Faith vs Fragility

Okay, so a couple weeks back we started a series uh as we began these live streams called Faith Versus.

Faith versus The reality is we want to be people who live by faith.

But faith is almost always in opposition to something else.

There's always something that's that's trying to stand in the way of us living by faith.

And so our first conversation in the Faith Versus series a few weeks back was faith versus foolishness.

That was a really important place for us to start because mature faith is not making foolish, unwise decisions and just saying, yeah, but I have faith.

That's not what real faith looks like.

Last week we talked about faith versus fear and the fact that if we're gonna be people who live by faith, we're not limited to the normal responses that most people have when they're in in a fearful situation, right?

It's it's fight, flight, or freeze.

When we live by faith, we have a fourth option.

And we can face our fears and we can overcome our fears through the power of Jesus working through us.

And so we talked about that last Sunday.

Today we're gonna talk about faith versus fragility.

Faith versus fragility, because at the end of the day, this whole crazy situation gives us a chance as people to examine our lives and really look at what we're actually building our lives upon.

What is the foundation that all of our hopes, all of our, all of our plans, all of our desires, everything good in our life, what's the foundation that those things are being built on?

Is it something strong or is it something more fragile than maybe we we originally believed?

We're gonna do that this morning and really examine our foundation, what it is and and more importantly, what it should be.

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation in life where you were you were standing on something that was shaky.

You were you were physically standing on something that that might give.

That's a pretty nerve-wracking feeling.

Like uh like Matt, have you uh have you ever either like ice skated or walked on a frozen pond?

You have?

Like with that, like not like a an ice rink.

No, not a frozen pond, but ice skating.

Okay, you've that was like on a rink?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you ever done it um on like a pond or a lake?

No, no, no.

There's like water underneath you.

Would you do that?

Yes, but I I mean if there were like not just like a random pond.

It wouldn't be like you stumbled upon a pond and it's like it looks pretty solid.

Yeah.

No, it'd be like if there were people like kind of around and doing it.

There's people around.

Okay, let's take it a step further.

Would you ever drive a vehicle on a frozen pond or a lake?

I don't think so.

Maybe it'd no thing I'd do that.

You don't think so?

Even if there was someone there, like, no, no, no, hey, trust me, it's safe.

You'd still kind of like, I don't maybe I guess it depends on the context of why I need to go across.

Like a shortcut.

You know, like normally you'd have to go around the lake, and let's let's say it's a big lake, and this will save you 20 minutes.

You can just drive across it, you know, straight, straight, a straight shot.

I don't know, because Yeah, probably not, because getting out into the middle of a large lake would be the stressful part.

Like if you're on the outskirts, like it feels sort of like maybe I could swim back in time or you know, like climb back up or whatever.

But if you're on the middle, you're you're you have no hope.

You have no hope.

So okay, that's not that's not a purely hypothetical question.

So uh when I was in the seventh grade, I moved to Wisconsin and I've I've talked about that, you know, plenty of times, lots of different experiences there.

It was a culture shock.

And it's kind of cool though, because where we lived in Wisconsin, we lived right on this massive lake called Lake Winnebago.

And when I say massive, I mean it's a it's a huge lake.

It's it's one of the largest lakes in, I think it is the largest lake in Wisconsin, not counting like the Great Lakes, because they're they're I don't think a Great Lake touches Wisconsin now that I think about it.

It's Michigan.

So I'm sure it is the largest lake in Wisconsin, and I feel pretty good about it.

Um but it's a huge lake.

And we lived, when I say lived on it, there was our street, and then there was another street, and that street was lakefront.

So it was like a hundred yards from my house is this huge lake.

And that lake sort of dominated the life of that area in the summertime.

There were always boats on it.

Uh people would would it was big enough that you could actually do like windsurfing and stuff like that.

It was a really big deal.

Um in the wintertime though, that lake would would freeze pretty solid.

I mean, like like seriously solid.

People would build uh ice fishing shacks on it, and uh, and I remember moving there in January, and a few months in, we're driving on a road really close to the lake, and I look out and there's like trucks driving on the lake.

