed me to retire.

And I know all of that trickles down.

But as far as now, if I put my hope in my education, what good would it be doing me now?

Because I don't even use right now, I don't use any of the degrees that I have.

Then finances and investments.

Once again, not a bad thing to be good stewards of our money and to invest our money and and for that to be something that we do think about.

But if we put our hope in those things, ladies, we're gonna be living a life on a roller coaster because you know the market is just continually up and down.

You gain money, you lose money.

Just not a good place to put your hope because it's not in, it's not constant, not stable whatsoever.

Another place I think um we can find ourselves putting hope would be family.

Families are wonderful, families are important, but families are made up of um imperfect people, and they're going to let you down, even not knowingly let you down, but they're going to let you down.

There's going to be issues, there's going to be trouble, there's going to be disagreements.

Not the best place to put our hope.

Another one is our abilities.

I think if you would ask any um professional athlete, their ability got them to a certain place, and then what happened?

Their ability didn't get them any further than that.

And and athletes, um, those elite athletes, they know they have to have a backup plan because your abilities can only get you so far.

Our friends, same thing as a family and perfect people.

And, you know, I would have you think about this.

Do you have the same friends today that you had 20 years ago?

And it doesn't even have to mean that anything bad happened.

There didn't have to be any falling out.

But I know friends I had 20 years ago, life just goes in different directions.

And I still love those people, I still care about them, but we're just not in the same contact that we were before.

And the same thing is true.

I have one particular dear friend that I did not have 20 years ago, and I thank God for her.

She's, you know, just so important to me, but she's not a friend that I had 20 years ago.

So our friends do change.

Another one is our career.

Once again, our career is not going to be there forever for most of us.

Most of us, we're going to get to a point where we're not doing that career anymore, and we either move on to something else or retirement, or, you know, life just takes us in a different direction.

Another thing I find that people can put their hope in is religion or the church.

And we could spend a whole half hour on this one.

But the thing that just really came to my mind when I jotted this down is, and you hear about this a lot today, is church hurt.

And I can't speak for everyone.

I can only speak to for myself.

But I know anytime that I've experienced church hurt, it is because I have put my hope either in a group of people or a pastor.

My hope is not, my hope priorities have been out of whack.

My hope has not been placed where I needed it to be placed.

And once again, because a local church is made up of people that are imperfect, there's going to be disappointments.

And so I think that's something we're hearing about more because people um see someone who's charismatic or or uh you know a loving group of people that they want to be a part of, and all of that is wonderful.

But when our hope is on people and not the Lord, we can get hurt.

Another one is our health that can change on a dime.

Um another one that I wrote down, and this is one I think maybe I had more hope in this than what I even let myself realize.

And till I was thinking about this is our country.

And I can remember um years ago thinking, you know, we live in a great country, God has blessed our country, and my hope being in that, and then 9-11 hit.

And we all realized, if you were alive during that time, that we're not invincible, that the United States still can suffer at the hands of other people.

And then the last one that I wrote down was power and influence.

I think sometimes we put our hope in that.

And anyone who has even just grazed over social media, you see that just because someone has power and influence one day doesn't mean that they're gonna have it the next.

It can just change so quickly.

So that is not even anything that is that is stable and that is constant.

And just for the fun of it, I went um and put into AI what we should not put our hope in, just to see how my list, just right off the top of my head, lined up with just a general answer.

And this is what came back to me.

It said, avoid placing your ultimate hope and temporary things that are outside your control or guaranteed to change.

This includes wealth, human institutions, political leaders, or other people.

Because these factors are inherently unstable, relying on them for your fundamental security and happiness often leads to eventual disappointment.

So here I think this, without mentioning God, lines up with we've got to put our hope on something else than all of these things that um that I just listed for us.

So I want us to look at just a couple scriptures because I don't ever want um to come on here and I know Missy feels the same way, and just say what we think our opinion is.

Like we need to be able to back up um our thinking with what's in God's word.

