[SERMON] Built to Stand: Building Your Foundation Before the Storm

Drawing from Matthew 7:24–27 and 2 Corinthians 6:2, Pastor Cyle challenges the congregation to stop delaying action on life's hidden problems. Using a vivid personal story of getting stranded on a sandbar in the Florida Keys as an approaching storm closed in, he illustrates that storms don't create problems — they expose them. The message calls listeners to build their lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ now, admit where they're stuck, and let God's people help them get unstuck before the storm arrives.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Also, so just so you know, I gotta give you an update on my life. Um, I've had some opportunities come up that maybe like be take me down a different path in life. I wanted to kind of tell you guys before it gets out of hand, but I recently became a hand model. Um I recently became a hand model. Um so I don't know where this is gonna go. It could take off in life, but uh this is me um, you know, making videos for DoorDash for uh village creamery. Um you can see my work on DoorDash soon. Um but they I got some nice hands and they they're working. So um so don't go tell everybody uh that I'm leaving, just because I'm being silly. But uh I'm I was happened to be there and they needed a customer for a video, and I have nice hands, so it works out. Um yeah, and I got free ice cream, so good thing to know if DoorDash is making footage uh with a restaurant, there's lots of extra free food. So try to be there that day. So that works out good for sometimes. But I don't know where the schedule comes from. I just happen to be there. But um uh in all seriousness, we're not talking about ice cream or the star or anything else. We're talking about storms today. Who likes storms? Okay. Now, not a good storm. Who likes like a terrifying storm? Okay, you're a bunch of liars. You've got people out. Tornado's coming, you're all running, you're not staying outside. No, let's be honest. Um, like about three, four weeks ago, there was a there was a storm, if you guys remember it, and it woke me up at night and it sounded like a train was coming through my house. And it was like one of the first times since I've lived here that I thought maybe we should get the kids and bring them out of the upstairs because they probably die when the trees all fall on the top of that roof. And so my dog and I, we were good, uh, but we need to get the kids down. So uh so I think Patty was like, Do you think we should get the kids? I'm like, maybe, maybe, probably a good idea right now. Um, those storms are not that exciting, right? Those are not, those are not, those are not friendly storms. That's not the little pitter-patter of rain on your windowsill. That's um that my house is about to come apart. So um we're gonna talk about storms, those kind of storms, not the gentle storms. And uh, I want to go to a famous passage uh that Jesus talks about really storms in life in his most famous sermon. Jesus is in Matthew 6, he's part of the the few chapters where he's doing what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' most famous sermon. He's got thousands of people on the hillside. He's just teaching and preaching and teaching and preaching. And as part of it, in in Matthew 6, he says this. So we're gonna read it. Remember the yellow part, you read out loud. Everyone who who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Now, this is a really famous passage of scripture. Um anybody know or remember the old camp or children's song about this passage? Like like two, I see, like two, three hands. Okay, four. Oh, five, okay, six, okay. We only had two in the first service. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna teach a song. You're gonna sing it. It's not hard. All right. Um, so oh, the wise man built his house upon the there you go. The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the rains came tumble. Oh, you got to do the motions down. Oh, the rains came down and the floods came up, oh the rains came down and the floods came up. Oh, the I don't see the motions chance. And the floods came up and the house on the rock still stand or firm still. It depends on your translation. All right. All right, now the next part's easy. Oh, the foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his house upon the sand, and the rains came. Tell this is the same thing, right? And the rains came down and the floods came up, and the rains came down, and the floods came up, and the rains came down, and the floods came up, and the house of the sand went flat. Alright, he's got that. It doesn't exist anymore. Now we know this is true, right? We've seen that we've seen uh videos of hurricanes in Florida. Uh, if they build their house on the sand, they go flat. Now I was just in Marathon Key, Florida, visiting a couple from our church who live down