Faith That Endures

Mark: Good morning, everybody. Good morning, good morning. Beautiful time together today. I want to encourage you to, this Wednesday night is Equip night. So we're back together Wednesday. It's going to be a beautiful time. And how many have enjoyed these Wednesday nights of equipping? Okay, we got a few hands here. The rest of you, you will when you come. It'll be amazing. I want to jump right in. Last week, we talked about something. that we all experience but don't often know how to make sense of when we're in the midst of it. And that's when we find ourselves in the middle of suffering, in the middle of trials, in the middle of difficulties. ⁓ One of the things I'm realizing more and more ⁓ as just a human being, as a pastor, as a Jesus follower, is that life will test what you believe. Life will test what... you believe. It's one thing to just know something in your mind, but it's another thing when life happens to you and you actually are tested in what you believe. And one of the things I know is true is that every person in this room has walked, is walking, or will walk through difficulty, through disappointment, through testing, through trials, through suffering. Now, Now, some of you might be new to hope, you're like, wow, what's their theology around here? We don't have a theology of inviting problems. Okay, we don't, we don't, that's not how we believe. We don't invite those things. We're not welcoming those things. But here's the truth. We have to navigate them. We do have to navigate them. And because of that, ⁓ we need a biblical, Jesus centered belief system in us that so not if, but when These difficulties come, these trials come, the pains of life come that we are rooted and we are grounded in a genuine faith that can actually stand in the shakings of life. And I wanna continue this same heart from last week. What we said last week is this, that the real danger in life is not suffering or difficulty or the hardship. The real danger is actually rooted in unbelief. Unbelief that can quietly grow in the midst of the trials of life. See, people don't ultimately get off course, get derailed, fall away from the Lord because of suffering or tragedy or what somebody did to them at church or what a leader did or, you know, all those kinds of things because of what life dealt them. We often blame those things. But here's the truth. People fall away. because of an unbelieving heart. People, they fall away because of an unbelieving heart. And we read this last week and I'm just gonna hit it one more time here before we jump into what I have for today. But Hebrews 312 says this. It says, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day. as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." How many know that we need to exhort each other? Like we need to encourage each other. We need the encouragement from one another. You're here today and I hope that you will be exhorted and encouraged. But at its core, unbelief sits at the very root of all sin. You see it all the way back to the garden, right? Do you remember? Like the garden, you know, did God really say that? That little bit of unbelief kind of gets in there, right? What he's saying, what the scripture's saying here in Hebrews is saying, watch your step, take care, watch your heart on this one. Guard your heart on this issue of unbelief. Pastor Gary, I always used to say to, To be forearmed is to be, I forgot. It was a really good quote. I'll ask him in next service. I'll get back to you on that one. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I think that's what, I don't know, it was something amazing. But we'll just leave it there. We'll stick to the Bible today, not to Pastor Gary's quotes. is to guard your heart on this because one of the greatest dangers to the believer is not the suffering or the hardship or the difficulty. The greatest danger is what can happen in the heart. What can happen in the heart in the midst of the things that we go through if unbelief gets rooted in there. So the children of Israel, right, like they didn't perish in the wilderness because the desert was hard. They perished because they stopped trusting God in the desert. And Hebrews 3.19 says this, we read it last week, they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Suffering and trials and pressure and hardship do not destroy faith, unbelief does. The real danger is an unbelieving heart. And one of the primary places that unbelief can grow is in the soil of suffering. trials that we can't explain in the very fabric of life's tragedies and pains. And in those moments when we just can't make sense of what's going on, the question isn't whether trials and sufferings are gonna come. The question is, what is that suffering? What is that trial gonna do in me? What's it gonna do to our faith? Will they push us towards unbelief or will they deepen our trust in God? And I decided to... to continue in this because I just sense such a seriousness on this for some reason. Some of you may be