We Need a Little Christmas | Week 6 | Bill Bush

And what we're gonna talk about today is instead of a big idea, I wanna unpackage what I call the big question today to ask yourself this. Does your faith work when life doesn't? Does your faith work when life doesn't? Do you have a faith that's based on life always working out the way I want it to work out?

Is is faith really about do you come to church? Do you do you try to have a faith? Do you believe in God? Do you trust God? And what you believe that's gonna do is to make you have one season. The good season.

It's like my season like, the more I trust God, the more the season is always good. It's always gonna be right. It's never gonna be a bad season. I'm not gonna have bad seasons because that's why I trust God. And when I do the right thing, shouldn't I you know, when you buy the right vacuum, you spend the money. Should it not

should it still work? Because if that's your mentality, you're gonna run into problems. Because faith is not about avoiding bad seasons. Real faith is built for bad seasons. And so when life doesn't work, what happens to your faith and trust in God?

That's the question. Because that helps you determine what your faith really is. And do you really actually believe God? Or do you just believe in a God and you're trying to do all the policies and procedures and and get your warranty and make sure you get what you want.

That's what we're gonna see today in the life of Abraham. He's been it's been the example. But today, we're gonna actually look at in this last part of this chapter, and it gives us four points that actually describes

when it says he believed God and he had this faith. It describes what that faith is supposed to look like. What do we do to embrace that kind of a faith? What's our what does God ask us to do in order to embrace that faith? In In order to embrace his love, what do we have to do? And what we're gonna see today is simply wanna read verse 20 before I dive in. Right in the middle of this passage, then we're gonna go back through it. Because I think verse 20 in the center kinda lands the whole thing when it says this, Abraham

never wavered in believing God's promise.

In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. So it says he never wavered. He didn't have this doubt. Was he a superman? Was he some kind of neurotic who he didn't know any better not to doubt? Now now now two things with that. Life of Abraham, if you go back and read his story, start in Genesis 15, read all the way to 20, he had moments where he was a knucklehead.

So before we talk about this, if you think never wavering means never messing up, then you're gonna give up.

He had moments, but what never wavered is he never stopped absolutely believing God. He did some dumb things that looks like doubt, but it really was I'm gonna try to help God out. He had a few fearful moments in his life. He still sinned. He still had issues. Go read a story. He's a human like you and me. But what never wavered is he truly held on

to what God just declared righteous in him was he just believed God. He he just did.

And what he never wavered to was the fact that, you know, we would just to set you up if you weren't here, who's this guy Abraham? Lived about four thousand years ago. He's the one that God called out to say, hey, I'm gonna fix humanity's problem. I'm gonna call out a people, the Israelites. I'm gonna create a nation. And through that nation, I'm gonna bless them in ways that makes the world go, how did they do that? They're a bunch of nobodies, but the real plan was I'm gonna bring the savior through them. So when he promises Abraham, he goes, you're gonna have a child. I'm gonna make a great nation. Many he's gonna be the father of many nations, and eventually you're gonna bless the world through your descendants. He's blessing the whole world is Jesus. It's the gospel.

And that's the promise he made. But if you weren't here, he told him, he asked him to leave the land he was in. He was in the capital of Mesopotamia, a place called Ur. It was a wealthy place. Was the most advanced city at the time, and we know from the stories Abraham had wealth, And God says, I want you to leave all that and go to a land I'm gonna show you. Where are we going? I'm not gonna tell you. I'll tell you when we're there.

So he had to believe God to just leave all of that and go to nowhere, and then he I'm gonna bless you through your descendants. Well, when God made that promise to him, he was 75 years old and had no kids. His wife was a little bit younger than him, but they had no kids. That's

a pretty ridiculous thing. Go to nowhere, leave all this, and I'm gonna give you kids, and you're 75 years old. Well, later on in the story, you go back and read his whole story. He gets to age 99 and still hasn't had a kid. It gets even more impossible. Life wasn't working.

It wasn't even working the way he thought God's promise was supposed to work. But he didn't waver because he believed God. What does that look like? That's what this whole chapter kinda describes as part of the chapter. And I think there's four things here that says here is how to build a faith for all seasons.

A faith for all seasons. First thing, you need to trust who, not what. Who, not what. Look back at verse 17.

That is what the scriptures mean when God told him, I have made you the father of many nations.

This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing. So it's powerful that he's a God who who can bring dead back to life and create new things out of nothing. That describes

the power of who God is and what he can do. But that's in that verse, what did it say he believed in? That? He believed God. He believed in the who. The what was just what he can do.