there, and uh uh we were able to enjoy the time down there, but their house is on their house is built on stilts, on um steel girders that go into the foundation of the ground. So when the floods come up, that house still stands because it's built on the rock. But if you there were other houses that were low, built right on the sand, and when the floods come up, they flood and they get damaged and destroyed, and it costs lots of money to fix them. And so they were telling me about one of the most recent storms that the water was like this high and comes up, and then anything down below has to be restored, repaired, and anything above is safe. So that's the reality of living by water. Now, I live by a river that's like this deep, and so I don't really have to worry about it. So um, so I'm good. And so we were when we were down there, we had fun. We went we were down there just for a couple days, but we uh we decided one day, Mike was like, hey, uh you want to go out and go on little jet skis, wave runners, uh interchangeably. We're gonna, I'm gonna use that probably. And he's like, you want to go out on the on the ocean and just have fun. Well, yeah, of course I want to have fun. But the problem was, we had already looked at the weather. At breakfast, we were at church, went to church down there, and then we went to breakfast after with another couple, and they were deciding the two guys were looking at their apps, trying to figure out what time the 35 mile-an-hour winds were gonna start, and they both had different apps. So it was like a late conversation, like uh, well, my app has got this, and my app says this. And so we found out my Mike's app was right, and it started immediately and quickly at that time. But we had about four hours till the storm was gonna come, and it the water was nice and calm, it was we were we were good. So he said, Hey, let's go out, we'll ride for about an hour, it'll be fun. We'll get back before the storm, no problem. And I'm like, sounds good to me. Let's go, let's go do this. So I'm like, let's get our stuff and go. And so um, right before we left, I decided that I would take my phone because it was waterproof, but I realized you could stick it in the in the thing, and so it was fine. So I took my phone. Mike did not take his phone, which was a bad choice. Oh, we found it later. Um, so ultimately, what was supposed to be an hour tour on this beautiful ocean, and it was like 70 hours, it was gorgeous, and you know, the sun was out, waves were calm, it was all gonna be just a great ride. We ended up being what what we call three-hour tour. So um, this is me and Mike. This is Mike Cook right here. And so we're this is right right before this is at the beginning. This is like we're having a good time. Uh, we went out on the in the ocean, we we found a nice little sandbar, and so we got out, we kind of walked around the sandbar looking for shells, and uh, I saw another sandbar just next to our sandbar, and there was this beautiful gray weimer on her, which I have, so it was just kind of going around. It's like, oh, my dog should have been here. Um, and so we were having a great time. And then after we walked around that sandbar, and we've been gone at this point, probably I don't know, 45 minutes. It was kind of like we were gonna turn, start heading back home. And so we we got off, we got back on the the jet skis, and uh when I got on mine, it just starts making this sound, which is not good. Um, and then the overheating light came on, and Mike's like, what's wrong? I was like, I don't know. So so I shut it off, and so we turned back on. So what we decided to do is just we we just drive and we kept driving and then stopping, driving, and then stopping, trying to just decide we'll kind of puddle jump back to the to the place. And it was gonna take a good bit of time doing that. Probably would have taken us an hour plus to get back at that rate, which is fine. Still got time, storm's coming, we're gonna be okay. Um so we we did we get we get going, and all of a sudden, Mike's like, we'll just go as fast as we can and we'll just head back to the house. So Mike takes off, I uh I take off, and uh we end up switching jet skis at one point, and he's like, let's just I'll drive this one. I know how to drive it, even with the with the noise on. You can hit a little button and turn it off, turn it off. I found out. And he'll just drive that as fast as he can. I'll just follow him on his jet ski. So we take off and we're going as fast as we can. I mean, these things go like 40 some miles an hour, so we are full tilt going. And Mike's Mike's gone, and he's just bouncing away, and so I'm just trying to keep up with him, looking cool, right on the runner. It's like I'm on the ocean with my hair. Um, next thing you know, I'm following Mike, and he goes, and he just kind of skids through, and I just go and stop. I go from like, I don't know, 35, 40 miles an