And it's like it's a thing.

In fact, we have video of people like in the wintertime there, they will drive out onto the lake, and there's a lot of different cities that are on the the, you know, surround the lake, and so sometimes people will actually use the lake as a shortcut because it's like, oh man, I can just like shave 15 minutes off my drive going on the lake, and it's solid enough that it works until it doesn't.

And fairly often there will be a situation where someone, in fact, we have other footage I think of uh of of it not working very well, and so someone will have like been driving on the lake, and all of a sudden, boom, it goes, and you've got to jump out your window and abandon your vehicle because well, because you drove on a lake.

Because you wanted to save 10 minutes.

It's like, oh man, that that backfired.

I I remember being a seventh grader and watching people do that, and even the even as a seventh grader, just thinking that's a bad idea.

Like you I I I kind of get walking on a lake, like you said, that seems safer, I guess.

But your vehicle, it's so heavy, it has so much weight, and it's so valuable that the idea of of risking it on ice, something that can fall apart, you know, if the conditions aren't just right, that just seems foolish.

And, you know, as as weighty as a vehicle might be, our lives, they're they're weightier.

They carry a lot of weight.

We have a lot of things in life that we're carrying with us all the time.

And as valuable as a vehicle might be, our lives are obviously far more valuable.

And the reality is we should be building our lives on something strong.

We should be building our lives on something that can take the weight.

And unfortunately, a lot of the time, even if it's subconscious, even if we're not really thinking about it, we are, it's like we're we're driving on ice.

You know, it's like we're we're building our lives, we're we're trusting something that is less than truly stable to bear the weight of everything that we have going on.

And so this morning I want us to really think on that, really focus on that, and ask the question, what really is my foundation?

Now, if you're watching this and you're not a Jesus follower, I encourage you to keep watching until we're done, because obviously I'm just gonna go ahead and come out with it at the forefront.

My recommendation is that you would build your life on Jesus and nothing short of Jesus.

And I'm supposed to say that because I'm a pastor and I'm a Christian and that's what we're supposed to say.

But but I think if if you'll examine that, if you really think about it, if you really think about who Jesus is, even if you don't believe he's God, you just believe that Jesus, a historical figure that lived, like really think about who Jesus is and was, and ask the question is Jesus, is he a worthy foundation?

Can Jesus take the weight?

Because I think that we'll all see that he can and he does.

Jesus himself actually said something pretty audacious uh in this in this nature in Matthew chapter 7, verses 24 through 27.

Matthew 7:24–27

I'm just gonna read it right from the his hands.

Mobile app, so if you have that, you can follow along.

Matthew 7, 24 through 27, Jesus says, Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

Though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, it will not collapse because it's 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 the floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

This is Jesus saying that the only thing that we should build our lives on is faith in him.

He says, if you if you listen to my teaching, if you do what I say, if you use me essentially as the reference point for your entire life, you're good.

No matter what happens, no matter what storms may come, you're you're gonna be good.

And it's interesting because this is a scripture that I've taught on so many times.

I mean, if you've been at his hands, really any church, you've probably heard this scripture talked about pretty frequently.

It's a very popular saying of Jesus.

But usually when I'm teaching on this scripture, I'm talking about some type of metaphorical storm.

Or I'm recognizing the fact that everyone in the room has a different storm that they're maybe dealing with.

And that's that's obviously true right now.

All of us probably have different, unique problems that we're facing.

At the same time, all of us have one singular storm that we're all in the middle of right now.

It's the only time in my lifetime where everyone on the planet is dealing with the same problem.

And so this teaching of Jesus moves away from some type of hypothetical situation to something that's very, very practical and real right now, because we're we're living in the midst of a global storm, of a crisis.

And Jesus is saying to us, hey, whenever whenever you're facing a storm, you better make sure that your life is built on bedrock.

You better make sure that your foundation is strong and stable because anything other than Jesus, and this is not me talking, this is Jesus talking.

He says, anything other than me, it's it's fragile.

