Foundation over Feelings | Firm Foundation

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Join us as Stephen Radie brings us a message about foundation over feelings. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning. It is so good to be here with you. I'm glad you're here. My name is Pastor Stephen Rady. If you're in person, welcome. And for those of you online, I am glad you are joining us. I have a question for you. Why can we trust the Bible? Like, really, if someone says, hey, why do you trust the Bible? How do we respond? For most of us, it's faith, right? And it's not blind faith, because the Bible has the answers, and for many of us, there's very good reasons why we trust God's word. One of them is this the Bible is historically reliable. Did you know that it was written by over 40 different authors in a span of 1,500 years? That's crazy, right? Yet it tells one unified story from Genesis all the way to Revelation. The story is this: it's God's love and him rescuing humanity. One story, forty authors, fifteen hundred years. Second, is it's been remarkably preserved. Do you know there's thousands of ancient manuscripts that you can go and you can compare those manuscripts to the same Bible that we read today, and those stories are the same message that was written centuries ago. And third, there's this thing in the Old Testament called the prophecies that were fulfilled. See, before Jesus Christ was even born, the stories in the Old Testament share of the coming Messiah, share where he's gonna be born, how he's gonna be found, how he's gonna suffer, how he's gonna be crucified and die on the cross. And then he is raised again on the third day. That stories are there before he's born, but I think the most important one is this it's the resurrection of Jesus. You see, he did die on the cross. He did get put in a tomb, and he did rise again on the third day. In fact, some of the biggest critics, even of that day, don't dispute the fact that there was a man named Jesus. He died on the cross, and three days later they went to the tomb and he was gone. But you know what I find remarkable is Jesus' followers, you know, the ones that were hiding, the ones that denied him before he was up on the cross. Those ones suddenly recognized because he revealed himself to them. They saw it, and suddenly they had the courage to stand out and talk about their faith, and they suffered for it. They even died for it. See, people don't die for the things that they make up, they die for the things that they believe, and they believed it because it was real and they saw it, and those stories echo through the Bible. And because Jesus rose from the dead, we can trust it. And you know why? Because Jesus trusted the scriptures. See, it's not just an ancient book that we dive into, it's God's living word. It is still changing lives today. And it speaks the truth in the storms of life, in our confusion, in our hopes, in our struggles, and it points us to the Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. So when people ask why do we trust the Bible, we can answer because it's proven itself reliable, because Jesus affirmed it, and because we encounter God's living word through it. So I'm excited to be here for this new series called Firm Foundations. This is the kickoff series on that. And today the title is Foundations over feelings. And we're gonna use God's word to discover how we fight that. Because let's face it, we live in a world that tells us trust your feelings, follow your heart, right? Do what feels good, right? Isn't that what the world encourages us to do? But here's the thing if I followed my feelings, I'd eat pizza at 11 o'clock every night. Okay, probably a bad example because I do eat pizza a lot at 11 o'clock at night. So but every time I got a text message that just had the word K, I'd think it was a personal attack. Right? They don't like me anymore. They just gave me one letter. Or I decide, you know what, tomorrow I'm gonna start a diet. Monday morning, I'm gonna get after it. And by noon, I'm eating donuts, whatever I can find that someone left in the break room. Because feelings are real, but they're not always right. See, I think I think our feelings are much like the the weather that we have here in Oregon. Who watched it yesterday be so confused? I think by noon it changed five different times, didn't it? Rain, pour, thunder, sun, awesome hail. Let's go. Yep, so many of us are building our lives on something that's so unstable, which is the feelings, which is what the world wants us to go to. See, I watched one of those home renovation shows, you know, where they do the remodeling and they they bring a team in and they're all excited and they they're looking over the house and like, oh, we can upgrade this, and we can change the the paint, the wall painting here, and we can we can upgrade the cupboards here. In fact, we can even change the carpet from 1997. You know, the floral one that your grandma loved? Yeah, we can tear that out, and everything's going really good until someone recognizes. Oh, wait, why is there a crack in the wall? So then they bring in the inspector, you know, they start playing the music, and the guy's looking around, and he comes back in and he and he states those words. We've got foundation issues. Because you can fix paint, you can do all those things, but