hearing this message today and you're like, I'm in the high of life, everything's going awesome. Anybody like that? You're afraid to raise your hand, right? ⁓ And maybe you're there and you say, don't know, this isn't for me right now. Let me tell you, this will be for you someday. This will be for you someday. But I feel like such a. almost a prophetic sense on this that I wanna stick with it and hit it a little bit longer today because I believe that there are people in the body of Christ. I believe that there are actually people here today in our church that could be in real danger who are susceptible right now, who are vulnerable in their faith. And I wanna just take another punch at this thing and I wanna encourage you to be strengthened in your faith, okay, to be able to stand victorious in the midst of whatever you face. So last week we worked through a passage out of 1 Peter 1, and this week we're gonna be in several places in scripture, but our anchor text is gonna be Romans chapter five. So if you wanna grab your Bibles, you can, otherwise it'll be on the screen. But I wanna just open in prayer. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you, God, even right now, that there are things you're depositing in us through your word. And I pray that our ears would be opened, I pray that you would help me. I pray that you would help me to release your heart. I pray that your anointing would be here, that this would go way beyond information and it would literally be like words from heaven, life and bread and everything that we need, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So Romans chapter five, Paul has just spent the first four chapters of Romans. establishing the foundation of the gospel, how we're made right with God. And so we're gonna jump in here with verse one. It says this, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I wanna read that again. Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I've got some points again today. The first point is this, if you're taking notes, genuine faith begins with peace with God. Genuine faith begins with peace with God. This is where genuine faith starts. Genuine faith doesn't start with our effort. How many are thankful for that? It's not about our performance, but with what Jesus has already done. We're saved by grace through faith. It's through Him that we are justified. It's through Him that we're forgiven. It's through Him that we're accepted and brought into peace with God. Now this word, justification, I know many of you know what this means, but I wanna just, I wanna give a little context to it. This word justification means even more than forgiveness. How many are thankful for forgiveness? Guess what? Justification means even more than that. It means When we receive Jesus, it means when you receive Jesus, when you surrender to Jesus, we are made just. We are made just. It's a legal term. It means we become completely acceptable in God's sight. Now, some people should be getting happy right now. I don't know. You all are too serious. Justification means we're treated by God. in the way that a perfect person should be treated. How many know that person sitting next to you is not perfect? I heard that wife say that way too loud there. She's like, yep, that's true, brother. But we are treated through Jesus as if we are perfect. think about that? What it means, justification means. Now, his record is your record. There was a season in life where I used to get a lot of speeding tickets and I wanted someone else's record. This is way long ago, way before I became a responsible pastor. His record is now your record. His merit is yours. He treats you as righteous because he treated Jesus as righteous. Can we say thank you, Jesus? Thank you, Jesus. Church, our standing, this is so important, our standing with God is not fragile. It doesn't rise and fall with our emotions. It doesn't rise and fall in how you feel from day to day. We have to go beyond our feelings and we have to anchor ourselves in the word of God to get this in us or your faith will be shaken. So many people struggle because they never actually settle this truth. They actually don't get this. Sometimes we don't feel it. Sometimes we don't feel full of faith. Sometimes we don't even feel spiritual, but church, our standing with God rests not on our own feelings. It rests on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We've been justified. It's by grace through faith. And because of that, what this is saying is that we have peace with God. This is big. Genuine faith begins with peace with God. Are you at peace with God? You can be. Verse two says this, through him, We have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope for the glory of God. Did you hear this again? It's through him. We just heard it's through him, Jesus, that we have peace. Now it's saying it's through him that we have access. It's through him. It's through Jesus. It's not through you. It's through him. We have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Is