hour, dead stop in the sand. I bottomed up because I'm a little. If you remember this picture, I'm a little bigger than Mike. So uh Mike kind of bounced through a sandbar. I landed in the sandbar. So and uh so yeah, that happened. And uh so I immediately shut it off because I know you don't you don't leave it running if you're stuck. So I got stuck. Mike kind of kept skidding along until he got to a deeper area, and then he like there was another boat over there by where it was deeper. Uh it was like a big fishing boat, probably on a 15-20 feet fishing boat they were out fishing. And so Mike put his anchor in and then he walked back the sandbar to get me. Now, while he's walking, he's a good long way away. He is not close to me, like he's little in the distance, and but I can still see him. So I am just like, I'm a big guy. Like, I can just take this thing and just drag it to safety and I'll get it out. I'll look cool, I'll be like, Mike, I fixed the problem. And so I'm pulling this thing, it's a lot heavier than I thought it was, and I'm in this much water, which I have experience in. So uh at home in my river. So I am dragging this giant machine through the sand. And like you know, your feet go out from underneath you, sand just digs in, and I'm just dragging this thing. And so finally, I'm getting tired. Mike is getting closer, and uh I keep I start walking around the thing looking for deep water. So I'm looking like, where does it get deeper? So I find places a little bit deeper, and so I'm like, if I can just drag this thing there, maybe I can get on this thing. So I do, I can't. I need probably need deep water. Um, so he gets closer, finally he gets to me. So he's like, what do we do? I was like, well, I don't know. Let's just drag it out together. So he he's dragging, I'm dragging, we're pulling, we're we're rocking this thing, we're trying to fight anywhere. And so we do that for I don't know, 15, 20 minutes. Then we're tired. So he he starts walking around, do the same thing I did. We're looking for deeper water. And we notice that the guys who are fishing, they start walking over to us. One of them starts walking over to us. He's like, You guys stuck? Well, obviously, they've been watching me. I mean, I'm tired at this point. They're watching me and watching me, and I just keep thinking, oh, okay. Um, storm's still coming. Um, and we're I'm out here standing in the middle of the ocean, and storm's coming, and I'm thinking, we've been out here now at least a couple hours. We only have a little bit of time left, and that 35-mile wind's coming. And I'm, you know, Mike, Mike was right, which his time was a little earlier than the other guys. So I thought maybe we had more time. And you could tell the wind was starting to pick up, the waves were starting to pick up as we were out there. So I'm like, I'm gonna die out here in the ocean. Um, this is just natural for my life. But when I when things get bad, like I get super positive. And so if you're hanging out with me and I am like overly positive to integrity, you're gonna die. You're gonna die soon. Yeah. One of us is gonna die, or both of us, we're gonna meet Jesus, and I figure that's the way you should go out, like ready to meet him. So, like, um, so I like I am super positive, like annoyingly positive on these things. Like, oh, it's all great. I'm having a great day, Mike. Look, we're in the sun, it's 30 degrees snowy back home. This you can't have a better day than this. In two hours, it might not be the same, but we're we're having a great time. And uh Mike, Mike has a lot of Mike isms, and so he likes saying, It's one I've been using a lot since I got home. And he he kept saying, like, you know, he tells people and gives advice like, hey, this isn't an internal problem. I think I told you guys that recently in one of my moments from down there. Um, but like, so I was just like, hey, Mike, you know, this is not an internal problem, right? We're out here, we're in the ocean, it's beautiful. We'll figure it out. It's not, we don't have to get upset about it. It's just fine. And Mike was like, yeah, we'll figure it out. He's like, we'll just have it towed. Well, I didn't know that's a thing. But you could, there's there's tow boats, just like I like I'm familiar first day basis, all the tow trucks around here. Um I think I will be in Florida if I ever move there. Uh but like Mike's like, yeah, we'll just have it towed. And he's like, Yeah, you just call this number, you can be towed anywhere in the world. I'm like, well, that's a thing I didn't know existed, uh, but probably good that I know now. And uh so he's like, Well, have it towed, but the problem is storm's coming in, so the tow truck's not gonna really tow it. It's gonna have to leave that thing out there all night, or we're gonna stay there. But it takes a long time to get the tow. We're still on the sandbar. So you have to wait. The tow boats don't