He he he had a faith in the who, not the what. And the thing that's gonna mess us up, we're gonna have a faith that will not work when life doesn't. If you have a faith that won't work when life isn't working,

it's usually because you have a faith in the what, not the who. In other words, you've turned God into a resource instead of the source. He's the one that gives you what you want to experience life. And when we say life isn't working, when we have a who not what not who mentality towards God,

life not working really is another way of saying life's not doing what I want it to do. And if I worship and I I really look at God as more of the what is what I believe in, then the who becomes the deliverer of what I think is important. So if God doesn't deliver the what I expect, I'm gonna have a problem with God or

I'm gonna think that there's something wrong with my faith. Because I have this mentality that when I follow God, it's a contractual thing. I deserve this.

In many ways, there's many forms of that that's taken in our world today, especially in Christianity. The one of them is this name it and claim it kind of theology. It's like, hey, I really think God wants me to be happy all the time. I want this and that's what I want. So if I really believe in my heart, I want this new Cadillac, hard enough, I pray about it. And you know what? If I have enough faith, God's gonna give it to me.

That could not be the more opposite of what the bible says. You know one of the things the bible repeatedly says if you truly believe God and trust him with your life, the number one thing you've gotta count on in your life, suffering.

So I can't believe I'm saying, most guys won't say this in church because you gotta pay the bills. Right? And tell them, hey, I'm glad you're all here. We're gonna learn how life is gonna suck a lot of times. The more you trust Jesus, the more sucky moments you might have. And you're like, what? But

there's a purpose in it. That it takes you to the real promise that God gave. But if you get stuck in the what instead of the who, you're gonna miss it. And then when life doesn't seem to work, your faith will stop working. Our faith is built for those moments. Our faith is not built is not about avoiding those moments.

In other words, it's not like like for me enough life, gonna be like that idea would be, alright, my faith in God is I followed you God. I trust you God. It's raining outside. I think I deserve I think you want me to have sunny sunny skies, so I trust you and I'm gonna walk outside without an umbrella.

You're just gonna get wet. What you don't realize is that umbrella is faith. You're gonna go into the storms. But our faith in God and what he provides is he walks with us through the storm. You don't avoid the storm, but he's the protection during the storm. Does that make sense? It's you got to believe in the who,

not the what. It's the person, it's Jesus, it's always you got to believe in him. It's trust him. It's not about the what, it's about the who. And you know why? It's because God it's it's it's in the end, it's his character, it's his nature, it's who he is that you have to trust.

You know, because you know you know when you want someone to trust you, we swear? Not swear in the way that I swear when the cardinals can't win a home game. Not that kind of swearing. The kind of swearing where you're trying to say you can trust me, we always swear on something greater than ourselves. Right?

Like, I'd swear by God or I swear on my mother's grave because like, oh, nobody would touch that hallowed ground. Right? I go, but God actually made a promise

to to Abraham, this promise he made, but he swore on look what he does. Look what he does. Hebrews chapter six starting in verse 13. Verse thirteen and fourteen here. For example, there was God's promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name saying,

I will certainly bless you and I will multiply your descendants beyond number. What he's saying is, yeah, I'm gonna do that, but the one you need to really believe in is me because there's nobody greater than me. I'm swearing on my own name.

It's my own character. And then the truth is if you try to swear it, if you make a promise to someone, there really is only who you are to rely on. If you told your kids like they're acting crazy and you say, you know what? Santa said Disneyland's gonna come for Christmas if you start behaving.

What's your kid got to hold on to about actually going to what's the only thing they can really believe and trust? Your character. Because what if you just said that to shut them up? And you're like, I can't afford to go to Disneyland. The churros are $29 there.

Don't get me started on that turkey leg you get over by the Matterhorn. That thing you gotta buy on payment plans, let alone getting into the park.

It's like there's no way. I just wanted to shut them up. So it really is whether that promise is gonna happen or not is not about the promise, it's about the character of the promiser. So we need to think about my faith. I believe in the who, and I don't worry about the what.

Because God's way of answering promises are often very different than the way we imagine it being answered.

And that's why verse 17 says he can bring dead things back to life and create something new out of nothing. He has ways of doing stuff in our life where he asks us to go, how is that ever gonna do that? He has a way and we don't see it. And we get stuck in our own way.

We're like, I can't trust God because he's not doing it the way I thought it should be done. And the truth is that type of faith is the type of faith that says, hey, I need to see something deeper than than life just working my way. Two examples of of what this looks like. In in the book of Job,

God, you know, let Job let his life just stop working. Terrible things. But he had a purpose in it. And Job stayed faithful like God said he would.