this too basic for you today? This is important. The second point is this, genuine faith stands in grace. It stands in grace. Notice the language. The language is we stand in grace. This is a foundation of our faith. Grace is is God giving us what we could never earn and could never deserve. Grace is God doing for us what we could never do for ourselves, no matter how good you tried to be. Grace is God's unearned favor that not only saves us, but it actually sustains us. And Paul is saying this, that there was a point we didn't have access to it. There was a time before Jesus, you didn't have access to what we're talking about here. But now through him, we have access by faith into this grace. to stand. I think I'm way more excited about this in my spirit than anyone is in the room. And that's on me. That's not on you. I need to I need more anointing or something. Grace, I'm just kidding. Grace is the environment in which our entire Christian life exists and thrives and flourishes. I don't know about you, but I'm thankful for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of this grace, What Paul is saying is that we rejoice in hope for the glory of God. And then Paul is saying something that almost shocks us in the next verse. He says, we rejoice in hope. And then verse three, he says, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Now it's easy to get on board with rejoicing in hope, yay. But then he says, because of all this, because you're at peace with God, because you're standing in grace, you're rejoicing in hope. And now you're rejoicing in our sufferings. Knowing that, here it is, suffering produces endurance. And endurance produces character. and character produces hope. Point number three, we're cruising. Genuine faith is tested through suffering. Genuine faith is tested through suffering. Now let's be honest, nobody enjoys suffering, right? Nobody's like, come bring it on. I mean, we're not some sect of masochists. We don't rejoice for our sufferings, we rejoice in them. Why? Because suffering is producing something. Suffering is producing something. It's part of the formation pathway of genuine faith. How many know that some truths we just would rather not be true? Right? But here it is. We rejoice in our sufferings. Why? Because suffering produces what? Endurance. Endurance. Endurance. Fourth point is this, genuine faith is enduring faith. What is endurance? I think there's several different definitions, but here's one that I want to throw there to you. Endurance is this, the ability to remain under the weight without quitting. The ability to remain under the weight, under the pressure without quitting. It's faith that stays when life gets hard. It's what we read out of James 1. We read this last week, verse 3, because you know, James said, that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. This is that same word, endurance. In other words, faith grows muscles when it endures under pressure. How many like muscles? How many know they don't come without doing something? So I've heard. Faith grows muscles, spiritual muscles, when it endures under pressure. You can't get endurance if you run from the trial. You have to stay put in the midst of the trial. Why? Why? Because you aren't gonna get character and then you're not gonna get hope unless you go through endurance and perseverance. It doesn't just happen automatically. Some people are like, why is my life falling apart? Well, you gotta go through it to get to the other side. And when you get on the other side of that thing, you're gonna have these things that we're seeing here. It says we rejoice in our sufferings because we know, but some of us don't know. Okay, that's why we gotta know what Paul is telling us. It means in the midst of the difficulty, this right here, guys, this verse we're in is the knowledge that you have to have and then you have to apply. Otherwise, you'll fall to the ground and you'll run. You say, I don't know what happened. My life fell apart. That wasn't real. That God stuff. That God stuff wasn't real. I thought my life was supposed to be amazing in every way when I accepted Jesus. No, no, no, no. That's not the way it goes. He's saying don't freak out. Don't run in your suffering. Don't go off the rails. If you fall apart in suffering, you won't make it through endurance. And if you don't endure, you won't get the character you need. You'll just be a character. That was good. You know what I mean? There's some characters. The word character here. Character means this, to be tested and refined. Man, we want to be a person of character. Really? It means you're going to be tested and you're going to be refined. It's the same idea that Peter used last week when he talked about faith being refined like gold in the fire. God uses trials like a furnace not to destroy faith, but to purify faith. James 1,4, let endurance have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. It's not that we enjoy testing, it's that we enjoy what it achieves in us. We