Anything other than me is it's too fragile, it will come crashing down, it's like a truck on ice, it's it's not strong enough to take the weight.

So the choice that we have according to Jesus, and again, I'm recognizing this is an audacious statement that he's making, the choice that we have is either to live with our faith on Jesus or or it's fragility.

It's trusting something that just simply cannot take the weight, and that's a choice that we have.

Jesus claims to be our foundation and the only worthy foundation that we can choose.

It's not the only time in Scripture that this kind of language is used about Jesus.

For example, Ephesians chapter 2, verses 20 through 21 says, Together we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself.

Ephesians 2:20–21

We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.

Now, buildings 2,000 years ago were built a little bit differently than they are today.

And so that language may not draw up uh pictures for us right away, the language of cornerstone.

But uh, Julian, go ahead and put up a picture of an old building with a cornerstone.

If you're looking at this picture right now, I dare you to guess which stone is the cornerstone.

I just dare you.

See if you can figure it out.

Right?

It's obvious, it's the giant stone that's in the corner.

Uh that's the way that old foundations were built.

They would always have a stone that was the first stone that would be laid as part of the foundation.

And it was often the strongest, the largest stone that they were going to use, and that stone was absolutely vital because the entire building was going to be based on that stone.

If that stone wasn't level, the building wasn't gonna be level.

If that stone uh wasn't wasn't hewn in a way that it was straight, then the building was gonna get off kilter because that stone was the reference point for every other stone that was laid on that building.

And so if you look at architecture from Jesus' life, for example, uh, there's a picture we have of one of the cornerstones of the temple in Jesus' day.

It still exists today, it's still there, this portion of the temple.

Uh it's it's huge, it's massive.

This stone that you're looking at, it is 33 feet long, seven feet wide, and three feet tall.

It is a single stone.

One single piece of stone, 33 feet long, seven feet wide, three feet tall, it would have weighed well, well over 10,000 pounds.

And that stone is the cornerstone of the temple.

It needed something so large, so powerful to be able to have its foundation set and strong.

And Jesus is claiming to be our cornerstone, to be our foundation.

He's something so so powerful that we can put all of our weight, we can put all of our trust in him.

The apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 4, he says this, and of course, right as I do that, I click off my message.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

So here we go.

That's why the app works, it works so well.

That's how fast I got back.

Uh Philippians 4, 12 through 13, he says, I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.

I've learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little, for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.

Paul is saying, look, what I'm hoping in is Jesus.

What I'm basing my life upon, it's Jesus.

What I'm trusting is the strength to hold me up when I have nothing going for me.

It's Jesus.

And he says, that's the secret to contentment.

He says, I've learned the secret to be content no matter what the situation is, whether I have a lot or a little, whether things are going really well or they're going horribly, the secret is that no matter the circumstance, Jesus is my foundation.

Jesus is my cornerstone.

He's my reference point.

He's what I'm basing every single thing that I do upon.

It's Jesus.

And so go back to the beginning of our conversation.

I ask again, what is the foundation for your life?

I've been following Jesus since I was 10 years old.

And so I can safely say, yeah, yeah, Jesus, he's my foundation.

But the truth of the matter is, there's so many other times in life where subconsciously, even, I take one of my feet off of him and I put it on something else.

It's so easy to do that.

It's so easy to do that because there's so many things that are right in front of us, right?

So sometimes it might be another relationship.

And I say, you know what, I yeah, I'm I'm not consciously saying, Jesus, I don't really trust you right now.

I just I see something that seems like a sure thing.

And so I'm gonna put my trust in this person.

I'm gonna put my trust in their advice, I'm gonna put my trust in what they think.

And there's nothing wrong with trusting people, there's nothing wrong with taking advice, but but no one, not named Jesus, should be the foundation for your life.

No one not named Jesus should be the cornerstone where you're you're truly putting all of your hope, all of your trust, all of your faith in what they say.

There's times where I've I've allowed other people, great people even, but not Jesus.

I've allowed them to rise to a level that they they should never have risen to, and I put a little bit too much trust in them.

That doesn't work out.