But then the one thing Job started crying out to God was he told his friends, hey, it's I'm not gonna his wife even said, why don't you just curse God and die? See, her mentality is the what, not the who. If God's gonna do this, then just curse him and be done with it. And great wife,

But he he wouldn't do it. But he did cry out to God and he felt like God owed him an answer. And he demanded an answer. Well, God showed up and talked to him. And there's chapter after chapter of God having a conversation with Job. And in all of that, you know the one thing he didn't tell Job? He never answered.

He did something better. He revealed himself

because he said, hey, when you doubt the who, you don't understand. It's kind of arrogant to say, I can't believe God wouldn't do this. It makes perfect sense. If God if I loved my kid, I would do it this way. Well, because we have a limited amount of experience. We're not the God who created time and space that has been working out details. Like, look about things that he did in Abraham's life are affecting us right now. Four thousand years later, Abraham had no idea.

No idea. We have no idea. And so what God does is he goes to Job and he's trying to teach him something and draw him in. And he says, okay. Let me ask you a question. He basically start off with who is asking questions without knowledge. Meaning, who's the idiot that's asking dumb questions?

And then he goes, alright. Let me ask you a few. Were you there when I created space and time?

Were you there when I created this earth? Were you there when I created life? Were you there when I created random stuff in the middle? Were you there when I created the hippopotamus? I mean, I thought that was just a joke. You just threw it in there. Were you there when the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. He's letting him know it's this and he showed him all of creation. He gave him a vision, and he saw it all. And

he said, were you there when you did? What was he doing? He was revealing himself. He was saying, this is who I am. And at the end Job's like,

And you know what he said? He said, before I had heard of you. Even though he served him and followed him, but it was he said, I'd heard about you, but now I know you. And that was the purpose of God. All that strife, all that struggle, he cried out to him. And in the end,

he revealed. And knowing who God was, knowing the power of everything he had done, the next time something didn't work right in his life, he didn't have to doubt because he got a better answer. And when you embrace the who, not the what, you have this ability to get to a place you wouldn't get before.

In other words, here's a good little term, write this on your refrigerator and think about it. If you surrender, you'll never surrender. If you surrender, you want your faith to stay, you want your faith to work in tough times, then surrender to the who instead of the what.

Surrender to the who instead of always seeking the what. Because if you surrender to that, you won't surrender your faith. What do mean? Go to Daniel chapter three. Write this down and go read it. You're probably familiar with the story. These three guys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,

they had been the Babylonians had taken the Israelites into captivity. These guys were picked to be raised up as leaders, but then one day Nebuchadnezzar's advisors

got this idea. They didn't like how the Jews were faithful to God, so they tricked him into saying, you know, we gotta get rid of these guys. So he said they put this big statue together, said everyone should worship it,

knowing that the Jews, they'd love to serve God. So they're gonna be we're not gonna bow down and worship anything but God.

And so they wouldn't do it. And you know that Nebuchadnezzar liked these guys because he brings them and he gives them a second chance. Back then, you didn't give a second chance. He was doing the version of when you count for your kids because you really don't wanna act. You just want them to do it. So you're like, I'm gonna count to five. One, two,

three, four, four and a quarter, four and a half, four and three quarters, four six eights, seven. Just do it. And so what he tells them, he's like, I'm gonna give you another chance.

I want you to hear the music. Bow down and worship this thing, and we'll all be good. But if you don't, I'm gonna throw you into this fiery furnace and what God will protect you from that? You know how they answered? They said, alright, king.

We'd serve a God that we know he's more powerful than you, and we know he can protect us and most likely will. And most of us would say that, but that real believing in the who instead of the what, what they said next was powerful. They said, but even if he doesn't,

even if this is the way we're gonna die, even if we're gonna die right here and now, it doesn't make sense, if this is the end of it, if we're gonna get thrown into that and fry, even if he doesn't, hear me, o king, we will not bow. When you surrender, you'll never surrender.

And that's because you have put your faith in a who instead of always seeking the whats. Because if you seek the whats and God either doesn't give you that what or answers it in a way that doesn't make sense in your life, doesn't fit into your lifestyle, doesn't fit into what you want, you're disappointed.

And either God has failed or you're a failure because you didn't have enough faith. And the problem with the what mentality, the what theology is the faith becomes all about you. It's about you doing the thing to get what you want. It and it's about what you want and it's about what you do.

That faith will never last through the tough seasons of life. It won't make it. We need to trust the who, not the what. And the second thing is closely related. It's we also need to trust it's God's word,

not wishful thinking. When we trust God, we gotta trust his word, what he says. Because look what it says in verse 18. Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping.

Believing that he would become the father of many nations, what did he say? For God said to him, that's how many descendants you'll have. So he's quoting God's words, and he but he says in what context? Even when there was no reason to hope, he kept hoping. What's that saying in the Greek is in English we call it an oxymoron.