enjoy what it is achieving in us through the testing, which is endurance. And here's the fruit of endurance, that we may be complete, lacking nothing, perfect. Church, I wanna encourage you today, He's producing something beautiful in you. That suffering that you have experienced, you are experiencing, or that may come is producing endurance, and that endurance is producing character, and that character is producing an unshakable hope in you. And if you're walking through the fire today, I feel this for people. If you're walking through the fire of affliction, God may not have caused it, but he will absolutely use it. That trial, that testing, that pressure, that suffering, that craziness of life is producing something if you will let it, if you'll let it. That hardship, that moment when it feels like your world has fallen apart all around you, it's being used to produce a genuine faith if you endure. If you endure, if you don't stop short, if you don't run, a faith that's not rooted in the outcome or the circumstance, a faith that's rooted in the one who sits on the throne. Do you know what promise there is for those who endure? There's actually quite a few of them in scripture, but one of them is this out of 2 Timothy 2.12. It says this, it says, if we endure, we will also reign with him. I think a lot of people jump to like, yeah, I can't wait to rule and reign with the Lord. Well, have you endured? Have you gone through the stuff? Have you pushed through, have you let the Spirit of God work in your life in a way that produces through the difficulty and the hardships the beautiful things that he wants to do in you? If so, you'll reign with him. You'll reign with him. I wanna speak for a minute just to those who have been really going through it. Life is hitting you hard. Maybe you're here and you're smiling to everybody else, but you've got some real stuff going on in your life. And I wanna speak to you this morning. Maybe you're here and you feel like in some ways your faith is slipping. You feel like your faith is being shaken. Maybe you're like, God, I don't know what's going on. I've been doing all the right stuff, but you're hit with a storm. You're here today and you're saying, God, where are you right now? What is happening right now? The last couple of weeks, I've been drawn to a Psalm, Psalm 73. And this Psalm is about a man named Asaph. And Asaph, if you know about him, he was a worship leader in King David's choir of worshipers. was a chief singer. He was a Levite. He and his sons would... prophesy with the harp and the lyre and the cymbals and they were prophetic musicians and there are 11 Psalms that are attributed to Asaph. And in Psalm 73, what we find, think it's Psalm 73 to 83 are like Psalms of Asaph. And I think there's one more Psalm 50. But in Psalm 73, Asaph finds himself in the fires of affliction. And he starts out this Psalm by saying this, God is good. He says, God is good, verse two. He says, but as for me, he said this, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped. Asaph is admitting, he's saying, he said, I almost slipped. I almost lost my footing. He was in the midst of going through a hard season, an intense hardship. In verse 14, He says, for all day long, I've been stricken and rebuked every morning. Have you ever had a season of life where you felt just stricken? Okay, nobody. All right, this must be for 1045 service. I've been stricken, rebuked every morning. He's been plagued intensely with trouble. He's just beaten down every day. He's just really, really going through it. And every morning he's touched with sorrow and and pain and grief, he's in a bad place. I mean, he wakes up with a cloud over him. He wakes up depressed, discouraged. I mean, all the things. Some of you were encouraged before you came. Now you're starting to get depressed, but it'll get better here. He says there's trouble on every side. He doesn't understand and he's really, really struggling. He's disciplined in his walk with God. says, know, I do everything right. I sing, I play my cymbals, I praise God, I give everything and yet I see the wicked all around me flourishing. It looks like they're doing way better than me. And look at me, I'm all depressed going through all this stuff. How can this be? Why me, God? Why is this going on? Like, I've done all these things for you. Shouldn't my life be better? And he cries out to God. He's just like, why God? Doesn't make sense. Is God seeing this? Have you ever had a moment in life where you're like, is God seeing this? Does he see this, what's going on in my life? Like, does he see this? Is he taking notes? Does he care? And then Asaph, in the midst of all this, he says something dangerous. This is really the heart of it. And as he says this thing that's dangerous, it's really where he almost slips. And this is where unbelief in his life wanted to creep in, in this moment of slipping. And it's this, verse 13, this is where it happens. He says this, all in vain, I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. What's