It might be something that's not a relationship, maybe it's maybe it's our own plans for life.

A lot of us have had really strong five-year plans, ten-year plans, and I imagine right now in this season of life, most of the five-year plans are pending at best.

Because our plans, our our greatest ambitions, our greatest dreams, they're not strong enough to be the foundation.

They're fragile.

And I think we're we're seeing that happen in real time in our world.

We're realizing that so many things in our world, they're just more fragile than maybe we thought they were a few months in.

And this is a time for us as people to ask the question, what is my foundation?

It's an opportunity for us as people.

If we've had our feet planted on the wrong foundation, it's a chance for us to move.

And Jesus is here and he's begging us, basically, pleading with us, saying, Hey, make me your foundation.

I can take the weight.

I can handle the weight of whatever comes along with your life, whatever baggage you have, whatever struggles you have, whatever you're going through, you can trust me, I can take the weight.

Make me your foundation.

Because when the storm comes, and we're in the middle of one, when it comes, if I'm your foundation, you will still be standing.

That is a promise that Jesus makes.

And so again, I ask, what's your foundation?

And whatever it is, it better, it better match a few important criteria.

Whatever your foundation is, your foundation better be steady.

It better be something that's that's dependable.

The opposite of steady would be would be volatile.

There's a lot of volatility in our world right now.

Just look at the stock market in the in the last couple of weeks.

It's it's definitely volatile.

Look at the the information that comes to us from our government, from the news.

Every single announcement might as well have an asterisk that says pending to change within the next 24 hours, because that's how volatile everything we're being told is right now.

Jesus is not volatile, he is as steady as it comes.

In fact, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is that cornerstone.

He's steady.

You see that in his life.

The way Jesus lived his life, he was so resolute in his time on this earth.

For example, look at his relationship with his friends and his disciples.

Early in the story of Jesus, early in his ministry, he chooses this group of people to be his disciples, to be the people at the forefront of his movement.

And if Jesus was like me, I mean a normal person, and Jesus is a person, he's just not a normal person, he's extraordinary, but if Jesus was like me, about halfway through, he would have realized that he picked the wrong people and he needed to clean house and pick some new, pick some new talent.

Because he's got the wrong people as his disciples.

Because time and time again, his disciples fail.

They fail to absorb the things he's taught them.

They just forget things that he said, they fail to act in an appropriate manner with the kind of faith that they should have after seeing Jesus do the things that he's done.

They're still afraid, they still panic, they still argue, they're still obsessed with their own importance.

Like time and time again, the disciples show Jesus that he's made the wrong choice, that he should abandon them and find someone else.

Even at the very end, they they abandon Jesus, they run away in fear, and yet when Jesus raises from the dead, the very first thing he wants to do is send a message to his disciples.

And then go speak with his disciples.

He doesn't change his mind because Jesus is steady.

He is resolute.

And understand that when it comes to you, Jesus is resolute about who you are.

He is as steady as it gets in terms of his love for you, his commitment to you, his passion for you, his commitment to be there for you.

When he makes a promise and he says that he will be there for you, when God says, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, that is not a volatile promise.

That is not a promise that's depending on new information.

There's no asterisk that says, check back tomorrow and see if this has changed.

It is constant because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And that's why he has stood the test of time.

That's why 2,000 plus years later, his movement is still spreading across this world because Jesus is constant.

So whatever your foundation is, it better be something steady, but it also better be something strong.

Your foundation, it just has to be strong.

And I know that's common sense, but it's so easy for us to put our hopes and our trust in something, something far, far more fragile than Jesus, than this man who made bold promises and apparently fulfilled those promises, and 2,000 plus years later, he's still the most he's the most famous person that's ever lived.

He's been on the cover of Time magazine more than anyone else, which is a pretty amazing feat for someone who lived thousands of years before magazines.

Jesus is strong.

And there's almost this irresistibility, this inability to deny the strength of Jesus.

Because every time that Jesus has been attacked, he has he stayed standing.

We see that in his own day.

He was constantly attacked by people who had power and people who had influence.