You know what an oxymoron is? It's a stupid oxy. No. An oxymoron is when you take two contradictory statements and you put them together for heightened impact. It's like taking two opposite things.

There was no hope, but he had hope. It's like this. Let me give you a better example. You'll understand oxymoron. It's like good football team, Seattle Seahawks. Oxymoron. They're opposites. They're contradictory statements. They don't belong together.

Love you all my Seattle fans. It's just fun. We haven't been good in five years. So just let me have this moment, okay?

He took it was saying this is an absolute hopeless moment,

but in a hopeless moment he kept hope. How? He believed God's word. It wasn't wishful thinking. It was I'm gonna trust God's word. I'm gonna live by God's word. How about you?

You say you believe in Jesus, you even come to church, but if you're gonna believe in the who, not the what, and you're gonna trust his word, not your thoughts, then you gotta be in God's word. This is where you know the who.

He said it to him, but it's been recorded by the power of the holy spirit and all the other words God wanna record. This is where he reveals who he is. The bible says this is active. This is like a double edged sword. It cuts through. This is the living word of God. God's word brings us to life. This is where you find out the who. If you don't get in here, you're gonna have a hard time trusting the who because you don't know the who.

I'm talking about the band. You just won't know them. And so the question is, if you don't know him, then you tend to start believing your wishful thinking, your thoughts about how it should work.

And then when you hear God's word, and if God's word contradicts our culture and the things you've come to learn, you're gonna have a problem with And we have a lot of people come to church all the time and then they hear something, well, don't believe that. Well, you don't trust his words, then how do you trust him?

And that's why the enemy. There is an enemy. We're in a spiritual war. Always goes after you can't trust God's word. It's been mistranslated. It's been this way. Those are all lies.

You need to just say, I believe God's word. Even when what it seems like he's asking me to do is not gonna give me the life I want. But he can bring dead things back to life and create something new out of nothing. Do you believe that?

Then what in his word is he asking you? Is he revealed to himself about here's who I am and here's the next step you ought to take? If you're stuck on the what, you're not gonna trust the who when he says to go in a direction that doesn't seem like it's gonna give you the what that you're seeking.

And that's the problem with that kind of faith. It won't make it. It won't make it. You gotta listen to God's word in place. That's what Romans 10 talks about. Your faith grows stronger when you hear God's word. The word there for hear is not just listen to, it means to hear with the with application.

That's exactly what James is talking about in the book of James when he says we have to not only be listeners but doers of the word. And he talks about faith and works. He's like, yeah, we're saved by faith. But he goes, show me your works. What he's trying to say is they're not contradicting each other. What he's saying is genuine faith always leads to trust.

Doesn't mean you're perfect. But if you genuinely have accepted the love of Christ and put your faith in Jesus as your only way, you will change. If you say you believe in Jesus,

intellectually you accept it, but you keep living your life the way you want to and you don't trust God's word, what it's implying is James is saying, you might not even be a Christian.

There's a good chance you're not a believer. So if you're sitting here going, I say I believe in Jesus. I show up when I want to, but I really don't change my life according to God's word at all. What you need to do is not go, better start doing it or I'm out. You need to ask, why don't I wanna do that? Because I was probably never in. That's what you should be thinking about.

Why do I not want to I know we get caught in sin. I know we get trapped. I know we have the the coping mechanism we learn. We gotta unpackage those. I'm not talking about slipping up. I'm talking about you say you believe in Jesus, but you never will change anything based on his word if you don't agree with it. What he's saying is you probably are not a Christian

at all. And if that's you, you should consider that and think about it. Not to go change your ways, but to go change who your faith is in.

And then make sure you have embraced that love, and now you have the Holy Spirit, and that's where the desire comes from, and that's where the ability to comes from to walk in his ways. That's what faith is supposed to do. Works doesn't produce the love. The love and the faith produces the works.

But you have to trust God's word, not just wishful thinking. And the third thing is, if you're really gonna have a faith for all seasons, you gotta look beyond your circumstances.

Look at verse 19. And Abraham's faith did not weaken even though at about 100 years of age he figured his body was as good as dead and so was Sarah's womb. Wow.

Abraham was pretty honest about the situation, wasn't he? He figured that means he knew. He wasn't ignoring the facts. He wasn't he was willing to look at the situation and goes, this situation looks pretty dire based on what God said. I mean, I'm 100 now and my wife is in her nineties. She's like and she never was able to produce a kid. I don't think her womb got any better in the last seventy years or so.

He's being pretty honest about the scenario, isn't he? But it said his faith didn't weaken. He didn't get discouraged.

