There was a college student in
his speech class who had to do a presentation to his class. And his presentation was going
to be graded on his ability to be creative and his ability to
really drive a point home and make it memorable. And so what
he did is he picked a topic called the law of the pendulum. And
he went into class. And he got up in front of the
blackboard there and he began to discuss and explain exactly
what it meant in the law of the pendulum that when a pendulum
swings, when it's let go and it swings from one side to the
next, it can never ever go any higher than the point that it
was first originally dropped at. And he went on to explain
all the physics behind it. He told them that all the gravity
that bears down upon it and finally comes to rest at its point of
equilibrium, but the main point being the law of the pendulum
is that it could never, ever, unless it was acted upon some
other way, it could never swing ever any higher than the point
that it was first originally dropped. And so what he did is
he grabbed a string and he grabbed a tack and he put it above the
blackboard and he hung the string upon it and he grabbed the little
toys, little spinner, whatever those things are called. A little
top, he tied it to the string and he hung it from the tack
and he grabbed a piece of chalk and he chalked up the line where
it was on the blackboard and he let it go and when it came,
it swooshed and then it came on back and then he drew a line
where it came a little bit shorter and then it came back and it
came back and he hit a line every time demonstrating that the little
top would always come back shorter than its original release point. went on to explain again why
that was. And he said, Do you all believe that the law of the
pendulum is true? And everybody said, Well, yeah,
absolutely. You just demonstrated their force. We believe in this.
His teacher kind of almost smugly said, Well, yeah, of course,
you just did it. And he kind of walked up there thinking that he was
done with his presentation. But he wasn't. The presentation
had just begun. He said, Oh, Professor, well, you believe
that it's true. I have one more presentation to make. So he grabbed
The cord that he had already had set up in the classroom before
class was a steel cord that could handle up to 500 pounds hanging
from the middle of the room. And he put a 250-pound weight
to the bottom of the cord. And then he went over to the
wall. And he set up a desk and put a chair on top of it and
asked his professor to come sit up on the chair. He said, well,
I need to demonstrate it one more time to see if you really
believe this. And as the professor got in the
chair, he lifted the weight, and he brought it up to his chin
with his head against the wall. And he said, now, do you believe
that the law of the pendulum is true? And with beads of sweat
beginning to come on his mustache, he said, yeah, I do. He said, now, you understand
that it could never hit your chin. It could never hit your
chin. Because it could never come any
higher than the point from which I released it. He said, yeah,
I believe it. So he lets go, and he says, whoosh. And it comes
on back, whoosh. And he dove off the table, off
the chair. Needless to say, his belief was
theoretical. Theoretical. He believed a doctrine. He believed a law. He believed
something that could be presented on a board, something written
in a book. But when it came flying at him, he didn't really believe
it. That's kind of how we are with
Christianity. It's kind of how we are with
Jesus. We like to fill ourselves with sermons and doctrine and
classes and lectures and all these different doctrines that
we can be taught. We fill our heads. But when life
comes flying at us, We get scared. And we run. We dive. And we doubt. We need more than
a doctrine. We need the Gospel. We need the Gospel. One of the
primary reasons that we do this is because we tend to have a
problem-orientated view of God. John's question, are you the
one? Who is to come? It came while
John was in prison. John was in a real difficult
situation. Humanly speaking, John's life is ending in total
disaster. As far as ministry was concerned,
he did it all right. John did it all right. He called
sin, sin. He called sinners, sinners. He had done everything he was
supposed to do faithfully. And it seems now that his faithfulness,
his payment for faithfulness is imprisonment. But John's not
just in prison. He's not just in a prison cell
in Oakland County. He's on a fortified hilltop named
McCairns. Which is about 15 miles from
the mouth of the Jordan River. Just east of the Dead Sea. It's
hot. It's desolate. In the middle of nowhere. And
he wasn't just in a cell either. It's dark, stifling, sweatingly
hot. A dungeon. Probably not much
more than a pit. And now, this isn't just anybody
sitting in this pit. This is a guy who lived in the
wilderness. Free spirit. Now he's sitting in a pit. He
did everything he was supposed to do. That's not the way it's
supposed to work out, is it? That's not the way it's supposed
to be. I was faithful. I called it like it was. I did
everything you told me to do. Aren't you going to come save
me? I did what you said. After 18
months in the limelight, He was the forerunner. He did
everything right. In fact, this gives me great
peace to know that John was in prison questioning Jesus. Because Jesus makes it a point
later on in the chapter, just right after this text, that you
know what? John was the best. He was the
greatest in terms of earthly standards. He did everything
right. And he wasn't condemning John
for what he was questioning Jesus. But Jesus had something to teach
him about his question. It's here in these difficult
times that John begins to question Jesus. He begins to question Jesus because
he has a problem-orientated view of God. Right now he does. It's
not working out the way he planned. Jesus was supposed to come in
judgment and save him from his captives. In fact, he had just
got done preaching that. Surely he will come and separate
the wheat from the chaff. But it wasn't happening the way
John thought it would. And that's the way we do it,
isn't it? I mean, people come to Jesus and they think, well,
he's going to solve all my problems. I've got anxiety and addiction
and divorce and financial woes and I'm sick and I'm in poverty. I need a place to live. I need
food. I need shelter. I need a bed.