So I just want to share a couple scriptures from the Old Testament and a couple from the New Testament that talk about our hope in God.

And the first one is Psalm 42, 11.

It says, Why am I discouraged?

Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God, I will praise him again, my savior and my God.

So here the psalmist was saying, Why am I down?

Why am I discouraged?

My hope doesn't need to be in all these other things, it needs to be in God.

And then also in Psalms, Psalm 62, 5 and 6, it says this Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.

He alone is my rock.

Here's that reference to a rock.

He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.

So even back in the Psalm, the whole idea about God being our rock, he is the one that's going to be firm and stable and constant.

That's where our hope needs to be.

And then in Romans 15, 13, it says this.

I pray that God, the source of hope.

So right there we see where the source of hope is.

It's not all these things that we talked about, but it's God.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him.

Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So our hope is in God, but the Holy Spirit is going to give us that power to continue to lean on him and not to have our hope in these other things.

And then finally, 1 Peter 1 21, and this verse where it talks about hope is even going to say why we can have that hope.

So it says this through Christ, you have come to trust in God, and you have placed Your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.

So because he died for our sins and rose from the dead, that is why we can have hope in him.

So we've gone over where our hope needs to be, needs to be in God, all the places that we can tend to put our hope, because they're good things, but they're not lasting, they're not constant, they're not, they're just temporary.

And so we've looked at that.

So now the question is, what do we do?

Because we can we know just from experience that our hope in Christ is not going to be an automatic thing.

And and as much as um much as maybe we don't want to think about this, we it it takes effort, it takes work.

We there are certain things that we need to do to build our hope in Christ.

And there's nothing we can do for that relationship with Christ once we accept him as our savior, he is, and we don't do work for that.

But just allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us, to allow our lives to be transformed, that takes work.

That takes discipline and it takes time.

So what are some things we are gonna that that we need to do?

And ladies, I know this list is probably just a repeat of things that Missy and I have said over and over, but there's no shortcut.

And I don't think we really want a shortcut because we want that deep relationship with Jesus.

We want um, we want to really get to know him, and we don't want that shortcut.

But these things, it's gonna take some discipline on our part.

So the very first thing is to spend time in God's Word.

And I am not saying spend an hour a day.

If you are a mom or a grandma and you've got littles in your house and you're raising kids, you probably don't have an hour to do anything because it's just go, go, go all the time.

And then once the kids are in bed, you're exhausted and you need your sleep, I totally get all that.

I've I've been there.

But there is always, we can always find time.

And ladies, even if it's just when you're in the car listening to scripture, like just you know, on audio, just listening to scripture that way, having just maybe a verse that you just meditate on throughout the day.

There are ways that it doesn't take a lot of time just to spend some time in God's word.

So that is one thing that we need to do.

And and honestly, it's hard to put our hope in someone that we don't know, that we don't know what they're like.

We don't know what we're putting our hope into.

So we've got to get to know God, we've got to see how he is, and we do that by spending time in his word.

Another one is prayer.

Um, I've shared this before.

This is one just quieting my mind and spending time in prayer.

This is one that I struggle with.

It it's it's hard for me.

But this is where we spend time talking to him, and it's just another way to get to know him.

Um, just a way to communicate.

And the thing that I have found about prayer that has just been so impactful for me, like we know that God knows our heart.

But when I say aloud, God, this is what I'm struggling with, God, this is what I need help with, that just brings it more to my attention, more to the forefront of my mind.

And just to ask the Holy Spirit, just keep working on my heart in those situations.

So that's one way that prayer has really meant a lot to me.

And also, prayer does not have to be this one set time.

Like prayer should be talking to God throughout the day.

And it could be when you're in the car, maybe you're getting ready to go to work or getting ready to go to a meeting, and you know, you just ask God, just give me opportunities today, just help me with this.

God, let me be um the hands and feet uh of Jesus at work today, or whatever it might be.

Give me patience with the kids today.