when there's foundation issues, everything's at risk. And here's what I've noticed that a lot of us are looking really good on the outside. We've gotten really good at covering up what's going on on the inside. But if we were to be honest and let our hair down, I know I don't have any hair, but if we were to let our, you can just imagine me with flowing hair. If we don't, thank you. If we were to let our hair down and reveal what was going on, think if we're honest with ourselves, our world can be kind of shaky. Our feelings can mislead us. Well, mine does, because you can see my emotions on the sleeve from a mile away, but most of the time, right? Because here's the thing anxiety is rising, families are stretched thin, there never seems to be enough time to get it all in. Relationships feel fragile. Oh, you didn't call me yesterday, and I'm not talking to you next week, right? Like, isn't isn't that what it feels like? And in the world that is full of opinions, noise, outrage, and contradictions, people are actually asking ourselves, what can I actually build my life on? And here's the truth. When our ground is shaking, we don't need more inspiration. We don't need more Dr. Phil. What we need is we need a foundation. Because if our foundation moves, you ever tried to stand and on one of those shaky boards that are kind of doing this, and all of a sudden you're on the ground and you're like, I just it was just shaking. But if our life moves, or if our foundation moves, our life moves too. It moves us. So here's the first thing that you can fill in in your notes, and I hope you're following along is this your feelings will shake you. But God's word, it steadies you. Feelings are like a uh uh flashes of lightning. Boom! Crack! Big explosion. Right? That's what our feelings are like in life. They're bright, it's emotional, they're loud. God's word. It's steady, it's consistent, and it's reliable. See, we don't need more flash in the dark. What we need is a light for our path, and that's exactly what we find in the promise of Psalms 119-105 is it says this your word, the Bible. Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. See, we're not just dealing with busyness anymore, we're actually dealing with instability. That's what all the chaos is of the world, and where everything is loud and confusing and shifting, like, oh, don't look there, look here. We don't we don't need more noise. What we need is we need truth that we can actually stand on. So let's talk about what instability looks like, right? Our feelings say this. Where's God? Where is he in all this? I don't understand. Why is he so distant? Or the world's pushing us back saying, you're not enough. We're telling ourselves we're not enough, let alone the world. Or this will never change. And because here's the thing, when Monday morning comes, that feeling you had on Saturday is already gone, it's already shifted because what feels good today doesn't necessarily feel good tomorrow. Just work out one day and then try to do it the next. It doesn't feel good, right? That's feelings. Feelings are like that friend that says, hey, I got you, I got your back, I'll always be there for you. Then you mention the fact that you need to move. He gone. Right? But that's that's what feelings are like. It disappears. But here's the thing: God's word, it doesn't move. It anchors you when everything else is shifting. I think about I think about Peter, and if you don't know the story about Peter, Peter's one of Jesus' followers. He got to see all the cool things that Jesus was doing, and he was in a boat, and the storm was hitting, and and Jesus, you know, Jesus, he's just scrolling up, walking on water, coming on out there. Peter's looking at Jesus, he's like, Bro, I want to do that. Jesus' like, okay, come. So Peter's focused on Jesus. He steps out of the boat, and I don't know that I'd step out of the boat, but he had he had the faith. He stepped out of the boat, and guess what he got to do? He gotta walk on water. Peter starts taking a step. He's looking at Jesus, and all of a sudden a splash of water hits him in the face. And then he realizes that he's out, and there's waves, and the storm of life is surrounding him. And guess what he did? He took his eyes off Jesus and he started to sink. Because that's what life tries to do, it tries to distract us, it tries to take our eyes off where God had the plan for us to be focused on. Jesus puts out his hand as he's sinking and catches him and listen, why do you have so little faith? It's because life tries to distract us, even to someone who got to see all the miracles that Jesus was doing. See, nothing externally changed from the moment he stepped out of the boat and the moment he took those steps to the moment he started to sink. What changed is where he had his focus. See, Jeremiah 17, 9 warns us of this. It says the heart is deceitful above all things. That's what happens to us. We think we've got it, so we lose our focus, we start trusting our heart, we go back to the feelings. But here's the thing when we trust those feelings, and that's our foundation, we sink in this life. But when our foundation is based on God's word, that's where we stand firm. Notice the verse doesn't say spotlight, it says a lamp. Just enough to light the next step. Why? Because God wants us to trust him. God wants us to put