come as fast as the tow truck. So I'm just thinking, oh, they're gonna tow us, and then our bodies are gonna be somewhere, but they'll get the machine back. Um so like oh and then I'm like, can I swim over that channel with the sharks back to the to the to the people and get to the beach? Because there is a beach off in the distance if I can swim through deep water enough and not die. Um so I was I was thinking my ways out. Like, I can do that. I mean, uh yeah, I used to swam when I was a kid. I was a shark at the YMCA. Um so all these thoughts are going through my head. And so finally, um what was happening is I thought I was fine out there doing all this. We thought we had plenty of time, it was gonna be fine, we'll go out for the storm. I even told Patty, don't worry, we're only going out for a little bit, we're back for the storm. Mike says we're gonna be good. And I got my phone with me. I'll take my phone, we'll be all right. And the problem is, when we switched jet skis, guess where the phone went? With Mike. So what Patty saw was me and Mike sitting in the ocean on Life 360 in the same spot for like an hour. She's like, We were I would when I got back, she's like, I was wondering why you guys were just like the same spot for an hour. I was like, Oh, we were just having fun on a sandbar. So looking for shells. I was, I found like some cool shells. Um, you know, they had a lot of animals still in them, but we we were cool. Um, but I thought I was fine until I wasn't. And that's some of you, that's your life. You're going through life, thinking you're fine, realizing I'm not as fine as I thought I was. Because storms don't create problems, they expose them. My problem wasn't gonna be that big of a problem unless the storm came. And the storm was coming. And the problem was I we could have stayed out there for hours until we got towed, we got help, whatever. We could have stayed out until the high tide came in. That's what you normally do. You just waited out. Problem was uh, like low tide was 11 o'clock at night, so it was only getting shallower, it wasn't getting deeper, and so we weren't that wasn't an option uh for us, so we were just gonna be out there and and you meet Jesus. Uh, and so the problem was the storm coming was exposing the problem that I really had, that I was stuck on a sandbar with no way back and no time to actually get back. That was the real problem. Some of you, that's similar to your situation in life, emotionally, relationally, physically, uh, mentally, with your career, you you got problems and you're stuck. And there's a storm coming, and that storm's gonna expose them. And you may not think the storm's you got time, but it's when it comes, it's a real problem. And calm water in your life can really hide dangerous realities. I mean, the ocean was beautiful. I mean, it looked like it looks like the Bahamas in the keys. Like it's beautiful water, blue, clear, you can see down. Everything looked good. Like I was driving along, never saw that it was this deep until all of a sudden there was the problem. And some of you, that's just life. You think you're going along, everything's fine until you're stuck. You're stuck. And you can look fine and still be stuck. If you the guy, the guy that was walking over, he was waving us. He was like, hey, how are you? I'm like, hey, how I looked fine. It looked like I was just having a good old time. Well, he probably saw me pulling the thing, realize I wasn't fine, but if you drove by, you would just see two guys hanging out in a sandbar looking for shells. That's what it would have looked like for most people. But the reality was, we were stuck. We were stuck. And for some of you, you look fine today, but you're stuck. You came to church, you got all dressed up, you got a smile on your face, pretend like everything was okay, but you know you're stuck. Something's broken in your life, you're stuck in the sand, you don't know where to go, and there is a storm coming. Maybe it's close, maybe it's far, maybe it's on top of you. Some of you are there right now, and that's the reality. I've been there before in life. It's the urgency in life, it amplifies when the storm is coming. The faster, faster, faster you need to get stuck, is the closer and closer and closer that storm gets to you to you. Some of you, you're in the middle of the storm. The urgency's here. Like you got to figure this out now. Some of you think the storm's farther away than it actually is. And it's it's coming, it's coming quick. And what feels small really becomes serious when the storm shows up. That wasn't a big problem. It really wasn't an internal problem for Mike and I. Being stuck was not a problem. We were eventually the water was gonna go back up and we would get out. It was only a problem because there was this big old storm coming in, which was gonna create a massive problem. Some of you, you have problems, you don't think