happening here? He's beginning to question everything. And he's ready to accuse God. I did all this stuff and it was in vain. He's about to accuse God of not caring about him, of abandoning him. In other words, God, what's the point of serving you? And do know what's about what's creeping at the door? Offense, bitterness. It's trying to creep in. And church, I just feel this for us. This is where we have to be really careful because this is where it actually gets slippery in our faith. This is where unbelief wants to creep in. When you are in that trial, when you're in the middle of that test, when there's calamity, when there's grief, and your heart starts saying, God, why would you allow that? Why is that so hard? And then it progresses. Does any of this matter? Does any of this matter anyways? This doesn't make any sense. And I believe that Asaph is a voice of wisdom for us today. And I believe that he's speaking to us right now. And what he's saying here in this moment, he's saying, hold on. He's saying, I almost slipped. I didn't slip, I almost slipped into that pit. I almost fell into that place of unbelief like the children of Israel did. Where they had 40 years of saying, it doesn't make sense. 40 years of saying, it's too hard. And here's Asaph saying, he's saying, watch it, watch your. How many know we've got to be careful and watch our step? And Asaph here, it's like he's saying this, he's crying out from this passage, he's saying, don't do it, don't fall for it. I'm telling you, he starts it out, he's like, I almost slipped, let me tell you what happened. I almost slipped, don't fall for it, don't fall into self-pity. Don't fall into a place of discouragement that pulls you down, don't believe the lies of the enemy. Don't let your faith crumble by what you see and what you feel, put your faith in God. Hear me, when you find yourself in a place of suffering, in a place of trial, of some sort, to a great degree, do you know what? It's not even about the event itself. It's about what we tell ourselves about the event. Hear me on this, this is a key for you. It's how we interpret the event. It's more about the beliefs than the lens in which we see the event than the actual trial itself. We've got to protect our thoughts. We need a sound mind. We need a renewed mind so that in the midst of those moments, we have foundational pittings that are greater than the circumstance and the storm that we're facing. We've got to come back to, I have peace with God. Come back to, I've been justified. this is about endurance. ⁓ this is about character. ⁓ this is about God working something in me. I won't turn from him, I'm gonna turn to him. you interpret what you're going through is so important, Asaph was trying to figure out how to understand it all. In verse 16, he says this, concluded it all was just too wearisome and too painful for me. Have you ever hit those moments where you're like, I can't even think about this anymore. I am so wore out from what's going on in my life. It's so painful. It's all too wearisome. I can't figure it out. But do know what Asaph said right there? He said, it's all too wearisome, it's all too painful for me. He said, I'm going to the house of God. Verse 17, the next verse he says, I went into the sanctuary of God and then I discerned their end. In other words, Asaph, he's in the midst of this turmoil. He can't figure it out, he's about to slip. His faith's about to go down this path that should never go down, and he gets in the presence of God, and he says to God, God, I can't make sense of this, I'm weary. And you know what it's like, is if God says, I'm gonna make sense out of this for you. And he's sitting in the presence of the Lord there, and he's meditating. Can you imagine him there? He's this worshiper, right? But he's hit this really tough time, and his heart is open to God. He's like, I'm not gonna slip into the pit of unbelief, I'm gonna talk to God. I wanna tell you church, when the trial, when the grief, when the suffering comes, get in the presence of God. Don't isolate and stay away from church. Don't medicate with a device or a distraction. Get alone with God. Get in the presence of the Lord. Get to the sanctuary. Call out to him. He will help you. It's the truth. I'm telling you what, you go down that trail in your mind and you start getting bitter and you saw all those little, you start slipping down that trail and all of a sudden you can't see and you don't know anything. You gotta get to the sanctuary. You gotta get to the presence of God. says, I wanna help you see and discern what's going on. I wanna help you endure. I wanna show you so that you can make it through. Look what happens to Asaph. Verse 21, he says, when my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, he's convicted in the presence of the Lord. Verse 22, he says, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast towards you. He's basically saying, I was being stupid. Have you ever been? Okay, we've got some honest people