Surely Jesus will give me these things. He'll take care of my
problems. I wonder if Jesus will fit into
my life the way I need Him to. I wonder, is He going to help
me feel good about myself? Is He going to help me find a
house? We come with conditions. Jesus doesn't take conditions. They want to know if God, if
Jesus is going to give them the power to live the way that they
want. That's what we do. They want to know if this power
of God will be able to make all my plans and my meaning and my
significance come to pass. I wonder if He'll lift me up
with that power that He has. Jesus doesn't give a yes or no
answer to the question that John has for Him. He's saying, you're
asking the wrong question. You're asking the wrong question. In reality, people are asking
questions about what they think they need, who they are, or how He might be able to help
them live how they want to live without ever first meeting their
Maker. How are we going to know how
to live lest we know the One who made us? So you're asking
the wrong question. If He is the Creator, if He is
the Maker, then He calls the shots. I don't come to the Creator
with my problems and try to plan out my life based upon how I
think it ought to plan out. I go to Him and find out what
the plan is. He tells me the plan. But we have all kinds of questions
for Jesus. We've got all kinds of questions
for him. We want to see if he's going to fit into our life, to
see if he's going to fix the problems for us. We put God on
trial. Well, but Darren, if God's good,
then why is there evil? If God is good, Darren, then
why are people starving? Well, let's ask that question.
Why are people starving? We've all seen the commercials,
right? You've seen the commercials of people starving in third world
countries. Their bellies are bloated. Kids don't even have the strength
to wipe the fly off their forehead. And we sit over here and we say,
God, why are you letting this happen? Why are you letting it
happen? Let's ask ourselves, did you
know that in America, we're all sitting here United States citizens,
right? Space? You're a citizen of space. In the United States, the main
best selling resource is diet King. That's all you have to
do. Write a book. That's what we
need to do. Write a book on dieting, a how-to
plan, and it'll sell. Best seller. You want to know
why? Because every meal that we go to, the vast majority of
Americans, by the time we're done eating, we go, this is Amber.
And every time Amber and I do it, I'm miserable. I feel terrible. I can't believe I ate that much.
I can't believe I ate. Did you know that there's enough
food on our planet to feed every single person living over 3,000
calories per day. We don't have a God problem.
We've got a distribution problem in America, in our world. If you go to God and you say,
Lord, how could you let these people starve? He might just
say, you tell me. You tell me. Why are you putting
me on trial? Why is there war? Why is there
war? You have questions for God. Why
is there war? Why are people dying? How do
wars start? Arguments. You want to put God on trial.
We want to put God on trial. Because there's people dying.
Because there's war. But the divorce rate in the church
is 50%. Divorce starts an argument. Jesus
said, if you've hated a man in your heart, you've already killed
him. That's how it all starts. Somebody dresses you down for
10 seconds. And all that pride rises up inside
of you. And the same people Us. Me. I'm preaching to me now.
The same people want to question God of why there's war. He might
just say to you, you tell me. Why can't you get along? Why
can't you? He might just ask you why. But
we like to question God. Because we have a problem orientated
view of God. We think that He's our butler.