The religious leaders of his day, they're constantly attacking him, they're slandering him, they're they're telling people audacious things about him, they're saying things like Jesus is demon-possessed and stuff like that.

They're trying to intellectually combat with him and try to tear apart his statements, and every time they do that, they walk away in defeat.

They end up just killing him, and that doesn't even work.

It works for about three days.

They get it, they get a solid weekend out of it, and that's it.

Because three days later, Jesus is back up because Jesus, he's strong.

And whatever attacks come his way, he stays standing.

And when you stand with Jesus, you stand in his strength.

It's the same, it's the same today.

People still attack Jesus left and right.

There's still violent attacks toward Jesus' followers.

In fact, in the last decade, there have been almost a million people who have been martyred for their faith.

Following Jesus is still dangerous in lots of places in the world.

But but no matter how many attacks come, the message of Jesus keeps spreading.

There's still intellectual attacks to Jesus.

That's nothing new.

It's been that way for 2,000 years.

There's still people who want to make arguments that you're silly, you're foolish if you have any faith in Jesus.

You might as well believe in fairy tales.

I remember going to college, and I didn't go to a Christian college, I didn't go to a college where following Jesus was encouraged.

In fact, oddly, uh, most of the classes, even if they had nothing to do with faith or religion, somehow there would be some attack at Jesus followers that was part of the college course.

It wasn't on the syllabus, but it was always in the class.

And I remember there was this author, my freshman year of college, that we were encouraged to read.

His man named John Stuart Mill, and I've shared this quote many times in the past.

It's something that I come to pretty often in my thinking.

We were told to read this guy's writings because he was he was a genius and he was a philosopher in the the early part of American history, and so much of our nation was was really based on his writings and his philosophies.

And so I had to read books by John Stuart Mill.

I had to write papers on John Stuart Mill, and all my professors were just enamored with John Stuart Mill.

And then one day I came across this quote by this same person, by John Stuart Mill.

You gotta get that middle name in there.

If you're if you're at a certain level, you gotta have that middle name, unless you're Jesus, and then you're just like first name basis.

But this is the quote by John Stuart Mill.

About the life and sayings of Jesus, there is a stamp of personal originality combined with profundity of insight, which must place the prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of those men of sublime genius.

Now, the the crazy thing about this is you would think reading this that he was a pastor, or at least a really devoted Jesus follower, but no, no, no.

John Stuart Mill was an atheist.

He did not believe in the supernatural in the slightest.

And yet, when he read Jesus, when he read the teachings of Jesus, he's not even talking about the miracles.

He didn't believe in that, just the teachings of Jesus, the things that Jesus said.

And remember, go back to Matthew 7, when Jesus says, anyone who listens to my teachings and does what they say, it's like a person who builds their life on bedrock.

He read the teachings of Jesus and he couldn't deny.

He couldn't deny the originality, he couldn't deny the genius, he couldn't deny that there was something irresistible about Jesus, there's something undeniable about Jesus.

And I remember talking to some of my professors and being like, hey, what do you think of this quote?

And they're like, ah, whatever.

But I thought this is the guy whose books we're supposed to read.

And he says, look, there's something about Jesus that's just different.

It puts him at the very top rank of the men who have ever lived in the history of our world.

There's something undeniable about Jesus.

That's why he's strong enough to be our foundation.

I remember when I was in college, I had another kind of pivotal moment in my faith developing, and it was me watching this pastor and teacher named Ravi Zacharias.

And if you've ever watched Ravi Zacharias, you know that he's an incredibly intellectual, brilliant person.

In fact, when I watch Ravi, I say that like I'm friends with him.

Um when I ro when I watch Reverend Zacharias, I don't know the appropriate title to use, but when I watch him, I oftentimes have to watch what he says a couple of times because he's just so smart.

It takes my brain a few times to absorb what he's saying.

But I watched him give a talk to a group of college students, and uh and he always does this open forum thing, and anyone can come up and ask any question, which is a pretty risky thing to allow.

And this college student came up and asked what is what is probably a uh a fairly cliched but at the same time valid question.