It's saying basically even though he knew this, it's using this term that we get in the Greek to say face the facts. He faced the facts. But it's saying something interesting. He's saying he faced the facts and still didn't get discouraged.

Because you know the term face the facts in the Greek, it comes from two words, mind and down. So when it says he looked at this, it says that he he he he he his mind could have been down. Facing the facts is to mind it means implies discouragement.

It means I'm fixated on the problem. I see this. I see the circumstances, and the circumstances has taken my mind down. I'm now discouraged. You ever feel that way? Well, what he says is he didn't just face the facts. He knew the facts. He faithed the facts. Faithed. I didn't lisp. Faithed the facts.

In other words, he was able to be honest about the reality of the scenario. He didn't hide it. He didn't hide that that was tough. He didn't he didn't deny that he was in a rough. He didn't deny that it's a confusing time. He didn't deny that this doesn't make any sense to him. He had no problem. He didn't try to deny it. A lot of us think faith, having this faith that looks beyond the street is like, you act like it's not there. You're in denial. No. No. No. There's nothing bad. And you're like, no. No. No. No. That's that's what faith is. I can't actually have a bad day. I can't be in doubt. I can't struggle. I can't rest. That's not what he's saying. He had those struggles with us, but what he was able to do was say, but he didn't let it discourage him because what he was doing was he he he looked beyond the circumstances.

He didn't just get stuck in the moment. Now I think a lot of us either try to deny there's a problem because we can't under if I open that door, it's okay to say I'm not okay, and that's okay. But it's not okay to let your mind get down and just get stuck in the moment. You've gotta look past it.

But that only works as if I trust God's word and I'm my trust is in a who, not a what. And so I need to be able to look past the circumstance. Otherwise because you know what? What happens is we have a hard time with that when our faith is in the what? When our faith is in experiences.

When our faith is in the moment. That's why a lot times when life gets hard and you start to struggle, the first thing we do as Christians is stop showing up.

Because I think we inadvertently believe that why I need to I've been a Christian a while. I come to church. I need to have my act together. And if I don't, then I look like a failure.

And I think we've been affected. Even the way we live our lives, I think there's a natural human thing that we wanna show people our best and hide the worst. And that's what makes social media so toxic for us.

It's why you get discouraged. Well, it's a way to connect with people. But now if you spend hours scrolling through, you actually how many times do you get stressed out and depressed? Because you know what? You see all your friends post, and you're like, we're comparing their best to our worst.

Because you think that's their life. No. It's not. I mean, there's a few of you out there that you're a little bit odd to me. You should probably seek counseling right away. You you you only share negative things. You're not even the glass half empty. You're like, who stole my glass? But

most of us, we share all the best pictures from our vacation. We share all those our Insta Story. We want an Insta Story life. Insta Story, you share all these pictures. There are these moments, and that's interesting. When you take a picture and a snapshot and you throw it up there and you pretend like that's reality, that's very confusing. And a what not a whom faith means, I think all of my life should be an Insta Story. That if I have faith in God, it should all be one great moment to the next.

Think about it. Let me show you a picture from our family pictures that is gonna look amazing. Look at this. This is our family pictures.

That's my awesome grandson, and this is my my my son-in-law and my beautiful daughter, my knuckleheaded son-in-law. No. I'm just joking. He's our worship pastor. Very talented. Awesome. I am so thankful that my daughter has him, and she has him. He has her. Yeah. Not he has him. That's weird.

I already preached about that a few weeks ago. I'm sorry. Shouldn't have said that. That's but see how happy they look and how funny this is? Doesn't that just look fun? When you take this, like, what a fun couple. What a great grandkid. Any of you ever take family pictures with a two year old?

There's something about technology that's helped us. Back You in the eighteen hundreds when they took pictures, no one smiled because you had to sit still for like seven minutes and otherwise it got blurry. Nobody wants to smile for seven minutes. They're

they're mad. And then when Mai was a kid, a lot of family pictures and school pictures, they just looked kinda weird. They never it was rare you got them right because you had a roll of film. And when you paid, they only took so many pictures, and you're just praying and you didn't get to see them till they got developed. So you're just you took 26 pictures, and you're like, alright, I'm praying to the gods a photo that one of these comes back looking halfway normal.

And they never do, especially if you have family with kids. Someone's always picking their nose or doing something or screaming or whatever. But nowadays we get these perfect pictures because the person has that little chip in their camera. They could take a thousand pictures. So this picture right now, this captured this one moment, the reason he's upside down is after the first family photo we took,

he turned into a turd monkey. Distracted by everything. Didn't wanna be doing it anymore. Ran away. Every picture was by the grace of God. We got about 20 great photos, but there was thousands of photos taken. And this one in particular, the reason upside down is he was in the middle of running

all over the place, and our photographer, Maggie, was smart. She followed and was just and they picked him up at this one moment he was screaming, then they went flopped him and tickled him, and then everyone just happened to be smiling. This picture and then right afterwards went right back to turd monkey.