I've got problems, Lord. I can't believe that You haven't
fixed my problems. I did it all right. I preached. I read the Bible. I trusted You most of the time. But I still have problems. Why? God isn't our butler. You're His butler. You're His
servant. You don't come to God based on
your problems. He might use your problems to bring you to Him. But you don't come to God thinking that he's going to solve
all your problems. God doesn't just save us. God's way isn't to just save
you from your circumstances. He's going to use your circumstances
to save you and other people. John had a problem-orientated
view of God right now. His thought process was, I'm
in prison here. I'm in prison. Surely he will
come as what as expected See John was a smart guy See what
what we really really really really really need in the Bible
is clear about this. Is that you? You don't view God
in a problem orientated way you view God in a worship Orientated
way and it's very clear. In fact, he tells us that that
is the problem You only have one problem. It's THE problem.
THE problem. All problems stem from this.
You get this one wrong, it's all wrong. It's all wrong. It's all messed up. See, John
was a smart guy. He said, Are you the one that
is to come, or should we look for another? See, John knew he needed someone. See, he's going to worship something.
See, you've got a hole in you. You're totally depraved. God
created you in a way to worship Him. But you don't. And don't tell me about, well,
He won't let me. You don't want to. Separate and apart from the grace
of God. If you don't worship God, you're
going to worship something. You will give all your meaning,
significance, substance, purpose, planning, and all your life will
be given over to something. Mainly you. That when they did not worship
God, they worshipped themselves. They worshipped creation. Who
is the creation? You. You're going to worship. I won't
stay there. John said, Are you the one or should we look for
another? You can't create your own worth. You can't create your
own meaning. Reaching, you fall. We fall. You're not going to be able to
worship something and get what you need. We're needy. You're made to worship God. Jesus
answered, but he didn't come out right. Now look, he didn't
come out right and say, yes, John, I'm the one. It's all good. No worries. He didn't say that. He didn't explain himself. What
he was saying was, look at me. Look at me. Look at what I'm
doing. Look at who I am. Jesus replied, Go back and report
to John what you hear and what you see. The blind receive sight, the
lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the
dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
If you see nothing but your healing in Jesus, you missed it. You
missed it. See, Jesus wasn't... He was the
God-man, but He's not just some arbitrary God-man walking around
healing people when He sees fit. You're thinking, well, oh my
gosh, He needs somebody. I'll heal Him. I feel bad. Now,
He certainly... I don't want to divide the fact
that He certainly had, you know, ultimate compassion on those
people who He healed, but he did it to say, look at me. Pastor Sasser told us about Lazarus,
that you may be healed for what? For the glory of God. It wasn't
about Lazarus. It was about Jesus. It's about
who he was and what you are supposed to do. Worship. Worship God for
who he is. He doesn't answer John outright
because the miracles point to Him. It's not about miracles. It's not about you getting healed.
It's not about you having all your problems fixed. It's about you worshiping God
for who He is and what He's done on behalf of sinners. And He
deserves all glory, honor, and praise to Him. It's about the Lord. We worship
God. because of who He is and what
He's done. His person and His work. There is one God. You're going to worship something,
but it's not God unless it's Jesus Christ. There's one God. And He created the heaven and
the earth and all things were created by Him. He created man,
both male and female, in His own image and likeness and created
them with worth, dignity, and purpose to worship Him and represent
His holiness here on earth. Man willingly chose to be disobedient
and sin against God, doing the very thing that God commanded
them not to do, and therefore forever separating us from God,
leaving us wretched, wicked, unwilling, and dead in sin. Rather
than worship and praise God with our tongues, we use our tongues
to lie, cheat, steal, curse God, Rather than build and advance
the Kingdom of God with our skill, talent, and ability, we tear
down, separate, divide, dismantle everything that God has ordained
to be good and glorious. Since then, we live under an
illusion that somehow maybe we're God. and that we're able to decide
what is right and wrong and think we can create our own purpose,
meaning, value, substance, significance, and our own standards for our
own lives. We're delusional. Somehow I make my standards. It's right for me. But God, the
same God that created the heaven and the earth, came into history,
into time in the second person of the Trinity, fully God and
fully man, the person of Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin,
lived a sinless life, even though he was tempted in every single
way that we can and by the devil himself. And although he never
sinned, evil, wicked men like me and you beat him, mocked him,
spit on him, tortured him, crucified and killed him without a cause.