Yesterday was not a good day.

Um, just spending time with him, just those little short prayers throughout the day.

Another one is to be still, and this is another one that I've shared that's hard for me.

Just to be still so I can feel and just to sense those nudges from the Holy Spirit and just let God speak to me, just not to continually fill my mind with everything because that's easy for me to do.

Always listening to something, always, you know, got I've got some noise going on, and it's hard for God to get in our minds and speak to us when we've got all this other stuff pouring in.

So just to take time to do that.

Another one is to be in community, and yes, we are a community here, but ladies, we need face-to-face community.

Um, I I didn't plan to share this, but I will just because I don't want anyone to think like it's easy for some people, it's not, you know, but but for me, it's hard to do because it's not easy for anybody to go into a situation that you don't know and with people maybe you don't know.

And just to give you an example, I lead a group on Saturday mornings, but I also like to be in a group because I feel like I need to be fed to, I don't need to always be the facilitator or the leader of the group.

I need to be a member of a group.

And so this past spring, um the group that I normally attend, um, outside of the group that I lead, they started meeting during the day, and I couldn't commit to being there every single one of those days, so I didn't do that.

So I felt the Holy Spirit just really nudging me to join another group.

I didn't know who was in it.

Um, in all honesty, the person who wrote the study, I had done another study by this person.

I wasn't a big fan, so I kind of had that negativity going into it, but I knew that God was telling me to do it.

And it was just after I had my fall.

So, you know, I'm hobbling in with a cane, and you know, and I just didn't want everybody looking at me, not knowing who I was.

Just I had all these thoughts in my mind.

And I will tell you, without going into too much detail, that was probably one of the biggest blessings I've ever had, just being a part of that group and meeting those ladies.

Um, I I'm just so thankful I did it.

I'm so thankful that I felt the nud of the Holy Spirit and I did what he told me to do because I can honestly say there are things that I learned in that group that I experienced that are life-changing.

So, ladies, I I was very apprehensive.

You may be apprehensive, but so important that we get in community.

Another one that I would encourage you to do is just to be on the lookout for what God is doing.

Look at where, um, look at what he's doing.

That's going to build our hope in him when we see, oh my gosh, this is what God's doing.

But we need to be on the lookout for that.

Some things will hit us right in the face, but we need to be on the lookout.

One of my good friends shared with me last night something that she saw in God this weekend.

And it just encouraged me.

That even just built my hope more and my confidence in God, just hearing what she shared.

And then finally, I think this is important.

And ladies, I have to do this throughout the day.

I do it every day, I do it many times a day.

Um, and that's just to remind ourselves daily of God's love for us and his unchanging character.

So when things are rough, I have to remember God loves me more than anything.

God finds delight in me.

God is a loving God, He's a just God, He's a gentle God, He's a patience God.

I have to remind myself of that constantly.

And that is another way to build our hope.

So just kind of keep um just the idea of hope in your mind and think about how I can build my hope in Christ, because we want our hope built on that firm foundation.

We don't want it built on the sand.

We've got weight just coming down on us constantly, just living life.

And we want to be able to have um that stability, and we need to have those things in place that will help us bear that weight.

And Jesus wants to bear that weight with us.

He wants um, you know, we we hear about him being the yoke.

He he wants to do that, he wants to bear the weight with us.

And so I, you know, I hope this is encouraging to you all.

I hope it has given you something to think about.

And the next time we see that you hear this song or we sing this song, and if you've not heard it, please, I posted it yesterday.

Um, please go back and listen.

But just the phrase, my hope is built on nothing less.

Like that's where our hope needs to be built.

It needs to be built on Jesus Christ.

So next week, we've only got two weeks left, and I'm sad about that.

Next week, Missy will be back at eight o'clock and it will be on the song Grateful for You.

I love the song.

Um, I'm excited to see what she's going to share with that.

Um, so we will see you back next week.

Let's close in prayer and then we all will get on with our day.