our trust in him, that he is gonna guide our path, which means we have to spend time in his word. Because I think we'd we'd all love to have a 10-year plan from God, right? Like, here's where you're gonna be next year, here's what's going on next Christmas, you're gonna travel here next summer. Like, that'd be really cool, right? But that's not how God designed it. God's telling us, like, whoa, slow down. Let's get you through Tuesday. See, when life is confusing and decisions are unclear and the on our emotions are loud, the Bible doesn't remove the darkness. It doesn't remove all the stuff that's going on around us. What it does is it provides us clarity in it. Just like when we grab a flashlight to go walk, right? That flashlight illuminates the direction that we've got to go. That's the trust God wants us to have. This is our flashlight, this is our lamp, step-by-step guide. Because confidence doesn't come from knowing everything, it comes from trusting to what God has already promised. See, if our foundation moves, our life moves too. So that brings us to number two. Our feelings react. Where God's word, it reveals. See, our feelings are reactive. Someone ignores you, heaven forbid. You feel rejected, right? Like, how can my neighbor drive by without waving? Right? You feel rejected. Or someone criticizes you. Do you take it as them looking out for your best interests on how to improve? No, what do we do? Why are you attacking me? I put the sink, I put the dishes in the sink. What do you mean I had to rinse them? So critical. And when something goes wrong, we feel hopeless. That's what our feelings do, because feelings respond to what's happening around us. But God's word reveals what's happening inside of us. And that's a huge difference. Because most of us, we don't actually know what's wrong. We just know that something's wrong. See, we treat the symptoms, but God's word deals with the source. Hebrews 4 12 says this. Pay attention to this. For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between joint and marrow, and it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing exposes our heart like slow Wi-Fi. Okay, maybe bad drivers. You ever thought to yourself, I'm a patient person? I can handle all that kind of stuff. I'm good. And then someone cuts you off in traffic, and all of a sudden you're preaching a sermon totally different than what we're experiencing today. That guy is lucky your windows are rolled up because he does not want to hear the language that you're using in your car at that moment. Then you look at the face that you've made in the rearview mirror and you're like, oh, right? Like that exposes our thoughts. Because those feelings reveal our reaction, and we react. Who's guilty of reacting at the wrong moment? Oh yeah. And if you didn't raise your hand, God's got some speaking to you right now, so I should listen. Because God's word reveals our roots. Feelings are like the check engine light of your car. The light comes on, it doesn't tell you what's wrong, but it comes on and you know something's wrong. That's what feelings are. It starts to flash, and by the way, here's a little piece of advice. If your check engine light starts to flash, pull over, it's time to shut off your car. Don't go any further. Just a little side side acknowledgement there. But it tells you that something's wrong, but it doesn't tell you what's wrong. You know what does God's word. God's word is that diagnostic tool. It shows where our pride is hiding. It shows where our fear is driving us. And it shows where our insecurities speak louder than truth. See, God's word doesn't just comfort us, it actually confronts us. And you know what? That's actually love. That's actually God's love. Because here's the thing: we can never fix what we're unwilling to face. How good would those TV shows if they didn't show the crack in the wall? Oh, I don't see it. They'll never fix it. And again, if our foundation moves, our life moves. So we have to address it. Here's the number three thing: your feelings change you temporarily. But God's word changes you permanently. Aristotle once said, we are not what we repeatedly feel or what we repeatedly do. That's why it's so important that we protect where we spend our time, who we spend our time with, and what we spend our time on. Because feelings are powerful, but they are terrible long-term leaders. Feelings can motivate us for a moment, right? Like tomorrow I'm gonna go work out. Tomorrow morning comes, my wife's like, hey, you said you were gonna go work out. Leave me alone. I just need five more minutes. They motivate us to say, hey, we're gonna do this, but they don't sustain us. For a lifetime, like God's word. That's why New Year's resolutions never work. It's said with the best intentions, but it's emotional feeling based on the situation we're in right now. See, those emotional decisions fade. And the spiritual highs, they crash because they're built on emotion, not transformation. Feelings tell ourselves, oh, I'm fine. But God's word says, Are you? Maybe we need to dig a little deeper. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says this. This is such an incredible verse. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong, and it teaches us to do what is right. And I love 17. Because God uses this to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. You ever go to church and hear a powerful message like today you're hearing, right? And you think, I'm changed. I'm I'm good. And then by Wednesday, you're like, I don't even know who that dude was on Sunday. Because emotions change. And I think some of us treat going to church like a spiritual energy drink. We have this high, and guess what happens? We have this crash. Because emotion isn't the same thing as transformation. Again, we're not what we repeatedly feel, we're what we repeatedly do. And here's the thing: true transformation requires repetition. And repetition requires foundation. And foundation comes from God's word. See, God's word shapes how we think, God's word shapes how we respond, and God's word shapes how we live, not just for a moment, but for a lifetime. See, the Bible is truth. It shows us what's right. The Bible is correction. It shows us what's wrong. And the Bible's where we train. It shows us how to grow. See, we live in a world full of opinions, but very little truth. Feelings change, trends change. Truth doesn't. So if you're giving your life advice from TikTok or your barista at the coffee shop, we probably should have another conversation. Because God didn't give us his word to control us. No, what he gave us his word is to prepare us for the future that he has planned for us. We're reminded in Isaiah 48, the grass withers, but the word of God stands forever. Joshua 1.8 gives us the encouragement to meditate it, meditate on it day and night. See, the Bible doesn't just inspire you, it equips you. You know, all this talk about foundation, there's there's there's a guy that I go to when I'm when I'm trying to work and and build stuff. Maybe you know him. He's my friend Bob. What are you guys laughing at? None of you have. Can we fix it? Okay, so you know Bob. Don't look at me like I'm weird. Bob's been here with us in the church. This very stage we're we're sit I'm standing on. Bob's been at my house helping me fix my deck. Bob asks a very good question. And and we can fix things, but I think he misses the boat on did we build it correctly? What are we building it on? See, you can fix a wall, but you can't fix a house built on sand. So I want you to repeat this because I want us to carry this at least through Wednesday. All right? I don't follow my feelings.

unknown 27:14

I don't follow my feelings.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I follow God's word. I don't follow my feelings, I follow God's word. And for those of you at home following us online, your neighbor thinks you're weird because they're looking through your window right now, watching you talk to yourself. We have to remind ourselves that this is the way we get through all the noise. Because if our foundation continually moves, our life moves too. So this is a fourth thing. Your feelings build moments, right? And sometimes those are really great moments, but they're just that. They're here one second and gone the next. But God's word builds lives and not just yours. Because God uses you to reach the people that He puts you in front of, too. Jesus tells us one of the most powerful stories. Two builders, two houses, same storm. But it's important to note that following Jesus doesn't exempt us from the storm. Because the difference isn't the storm, it's actually the foundation. And here's the thing it's Matthew 7, this is in your notes, and before I go into it, I want you to think about this. These are the words that are written in red. That means this is Jesus speaking. Jesus is speaking to us right now. These are his words. 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 the house, it won't collapse. Because it's built on bedrock. Now here's his warning. Anyone who hears my word, hears my teaching, but doesn't obey is foolish. Like a person who builds a house on the sand. When the rains come and the winds beat against the house, it will collapse in a mighty crash. He's telling us what's gonna happen if we're not standing firm on here. See, here's the thing: the wise builder heard the exact same story. The difference is he applied the word. He built the house on rock. The foolish builder, he heard the word. Sounds good. What's for lunch? And he ignored it. And he built his house on sand. Notice that they both heard that same thing, but the difference is the application. See, building our lives on feelings is like building the house out on the beach, out on the sand. Looks great on Instagram, right? There's some amazing photos until the first tide comes. Then not so much. And life will bring us storms. And if we're honest, I think some of us came in here today carrying some storms. Whether it's a financial storm, a relational storm, a health storm. For some of us, we're wrestling inside and it's a spiritual storm. The question is not if the storm's gonna hit, it's when. And when it comes, what we've built on will be revealed. So here's the encouragement. If you build daily, you won't collapse suddenly. See, collapse doesn't happen overnight, it happens over time with a weak foundation. But here's the thing about strength: it doesn't happen overnight either. It happens from daily obedience. So how do we actually choose foundation over feelings? One, we gotta read God's word daily, even when we don't feel like it. Even when we don't feel like it, we've got to read it daily