All without a cause. On the cross, he substituted
himself for sinners. Just as our Father Adam somehow
had tried to exchange himself for us to be God, Jesus Christ
exchanged himself in the place of sinners. And there on the
cross, Jesus willingly took upon Him the sins of those who would
trust Him, those the Father had given Him. That means that me,
as a sinner, Jesus took upon Him all my sin, past, present,
future. And God, as a man, died in my
place in history and took upon Him all my sin and paid my debt
to God and purchased my salvation. Jesus' body was then laid in
a tomb where He was dead. He was dead in a tomb for three
days. On the third day, He rose from
the dead and won the victory over sin, Satan, death, demons
and hell. Then he commissioned us through
the power of the Holy Spirit to be on a mission to preach
this unbelievably amazing news that there's this powerful, loving
God that is passionately, continuously, relentlessly pursuing us and
won't give up until the very last one of His people are back
in fellowship with Him. He then ascended up into heaven.
where Jesus is today and He's alive and He's well and He's
sitting on a throne and He's ruling and reigning over all
nations and cultures, every country and cities and towns and businesses,
all philosophies and wisdoms and races and periods of time.
He's reigning over moderns and post-moderns, women and men and
children, the elderly and the rich and the poor and the wise
and the simple. He's reigning over the living and the dead,
those who have been born, those who will be born. He is King
of kings, He's Lord of lords. He's reigning over all people,
commanding and demanding that everyone everywhere repent from
their sins, turn to Him, bow their knee, and confess with
their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. We are made to worship
God. He's coming again to judge the
living and the dead, and those that trust in Him will live and
enjoy eternal life forever in His Kingdom. Those who do not
trust in Him will forever live in hell, separated and apart
from God, consciously, in eternal torment. Jesus isn't a Zen leader. He's king of kings and he's lord
of lords. Down his side he has king of
kings, lord of lords tattooed on his side. He's got a sword
in his hand and he's coming on a horse. He didn't come here
to teach you something spiritual for your life and your problems.
All problems stem from the fact that we don't worship God. It
is due to Him. We don't come to God saying,
what doest thou? You come to God saying, what
would thou havest me to do, Lord? Romans 1 says it all. Because
that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. Neither
were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations. And
their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise. They became fools. It all stems
from that problem. That which when they knew God,
they glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful. And their foolish heart was darkened. professing themselves to be wise,
the very fact that we lean on our understanding, our reason,
our ability, our strength, makes us fools. Foolish. Foolish. You know what foolishness
is? Foolishness isn't... See, we're
not stupid. We're foolish. There's a difference. Foolishness is having an understanding
of what's true, and then still doing it stupidly. Foolish. Rather than worship God, we worship
ourselves. And we try to come to God and
make him our butler, but that's not how it works. The reason
why we have the problems in our life. Are because you're not worshiping
God. We need to be worship orientated,
not problem orientated. Having a worship-orientated view
of God means we come to Him to determine all things of our life.
See, all things will be determined there. We don't look to Him to
fit into our life, but worship Him because He has fit us into
His life. We don't look to Him to figure
out what He can do for us, but what we can do for Him. When
problems come into our lives, we don't wonder whether or not
He is God, but how He's working in those problems. He didn't spare His Son. Why would He spare us? I mean, does that make sense? He brought the greatest news,
the Gospel, through the worst possible evil. Maybe he's working
good out of your problems. The very thing that you think
God needs to get rid of to prove that he's God is the very thing
that God is using in your life. But you're going to miss it.
Don't miss it. Don't miss. And that leads right
to my third point. See, my father-in-law asked me when
he picked me up the other day from seminary, he said, what
did you learn? And I said that you can't put
10 pounds of flour into a five pound bag. The Trinity won't
fit here. I don't get it. I don't understand. We just stand in awe of who He
is. Stand in awe. How He did it,
I don't know. How He's doing it, I don't get it. It can't
fit in here. But I'm just... I glorify Him, the fact that
He made me fit in Him. He made me fit in Him. The third
point is, is that you have to understand that you can't understand. That's the third point. We've
got to understand that we're not going to understand. His ways are so contrary to the
ways of the world. The ways of the flesh, totally
contrary. Everything that we expect. John
said, are you the expected one? No. No. Not in that sense, John. I'm
not. No, the poor are having good
news preached to them. But aren't you going to come
in judgment? Not like that, John. That's not how I'm coming. I'm
not going to come and take the guards and crucify them for you
to set you free. They'll be judged the same way
that you will be. God works in mysterious ways. John thought that Jesus would
come and save them from the oppression of Rome, that he would come in
judgment and free him from his captivity. that He would separate
the wheat from the chaff. Jesus is coming in judgment,
but He does it in a radical, unexpected way. We have totally
unrealistic expectations of how God works. The Jews, the soldiers,
and the thief on the cross during Jesus' crucifixion said, if He
be the Christ, let Him come down from the cross. Now we have Him
where we want Him. See, now we can really make Him
prove who He is. See, if He's God, He can't die. Surely, He'll come down from
the cross. No. If He's God, He'll come down.