here. ⁓ It's like he's saying in the Josh Thompson verse, had stinking thinking. But Asaph turns to the Lord. He turns to the Lord. Look at this, verse 23. He says, I'm continually with you. You hold my right hand. Look at how his mind is being renewed in the presence of God. Look what happens as he goes to the house of the Lord. Nevertheless, I'm continually with you. You hold my right hand. Verse 24, you guide me with your counsel. Okay, there we go. and afterwards you'll receive me to glory." He actually like sets his heart on things to come instead of what he's going through right now. That day is gonna come, you're gonna receive me to glory. Then he goes on 25, look at this dramatic shift, whom have I in heaven but you? There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. His eyes are opening, right? In the presence of God. He's saying, Lord, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I was angry with you. I'm sorry I accuse you of being unfaithful. Whom do I have but you? There's no one. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. But for me it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of your works. My gosh, do you see what happens here in his life in the midst of this? My foot had almost slipped into unbelief, but then I entered the sanctuary, the house of God, and I got a revelation of God, and I realized, who do I have besides you? You're everything to me. It doesn't matter what I'm going through here. God, you are it. You're everything. You're everything. I wanna ask you this morning, I feel this to ask, have you been slipping in your faith? Have you been slipping in your faith? I wanna tell you the enemy is after your faith. He's after your faith, the enemy is after the word of the kingdom that's been sown into your life. Jesus warned us, right? In the parable of the sower, in the soil, in Matthew 13, and various other gospels, he said, some receive the word with joy, but endure only for a little bit. And when the trials, Jesus says, when the troubles, when the suffering comes, they give up and they fall away. Here's what I wanna tell you. The problem is never the difficulty. The problem is never the storm. It's the depth of the root. It's the depth of the root. See, we get all focused on how bad something is. We have to focus on how deep is my root. How deep is the root system of my life? Where is my faith? Matthew 7, Jesus tells another parable. Well, it's not a parable. He just talks about the wise and the foolish builder. You remember that at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he sums the whole thing up here with this wise and foolish builder. And what he says, he starts talking about the wise person, the way they build and the foolish person, the way they build both houses. ⁓ Both of these people built houses, both experienced the same storm. Right? You remember the storm? He says, Hey, the rain comes, the winds blow, floods and it's come, the rain's gonna beat against both houses. The difference was not the storm, the difference was the foundation of the houses. Okay, hear me on this. They both heard the word of the Lord. And the difference between the wise and the foolish were they both heard, but only one did what the word of God said. That was the wise one. Here's what I want you to see here by talking about this, as adversity comes to both. Adversity comes to both the wise and the foolish. The storms come to both. Both houses just get beat by the storm. So many times they say, you know, what did I do wrong, God? Like, what door did I open? And I'm not saying that there aren't some doors we open that just unleash a bunch of crap. I didn't mean to say that like that on this stage. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I do use that word occasionally, just to be honest. Yes, thank you, Wayne. How many know, when you do stupid stuff, stupid stuff often happens, right? We open doors to stuff and we blame it on the devil. It's like, you should not have opened that door. This is not the devil, right? Like, I'm not talking about that. But in the midst of the storms of life, there's often this moment where we're just saying, know, God, why are you allowing this? Why are you allowing this? Here's what I wanna encourage you and remind you. Church, Jesus says the storms come into both houses. It's coming to both houses. You can be a wise person and the storm comes to you. You can have done nothing wrong and the storm comes. Here's what we have to recognize. The storm comes. to destroy what's being built. And only the house that was built on the rocks did the storm. The one who heard the word and did the word is the one who survived the storm. So here's what I'd say to you today. Sometimes we take everything so personal. Don't take adversity personal. It'll take you down a road that you don't wanna go. The adversity is actually trying to destroy the word of God in your life. The storm, the adversity is trying to destroy the purposes and the plans of God in your life. But guess what? God uses