because discipline builds what emotions can't. The number two thing is we have to speak truth over our feelings. When we feel anxious, we have to declare God's peace. When we feel alone, we have to declare God's presence. When we feel unworthy, we have to speak God's grace over it. Number three is we need to apply what we read. Information without application does not lead to transformation. And number four, we have to build consistently. Even small daily steps, even getting, you know, the Bible app where it sends you the message, even reading that is a daily discipline that will over time create unshakable faith. But we have to pay attention to it. We don't just have to have it pop up and ignore it. Okay, I read that. We have to, we have to do, because we can renovate a lot of things in life, right? We can change our habits, we can change our routines, we can change our environment. But our foundation issues, they have to be addressed. So don't just admire the Bible, don't just highlight verses in it, and don't just listen to it on Sundays. Build your life on it. Some of us today, we've been living on emotional, unsteady ground. We're up one day, down the next. Close to God one minute, distant from him, the next. And we're exhausted. Because feelings were never meant to be our foundation. God never designed our life to be based on something so unstable, but to be based on his word. He gave us something better. The Bible. It doesn't change, it doesn't fade, and it does not fail. So at some point, we've got to stop blaming the storm. We've got to start asking ourselves, what are we standing on? What is our foundation? Because if our foundation moves, our life will too. So what are you building your life on? Because when the storm comes, and it will, your foundation will speak louder than your feelings ever could. So we need to hold on to the promise of Psalms 119-105. We need to remind ourselves, we mean to memorize that. So when the storm is coming, we can go. It's right here. Easy to get to. Not always so easy to remind ourselves to go there. It's not a spotlight for our future, but it's a lamp for the next step, and that's enough. So don't let your feelings decide what your future is going to be. Let God's word define your foundation because some of us aren't tired because life is hard. We're tired because we've been trying to stand on that little board that shakes and we can't quite understand why we're working so hard. But today, God's inviting you back. And if you've never said yes to Jesus, if you've been that person that's built your house on the sand and the tide's come and knocked it down, and you've built your house again and the tide's knocked it down again, it's because you've had the wrong foundation. But today, God's calling you. We have this thing that we talk about here at West Side. Maybe you've seen it before. It's it's JCM slide, and that first thing, that first foundation of that mountain range is the J, which is Jesus. My hope and prayer is today you've recognized if you've been doing this alone, get your foundation right. And maybe some of you are wrestling with some of those other things that I talked about. Maybe you've built a foundation, but there's a crack. Or you've gone off to the beach to play a little bit and you've drifted. It's time to come back home. It's time to face what needs to be fixed. And see, that's the thing that that community gets us into. It's brothers and sisters standing arm in arm, doing life, reminding each other to be encouraged by God's word. And then maybe some of you are on the Mission Mountain where you feel the nudge, but you you're not sure what to do. I can tell you, we need more leaders for our good neighbor projects. We got lots of projects, more projects than we have leaders. So if you're feeling that nudge to be on mission, my email is on the top of your notes today. Send me an email. I'll get you plugged in. But I want to speak to those of you online or those of you here that haven't quite yet made that decision to make Jesus your foundation. Right now, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to do just that. Quit going it alone. Let's bow our heads. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today. We're so grateful that we get to build our lives on you, God. For those of us that have been struggling, that have finally come to that realization that I'm tired of, I'm tired of trying to build in the sand. You can say this prayer right here. Jesus, I give you my life. Thank you for saving me. I believe in you, your life, your death on the cross, and your resurrection. Forgive me of my sins. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Lead me and teach me to follow you. Now, while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, I ask you to do me a favor. Would you be bold enough if you just said that prayer? Would you raise your hand and let me know? God bless you. Bless you. God bless you. God, we're so grateful that you are our foundation. We're so thankful for those lives that have now just realized and they've based something that they can stand on the rest of their lives. And God, I want to speak to the rest of the church right now. That this message be a reminder that you're the foundation we need to come back to. Get rid of all the distractions, God. Remind us through your word. Jesus' name I pray. Amen.