This was one nanosecond in the middle of a storm of almost genocide.

And here's the problem, that's what life is.

Life is a lot of photos and a lot of them are not pretty. A lot of them don't go the way they want. They're not the way we imagine them. They're not the way we dressed up for. They're not what we pictured. Not what we hoped for, but every so often, there's these moments and we should praise God and celebrate those moments, but we also know that there's purpose to all those others too.

But if you want an insta story life, that's what your faith is about because it's about what not a who, and you get stuck staring at your problem instead of the solution, you're gonna miss it. You're gonna miss what God had in all those other moments trying to make every life that moment.

That's what Abraham made him different in his faith. That's what our faith needs to be. Look beyond the circumstances. So the question is, what issue do you have your eyes stuck on?

All right. Well, do I do this? How do I do this? That's why I think this last point is. How do I look beyond the circumstances? Well, point four, worship God, not your worry.

Because now we're back to verse 20, which I started with. Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. When you read brought glory to God, you know what that is? That's defining worship. In this he worshiped God. So what he did is through it all,

he chose to worship God. We need to worship God, not our worry.

You know, we in our pain, worship God. In our problems, worship God. In our victories, worship God. In our highs, worship God. In our lows, worship God. And the problem is when we unpackage this, when we have a what, not a who, and and and and then we we we we have the what, and then we when we have the what, not a who, we have a problem with trusting God's word over our wishful thinking, which then makes us get stuck staring at our circumstances

instead of looking beyond them, which then causes us to worship our worry. How do you mean worship my word? Well, the definition of worship is to ascribe worth to. It means what do you put your all into. In other words, what you think about the most, what you seek the most is what you actually worship.

And so if you're worrying all the time and you're stuck in what it doesn't mean you own the worry, you own the problem. You know there's it's not saying we should deny there's worry. It's what you do with the worry. If you sit there and worry more than you worship, that's on you. That's a choice.

If you say, hey, I can't come to worship because I am just so messed up. You are messed up in your understanding of what it means to worship and what the use of it is. Worship isn't come when it feels good and just celebrate, and it's like I gotta be psyched up to go worship.

Worship's not that. Worship is meant more importantly for when life doesn't work. Because it's a reminder. It's refocusing your life back on the author of life instead of the sucky parts of your life. And so we should worship the most when life makes the least sense. But we don't do that. And we miss the moment.

We miss what worship is about. Especially the singing part. The musical part because God why do you think we like music? God created us. There's something about singing truth that takes and puts the head and the heart together. It recenters you. Why don't feel it? Well, all

I know is if I took that approach to working out, I would be a much larger human being standing here next to you because I work out to support my eating habit. It's balance in my life. How many times can you ask how many times I feel like working out? How about you?

Some of you again are like those weird people that like to share all your bad things in life. You you enjoy working out. You're just odd, but most of us do it because we know it's at the end. But how do you feel after you've worked out? Because it's good for your body, especially when your body doesn't feel like it.

Worship is good for your soul. It's good for the focus. It's good for battling worry, especially when you're the most worried. But if all you do, if you get stuck on your worry, it wakes you up at night, you can't think about it, it affects your relationship, it does all that, you are worshiping your worry.

And you're like, well, how do I get rid of it? Worship God. Just make a choice. See what he does. See what happens in your heart. See what happens when you praise him instead of just staring at the problem, staring at the worry. What happens when you pray to him instead of let your worry continue to prey on you?

What happens when you say I'm at the end of myself? I can't do this. What if your prayer is I don't even feel like doing this, God? I got nothing left. I know you told me to go down the stretch. I'm trying to trust you, but I am done. I'm spent. I got nothing left. What happens when you just cry out to God? Because you know what? When you get to the end of yourself, you're finally at the beginning of God.

You're finally at where he wants you. Sometimes that worry that keeps wearing you down that you won't worship, he's gonna continue to let it happen because he's trying to get your attention.

He's trying to say you're looking at the wrong thing. You're focusing on the wrong thing. You sometimes our worry is because we're running after the wrong thing. If I just said that wasn't what I should be running after, I wouldn't be worrying anymore.

Praise him. Worship him, not your worry. Because love how it says he didn't waver. That's actually a Greek two words. It's oh, not two the word, it means two minds. It implies they use that in the term as like, oh, that person is in an argument with himself.