He can't die. We do the same exact thing. We do the same thing. We say,
if You're really God, if You're real, then save me. Well, not
from hell, but from all these problems first. Save me from
my circumstances. Take all this hardship away from
me. And I promise, Lord, I'll serve
you. The problem is that they don't
realize how great he really is. The soldiers. The thief on the
cross. They don't get it. See, he comes totally unexpectedly.
His power comes in a way that we would never imagine. Never. He doesn't work like us. They
want Him to express His power by coming down from the cross.
But He's way mightier than that. He expresses His power by not
coming off the cross. That's how the power of God is
exerted in Jesus on the cross. By hanging on it. By dying on
it. Laying down His life for His
sheep. Doing for us what we could never do for ourselves. We would
never want to do for ourselves. We never would. I call this the greatest act
of self-control in history. Mocked at, spit at, beaten, tortured,
crucified, ready to be killed. And he had every ounce of power
needed to just come right off. But he stayed. You know why? Because he loved somebody. He
loved somebody. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save His people. He loves somebody. See, love
isn't about getting comfortable. Love's about being okay, being
uncomfortable. That's what love is. That's what
real love is. What was that I said to you before?
You know, love at first sight, that's not amazing. Love after
you've lived with somebody for 40 years. Now that's amazing! Love at first sight. Are you
kidding me? That was easy. That was easy. That's not how
God works. God doesn't make all our problems
and all our uncomfortability go away. He proves on the cross
how you love somebody. self-control. The all-powerful
God became weak and stayed weak under these circumstances and
didn't flinch. In fact, He prayed for them. He did it out of love. And I
can't understand it. I can't explain it. He uses the weak
things of the world to confound the mighty. He uses the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. In verse 6, he says, blessed
is the man who does not fall away on account of me. In the
King James, it says, blessed is the man who is not offended.
You know that word in the Greek? It's actually a word called skandalon. Now, I wonder what word we get
from that. Scandal. You know what a scandal
is? When it's revealed who you are. Is it true? Is it true? A scandal reveals
disgrace. Well, that's offensive. Peter said to... Jesus said to
Peter, I gotta die. What did Jesus say? Oh, no! We'll
never let that happen. Get thee behind me, Satan. The shepherd has to lay down
his life for his sheep. You gotta die. You gotta die. See, Satan will come along telling
you, you can't have the pride of life. To follow Jesus, you
can't have the pride of life. You can be on the pedestal. You
can do it. See, Satan is slick. He doesn't
come with horns and a tail and say, I'm Satan, can I come in?
Oh, he comes after your weak point. He tries to build you
up, puff you up. Don't give room to the devil. You gotta die. See, Satan, Jesus
said to Peter, Satan would have you that he would sift you like
wheat. See, Satan doesn't really want
me. I figure he put enough mileage on me. But you know what? He wants my daughter. You know
the easiest way to get to Hayden? Right here. Take down her daddy. See, he
wants her. He wants her soul. See, I'm in my, you know, he's
gotten a lot of work out of me, but he wants her whole life. Don't give room to the devil.
You gotta die! The power of God works in our
weakness. It works in the most amazing
ways, unexpected ways. Ways that you would never understand.
You can't understand. The answer to questioning Jesus
is worshiping Jesus. You worship him. In our worship,
the problems dissipate. Satan doesn't get in there. I'm
thankful. I'm thankful. It's very offensive. See, really
what Jesus is saying is that it's okay, John, that you're
offended. It's okay. Because you know what? In order
to understand Me, you have to get offended. Because the Gospel
is offensive. It's going to disgrace you first.
It's going to reveal you. If you have never been offended
by the Gospel, you've never heard it. You haven't. You have never
heard it. You haven't heard it. What Jesus
is saying is that, you know what? When you're offended, blessed
is he who does not fall away, but rather lays down his life. surrenders it all up and says,
Lord, I owe it all to you. I worship you for who you are
and what you did for me on a cross 2,000 years ago. God is not necessarily concerned
with explaining who he is to us, but rather using the weak
things in our lives, the problems in our lives, the struggles in
our lives to have relationship with us. If God didn't spare His own Son,
but used His suffering for redemption, why would He use, why wouldn't
He use our suffering? Our redemption? He didn't come to save us from
our problems. He's going to use our problems.