every storm for his glory. That's why he gives us this progression here of enduring and of pushing through and character and hope. That's why it says when the sower sows the word, says Satan comes immediately for the word's sake. For the word's sake, not for your sake. Without the word, you're zero threat to the enemy. Sometimes people walking around like they think I'm such a threat to the enemy. I'm like, is the word of God in you? Are you doing the word? Because if it's not, you're not a threat. You're not a threat. He doesn't want the word to ever become reality and fruit in your life. Faith that has never been tested is faith that has never been proven. Alright, let me end with this. People are leaving. I think most of them are going to serve, hopefully. Come next week, it'll be better. I'm not preaching. Just kidding. I'm joking, guys, I'm being silly today. My wife's gonna correct me later. Here's point number five, come back to focus. Genuine faith keeps holding to the word. Genuine faith keeps holding to the word. Like faith comes, right, from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. That's what the Bible says. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. Look at this, Hebrews 2, 1, this just hit me. We must pay much closer attention to what we've heard, lest we drift away. If you're not paying attention to what you've heard, you drift. Turn to somebody and tell them, this is a no-drifting church. The no drifting church. No drifting zone. I'll tell you this, drifting is subtle. Nobody intends to drift. It happens slowly. But here, here we just saw this. Here's the antidote for drifting. It's this, pay much closer attention to the Word. Pay much closer attention to the word. We have to have this word in us so we can stand in the storm and the suffering and the trial. Because faith comes by hearing. So pay attention to the word. And hearing comes from the word of Christ. The enemy is after the word that's been planted in you. Because if that word takes root, you become dangerous to the kingdom of darkness. It's why Paul told Timothy, that's why he said this. He said, fight the good fight of faith. So your fight isn't to control your circumstances. Your fight is to stay in faith. It's to refuse to surrender to unbelief. And here's the good news. Our faith isn't in our faith. Our faith rests in His faithfulness. I'm so thankful that Paul told Timothy this in chapter 2.13. He says, if we are faithless, He remains faithful. He remains faithful. So in the midst of the suffering, what we got to remember is he remains faithful. God is faithful. God is faithful. So I take it all together. Remember what Paul says, verse three, Romans five. Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope, here it is. does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. I wanna tell you, church, God is building something in you that will stand in any storm, that will be able to stand in any trial. But we have to pay attention, much closer attention. to what we've heard. We can't hear and forget and move on. We need to hear, let it go down deep, get it in us so that it's rooted in us, so that we have a faith that is not fragile. A faith that is, it doesn't rise and fall on circumstances. A faith that's anchored in Jesus. Amen. Stand with me this morning. We did this last week and I wanna declare it again, 1 John. Five, four. And as a church, I want us just to declare this. Would you lift your hands up just as we read the word of the Lord together and say it out loud together? Here we go. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Come on, just praise the Lord. Come on, just thank him. I thank you that it is in our faith. It's your faithfulness and God, I pray that even right now in this place today, for people that are really going through it, I pray that today, this word would get planted and it would firm us up in the midst of whatever we face. And I pray that, I pray that. Come on, can we lift our hands one more time? And I want us just to sing this bridge. Let's declare this with charity. Here we go. my house was built on you I'm safe with you Clear it out. Thanks. My house was built on Stay with you Just to clear that I'm gonna make Stop standing strong ⁓ Sing that again. Sing it to clear it up. So I'm strong you I stand So I He won't. Come on boldly, let's declare that. He won't. Jesus won't ⁓ you Jesus. Lord. We're going to close and dismiss, but I would like to invite ministry team, if you would come forward just as quickly as you can to be available here. Because we wanna extend an invitation to anybody that's just going through it. Maybe you're like, man, my faith has been slipping, this is help, but I need to agree with somebody in the midst of what I'm facing today. I'm going through it. We wanna pray with you. I'm gonna be down here. I would love to pray with you. This team would love to pray with you. We'd love to encourage you and exhort you, strengthen you up today. God bless you. I pray you have an amazing week full of Jesus. Amen.