And he said, Hey, how can you sit there and say that Jesus Christ is the answer for?

Life that Jesus Christ in our language today is the strong foundation that we should build our lives on.

How can you say that when number one, there are so many faiths in the world?

And number two, there have been so many abuses done in the name of Jesus.

And what what what Robbie Zacharias said was so brilliant, and it just it came right out.

He said, number one, you can't judge a faith based on its abuses.

You can judge a faith only based on its founder.

And so, as far as the abuses go, sure, there have been abuses in the name of Jesus.

There have been abuses in the name of everything.

Because anytime you have something powerful, someone will find a way to use it for their own gain.

Look at money.

Money isn't good, it's not evil, it's amoral.

Some people use money to do really, really good things.

They're generous, they're kind, they help others in need.

Some people use money to make sure that they have more.

They use it to oppress people, they use it to harm people.

It doesn't make money evil, it just means that money's powerful and it can be used for good or for evil.

Jesus has absolutely been abused by people seeking power, but that doesn't mean that he isn't genuine.

He said, You don't judge a faith based on its abuses, you judge a faith based on one thing.

It's a founder.

And then he said something truly bold, something that is far from politically correct, but it rings true.

He said, No founder of any faith could ever claim to stand next to Jesus and compare.

Jesus is simply more capable than anyone else in human history.

And a great way to measure capability, strength, is are you able to do a lot with a little?

Are you able to use very small resources to create something great?

When you look at the founders of most faith, and do the research, do it for yourself, and see where Jesus stands up, see where he how he stacks against those.

When you look at the founders of most faith, you find you find people who had tremendous wealth, tremendous political influence and connection.

You find people who who often commanded armies, and if people didn't follow them, they ended up dead.

And they used force and they use their human resources, they use their connections in this world.

That's what they use to propel their message forward.

Jesus had none of those.

He had none of those.

Jesus, he had he had no money.

He was homeless.

His entire ministry.

In fact, a man comes to him and claims he wants to follow him, and Jesus says, Man, make sure you count the cost because I don't even have a place to lay my head at night.

He compared himself to a fox.

He said, Even foxes have holes to sleep in.

I don't have anything.

Jesus spent three years as a homeless wanderer, dependent on the generosity of others just for a place to stay.

He didn't have any political connections.

He never held public office.

He never held a title in his community that gave him any type of influence whatsoever.

In fact, far the opposite, every person who had connection, every person who had influence, they stood against Jesus.

Jesus didn't command an army.

What he had was a small ragtag group of followers that happened to be comprised of fishermen and uneducated poor people and prostitutes.

And those were the people that following Jesus led the greatest movement in history.

No one else has ever been able to do that.

You can look at the founder of every faith, you can look at the founder of every nation.

Look, compare Jesus to anyone that has ever existed and ask the question: is anyone more capable than Jesus?

And the answer is simply no.

There is something undeniable about Jesus.

There's something irresistible about Jesus.

That's why every major religion on the planet has this weird need to include Jesus.

That's why he's a prophet in some religions.

That's why he's an enlightened one in other, in other faiths and other ways of thinking.

But we know him simply as Jesus Christ.

As the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, that Jesus is the one who formed everything, that he's the one who holds all things together.

He is Jesus, and he's exactly who he said he is.

He is the strong foundation.

He is the only thing worthy of carrying the weight for our lives.

And so again, I ask that question: what is the foundation for your life?

What are you trusting right now to carry the weight?

Because make no mistake, we're in the midst of a storm.

Jesus said, when the storm comes, not if, and we are in one of those when moments right now.

And it's times like this where it is, it's more it's more pertinent than ever to ask these questions.

It's more vital than ever to really examine our hearts and say, what am I depending on?

And I'm telling you that if you're depending on anything less than Jesus, it's like you're trusting ice underneath you as you drive.

I hope it works out for you.

But it often doesn't.

But if you do place your faith in Jesus, you have a foundation that is stronger than anything you can imagine.

He is the cornerstone.

And we have this choice to make right now.

It's it's faith or fragility.

It's faith or fragility.