To not just save us, but to save other people. To manifest His
glory in your weakness. And the foolish things of the
world will miss what God is doing in
our lives if we think He can't work through the problems. Don't
miss what God is doing. I want to tell you a little story.
There's this guy who went out to California, and he went on
a tour of this apple orchard. And they were going through one
of the worst droughts in history in California. And when he was
out there, this tour guide took him through the apple orchard,
and all the trees were just withering and dying and bent over and just
terrible. And the water sprayer, water engine wouldn't
even work. It'd been caught out. There's
no water, nothing happening. And it was amazing that these
trees just hills and hills of trees that were just lumped over
and dying. And the tour guide said, I want to show you one
other thing. So he took him way over into the corner of the orchard,
way out through these hills and up there. And there was this
one section of the apple orchard that was
just wonderful. It was green. Everything was
blossoming. Apples were on the trees. Everything
was growing wonderful. And he said, well, So is the
pump working out here? And he said, no, the pump's broke.
He said, well, why are these doing so well and those are dying?
He said, see these trees, these ones that are doing well? I didn't
feed them the same way that I fed the other ones. All the trees
that are dying, I fed them right on time all the time. I sprayed
water at the same time every day on cycles. When they needed
it, I gave it to them. Every time they needed it, they
got it. These trees over here? Withheld
water I Withheld water So when they got thirsty what they had
to do is dig their roots down deep and find water deeper And
now when a drought comes They've got a water source. They're way
down deep See the very thing that we think
God is making us suffer through, He's using us to make us stronger. He's making our roots grow down
deep to the water supply. To the water supply where true
happiness really is. But to get the roots down deep,
you're going to go through some problems. You're going to have
some suffering, but don't miss it. Don't miss it. See, because
God's there. See, you worship God, even in
the problem, because He's just digging it deeper. And there's
times in our lives when we look around and we say, Lord, what
are you doing? What are you doing? Why is it
like this? Why? I don't get it. It shouldn't be like this. John didn't think it should be
like that either. John was a Christian. John was the greatest of Christians.
The truth is that God is making you stronger. He's going to use
your suffering as a blessing. The most evil act in history
is the most glorious act. Who better can help somebody
going through an addiction? Somebody who's not just been
there, but suffered in it. Suffered. Who better can talk to somebody
with cancer than somebody who's suffered? I think that Milton witnessed
to more people probably in a deeper sense from a hospital bed than he ever
did from a stage. I believe that. We had church in that hospital.
I'm not kidding. We can't keep orientated toward
the problem, but look for how God is working through us in
the problem. No explanation is ultimately
going to satisfy. We'll never understand. We have
to understand that. That you'll never understand.
There are going to be times where I don't care how much faith you
have, you won't be able to see God. But there's good news. See, if
you don't have the Gospel, you're hit. The Gospel. And Job 23, 8 through 10, it
says, behold, I go forward. And this is after months of suffering. Behold, I go forward, but he's
not there. And backward, but I cannot perceive
him. On the left hand, where he does
work, but I cannot behold him. He hideth Himself on the right
hand that I cannot see Him. But He knoweth the way that I
take. When He hath tried me, I shall
come forth as gold." We get weary. We begin to doubt and start questioning
Jesus. Because we have forgotten what
the Gospel is. Trusting in Christ is not relying
on our faith or relying on our circumstances. It is relying
on Him. We don't depend on our ability.
We depend on Him and His ability. We're not holding on to Him.
He is holding on to us. I'm going to leave you with this
story. A dad and his little girl were
walking down the street. And they came to a bridge, and
it was one of those bridges that was over a big river, but it
was kind of out in the country, and it didn't have any sides
on it. And when they got up to the bridge,
he said, honey, hold my hand. I'm afraid you're going to fall
in. And she said, no, daddy. You hold my hand. He said, what's
the difference? He said, she said. I know if
something were to happen, I'd probably let go, and I'd fall
in. But I know if you got my hand, Daddy, you'll never let
go, no matter what happens. That's the difference. That's
the gospel. It's not how hard, how tight
you got Jesus. Because you'll let go. It's how
tight He's got you.