How many of you feel like you're in an argument with yourself right now? Christmas tends to create that problem a lot.

You know what God wants, but you also know what you're worried about. You know that God says this, but you also want that. You can't have two minds.

It splits. It doesn't work well. Don't waver. In other words, if you surrender, you won't surrender. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, you know what? That's great for Abraham, but he's not me. Look at what 21 the rest of this passage says. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.

And because of Abraham's faith, God counted him as righteous. And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was recorded for our benefit too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus, our Lord from the dead.

Amen? Now look at the last part of this. Verse 25, he was handed over to die because of our sins and he was raised to life to make us right with God. It comes back to it's a believing in a who over the whats. That if you understand what Jesus did for you,

all the other things we're worried about, all the other promises that don't seem to be happening, you could take it to the bank that if Jesus would leave heaven and come down and do what he did for us, you should be able to trust him with everything else.

But if you're stuck on the what's, you're not looking at the who. It always comes back to the who. It always comes back to the person. It always comes back to that point. I mean, Abraham himself, when it says he never wavered, he had problems, but that moment where his faith truly, truly, truly became profoundly there

is when God gave him a visual of what he was doing.

You realize through all of that, the part it's talking about was if you go to Genesis 22, don't have time to read it, but God comes he's now in his hundreds. He has this son that's that's getting older, and God comes and says, hey, Abraham, I need to do something. What? I need you to take your son up on this mountain, Mount Moriah, and I need to sacrifice him to me.

What? I'm supposed to go sacrifice the child that's the promise that you promised

a what personality, and some of you with what? Was like, that doesn't seem right. You're starting to judge God right now. You have no idea what he's planning on doing. So Abraham went.

When he gets to the mountain, he tells his servants, I think there's a little inkling he knew that he believed in a God, the who, that can raise things back from the dead and create nothing, something new out of nothing. You knew he could do that.

So he kinda knew that because he told his servants, stay here. Me and the boy are gonna go up on the mountain and worship, and then we will be right back. I think he knew that God was gonna do something that he didn't understand.

He gets up there. His son even says, he has all the wood. He goes, hey, got everything. Where's the sheep? God will provide. Then he ties his son up and he literally takes the knife out. He's committed. And then God speaks to him. Says, stop. Don't harm the boy. That was never my intention.

I now know that you trust the who over the what. That you were willing to walk away from the very promise because you knew me. That you knew it wasn't about the what, it's about me. But don't worry.

And in that moment, a sheep came out of the thicket, just wandered in out of nowhere. Something new out of out of there. And it saved his son. His son didn't have to die. And what he was trying to show Abraham was that picture of you need to trust the who, not the what. You need to trust that, not this. And he did.

And it was an it it was a visual of what the gospel is. Why do we need Christmas? Because we all deserve to die on that mount up. The mount up is actually where they built the temple, by the way. And what he was saying is, without that sheep coming out of nowhere, we all deserve to die.

And he's also saying, but you know what? There's gonna come a time where my son is gonna climb up, and he's gonna have nails to go through him, and that's not gonna be stopped because he is the sheep. Jesus is the Jesus is the one that makes us not die. You can absolutely trust me, and Abraham learned it's about you.

Because you're the one. You're the way. It's not about the one. It's about the who. It's always about a who. It's always about a person. Think about that. Any of you ever wondering what happened with my vacuum? Every time I tell a story, I thought, I really kinda wanna know how that ended.

Well, my wife did come to me, you know why? Because she said, you have an ability that when things don't work like this and you call a company, you have an ability to get it done. I'm like, that's because I'm awesome. Now, I actually let her know my secret. It's because I learned one thing when it comes to the policies,

the program, anything in a company, it doesn't matter what's written down on paper. Those are important things. But you never get this stuff resolved unless you talk to a person. It's never the what. It's always a who. So I tried to call. They said the wait's like two hours.

I saw and then I looked and all a sudden the little thing lit up because at first there was no one to chat with and the chat box, hey, there's someone you can chat with.

Dinged it. So now I'm going back and forth actually chatting. Not email, but chatting right then in real time with somebody. And I have no idea who this person I don't know if it's a girl or a guy. It was their name was spelled d y a n. I'm like, is that Diane? Is it Dian? Is it Dian? Is it Dion? I I don't know.

All I know is I wrote Dion, Diane, whoever you are, you're my only hope. I quoted Star Wars on this person. I said, if it's you gotta be the hero. This isn't getting solved. You gotta save the vacuum and my marriage, my friend. And I let him know the issue.

And he's like, alright. And he asked for some information. I deemed it I give him what he wants. Even though it's repetitive, I do it. And then after a few minutes, he's like, alright. I I don't wanna help this for you. I wanna help you out.