Am I gonna put my life and all that goes with it?

Am I gonna put my hopes and my dreams and my passions and my desires, the hopes that I not only have for myself, but I have for my family, for my friends, for my community.

Am I gonna put that on something of this world?

I'm gonna put that on something that can be here in an instant and gone tomorrow.

Or I'm gonna be put it on something that lasts, I'm gonna put it on something that stands the test of time.

Am I gonna put it on something that can truly take the weight?

And I challenge you to find anything, anything, that can claim to be that more than Jesus.

He himself said, Make me your foundation.

Build your whole life on me.

I think he's right.

I believe he's right.

I believe he's the only one, the only one that we can build our lives on.

And we put our faith in him and we put everything else to the side and we say, Yeah, you know, I hope all that stuff works out.

I hope that goes well, I hope the economy gets better, I hope this relationship that I have works out, I hope this career plan that I have goes according to plan.

Those are all good things to hope for and pray for, but they're not strong enough to build your life on.

Only Jesus.

Put your faith in him.

And look, if you're watching this and you're already a Jesus follower, great.

Good job.

Make sure you have both feet planted firmly on him.

Don't let there be drift, don't let there be that natural human tendency to put some of your hopes on other things.

Don't diversify your hope, I guess is what I'm saying.

Put all your eggs in one basket, put it all on Jesus.

There's a scripture that says that the real way we worship him, and we're about to worship here again in a second.

In fact, Matt, I'm gonna have you start in a second, and we'll do Lord's Supper after you do worship.

But but there's a scripture that says our true form of worship is that we present ourselves as living sacrifices.

And I heard a pastor say once that the problem with a living sacrifice, it has a tendency to wiggle its way off the altar.

That's how we can be sometimes as people.

We put our faith in Jesus, we put ourselves on that altar, so to speak.

But we can just find ourselves unintentionally, even subconsciously, even wiggling off, and all of a sudden we're putting our faith in something else.

If that's you this morning, man, put it all on Jesus.

Pray and dedicate in your heart to him.

I put all my trust in you.

And if you're watching this and you've never put your faith in Jesus, you are seeing firsthand just how fragile the world can really be.

Don't settle for anything weak, don't settle for anything that can break apart.

Put it all on Jesus.

He stood the test of time.

He stood against every attack that has ever come against him, and there have been many, and they will continue and they will all fail.

Because Jesus Christ, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, he's God.

And he loves you.

And he's offering you the ability, he's offering you the chance to make a choice, to trust him.

And what you will find is that he will love you, he will commit himself to you, he will be there for you, he will be an active agent in your life because he is alive and he is powerful.

And when you pray to him, and when you pray in his name with faith, you will see things happen because he's real.

Put your faith in Jesus.

And there's no there's no crazy ritual you have to go through to do that, it's just a prayer.

It's just a cry in your heart that says, I believe in you.

I believe in you, help me trust you, help me put my faith in you, help me live this out.

And as a church, we want to be there for you.

So if you do that this morning, look, post a comment.

Or directly message us, directly message His Hands Church if you want it to be private and say, This morning, I put my faith in Jesus, and we will surround you with prayer.

We will surround you with people who will help you grow.

That's our commitment to you.

But for all of us, it's an opportunity today to say, my faith is in nothing less than you, Jesus.

You are my foundation, you are my cornerstone, and I choose faith over fragility.

So with that in mind, let's pray.

Lord, thank you so much for this morning.

Thank you so much, Lord, for the opportunity to recognize how fragile our world can be.

And thank you so much, Jesus, for the opportunity to recognize how strong, how steady, how powerful, how true you are.

I pray, Lord, that all of us watching this, that we go all in with you.

That even if we if we have one small aspect of our lives that we've we've placed its trust in something else, that we would move that right now, that we would put everything, everything on you, Jesus, that we would make you the foundation of our lives, that we would trust you with every aspect of who we are and who we're meant to be.

I pray that you encourage us.

I pray that you work with us.

I pray that you heal those of us who need healing.

Lord, help us.

We love you, and it's your name we pray.

Amen.