And then he writes, he goes, here you go. You need this part, which is the same thing they told us before. Here's the order number. It's gonna be shipped to you. Same thing. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I've heard this before. And I gotta we regret to inform you email later that day.

How is this different? And he goes, oh, because before the order was outside, you never had an order number. I'm giving you an actual number. A part is actually going out to you. I'm like, how is this possible? And he goes, because I'm giving you the brand new model.

I'm like, what? He goes, we just recently upgraded. There's even a more expensive model in to help you out. I didn't pay for it. I deserved to get the other part. I deserved what I what I did pay for, but I didn't deserve that. He goes, I upgraded you. You're getting a newer, better, something new out of nothing.

I said thank you. You see,

that worked and even all this thing, all that worry, all that struggle, all that thing, I paid this much, I can't believe. All that, you know, this isn't fair. This isn't right. And a lot of us cry to God, you're not fair. You're not you don't want fair right. You want the love of Christ. You want what he does. And what he does is I went through all that struggle, but it took me to a better place. It took me to place where this guy says, you're getting something even better that you never even dreamed. You didn't even know it existed.

It took a person. We all need Christmas because we all need Jesus, because the only thing that makes us right with God, the only thing that makes life work, even when life isn't working, is a person. It's faith in him and him alone. It's believing God. That's what leads to this type of faith.

So as we go into this Christmas week here, I just wanna take communion with us because it's interesting that Jesus said the one thing I want you to do together as Christians is remember this moment. Remember the day that was probably, from our point of view, Jesus' worst day in his life. It was a pretty terrible day,

and yet it was the most victorious day ever.

It's the most victorious and and and he says for us to remember that, he says, he took this bread and broke it. It says, this is my body broken for you. He then took the cup and he says, this is my blood, spilled for you for this forgiveness and for this new covenant, the same covenant, Abraham, a covenant of faith. What he's saying is remember this. Why does he wanna remember this? Because if you remember what Jesus' worst day, what he did for you and I,

how does that compare to anything you're worried about right now? How does that compare about to any of your problems? It says you can trust the word of the Lord. The Bible says the word of the Lord will stand forever. Not your problems, not your opinions, not your politics, none of that. God's word because it's who he is.

And so we're supposed to reflect on this to remember that we're in a place that we needed him, and we still need him every day.

So we're gonna take this, but I wanna pray real quick because I think there might be some people in this room and somebody online that's never put their faith in Jesus. You might be coming to church, but you've never surrendered to the love of Christ. I'm gonna pray with you,

and you can join the family right now. And then when we take this right after I say amen, it'll mean something. So let's pray. If you're in this room or online and you've never really surrendered to Christ's love, it's simple. You need to confess and profess.

Confess your sin. Confess that you've tried to do it your own way. You've tried to ignore God. You haven't listened. And profess that your faith is turning to Jesus and what he did for you on the cross and by resurrecting. Just pray something like this with me, but make it your own words. Just dear Lord, thank you.

Thank you that that without you, I like Abraham's son Isaac deserved to die on that mountaintop for my own sin. I'm sorry for my lack of trust in you, my lack of belief, my selfishness, the things I've done. But right now, I wanna turn to you and accept your offer, your love.

I turn from that in the best way I know how right now. Put my faith in your grace, and I put my faith in what Jesus did on the cross, dying, taking my sin for me, and then resurrecting, bringing life to me. And Lord, I thank you for that. I accept that.

And now I pray that I would that would be in me and your spirit would fill me in a way that I can understand. And through that understanding of your absolute love and grace, I will choose to have a faith like Abraham had described in this passage, that I will seek the who each day

in order to have a faith that works even when life isn't. Thank you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey, if you just prayed that with me here online, welcome to the family. That's what it means to start there, believe God, and embrace that love, and let him start taking and making something new out of nothing.

A new you. A new you. Matter of fact, in the new year, we're gonna keep going through the book of Romans. The next section is how do you live in that faith? We're calling it rebrand. You've you've been rebranded as a new person. But all of us can think that because of what Jesus did

when he symbolically told us as he broke the bread. It's my body broken for you. Take and eat.

He then took the cup and said, this is my blood. It's built for the forgiveness of your sins. It's for the new covenant. This is what Christmas is about. It's about Easter. You know, the bible just says doesn't tell us to it says to celebrate the Easter moment. Never told us to celebrate Christmas.

We celebrate Christmas because it's the beginning of this process. Almost should just have one and call it crossmas.

But that's what it's about. It's a take and drink.

And all God's people said, amen. And I'm gonna say, hoorah, if you're around. You know what I mean by that. Hoorah. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.io

for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.