they're not that big a problem. As long as the storm doesn't come, I'm gonna be okay. But the reality is the storm is coming. And some of those moments in life, they end up like this, where we say things like, Hey, yeah, yeah, we'll deal with it later. It's not a big deal. Until later never comes. You never deal with the problem, you never deal with the situation, you never deal with the health problem, you never deal with the relationship issue. Some of you say, I'll get serious about God later. We like to talk about this one or here. Yeah, and I'm gonna enjoy my my my twenties and have fun. I'll get serious about God when I want to like grow up, or I have kids, or I want to get serious about God. The problem is life gets serious before those moments come. And you need God now, you need that foundation, but you you didn't build a foundation for God because you're waiting for for the future. Some of you say it's just a little bit of debt, just a little bit of debt, until you know income drops, and you can't cover the debt, you can't pay for it, and now you're in the storm and you're stuck in the sand. Some of you say, Well, we're getting by, we're getting by until an emergency hits. This is what happens. Happens around here all the time. How about you you're just getting by financially, all of a sudden a deer hits your car and you don't have the insurance, you need to cover it. Like that has happened recently in my life, a couple times, right? In a month. Some of you, you've been you've been there, right? How about it's just a small compromise? Right? Oh, it's just a little compromise. Like, just a little compromise. It's okay. Until it becomes a pattern in your life. So that thing you compromise on, you compromise a little more and compromise a little more, compromise a little more, and it becomes a pattern in your life. Or how about there's when people say, well, you know, no one knows. No one knows. No one's gonna find out. No one's gonna know. Until it comes light, and they know. And there's a storm. Or I can stop anytime. No, don't worry about me, I can stop anytime. I can stop anytime. Until you realize you can't stop anytime. Now you got a problem. Or it's just a little bit of fatigue. I can keep going this burning my candles, both ends, until your body forces you a stop. Storms here. Or I don't really need people. I can do this all by myself. I don't need people, I don't need our Christians, I don't need a community, I don't need to be in life group, I don't need a Bible stuff, I don't need to do any of that stuff. Until you're in trouble and you need people to be around you, and you got nobody. Or it's just one look. Just one look. It's just one look. Until it becomes an addiction. That's that's life. That's the sand where you get stuck in, and that's the storms. And you can look fine and still be stuck. Some of you, you look fine on the outside, no one, no one knows. All this looks fine until that storm hits. And when it hits, it brings the waves, it brings a wind. And you go splat. So you can look fine and have the wrong foundation. Some of you, you your foundation's sand. Maybe not in every aspect of your life, but maybe in some where the storm's hitting you. And what you really need is a foundation on the rock with Jesus. Because I love what Mike's words were. This is not an internal problem. When you say that, it's because you have a good foundation, right? Your foundation's on the rock. Yeah, we'll weather this. The waves come and they hit. One of the things about uh being out there, we went snorkeling the day before. And uh we went snorkeling, it wasn't fun. I gotta swim with fish, gotta see Barracuda. Um, I gotta I gotta swim with a sea turtle. I didn't touch it, didn't do anything illegal, just so you know. Uh but I gotta swim with the sea turtle for a while. It was fun. It was just really cool to be in the water. I also lost two snorkel masks. You can go listen to that message. It was a mess. But out there, there was this old rusty lighthouse that had been up for years. Now I was thinking about that lighthouse as we were standing out there on the sandbar on the next day, because that lighthouse had survived storm after storm, hurricane after hurricane, and it's still standing. Decades of hurricanes, it's still standing. Because it was built on solid foundation underneath the coral in the bedrock. They they drilled that thing down, and that metal was put into foundation. So all those storms come and it stayed. As I'm standing on sand trying to get my jet ski out, I'm thinking about the difference. Like, yeah, this makes sense biblically, right? The difference here. Some of you you look fine, but you just you have the wrong foundation. You can't weather storms like that lighthouse because you're in the sand. But there's hope. That's the thing about it. There's hope. For me, that hope came in the form of George the Angel. Um, so here's my message with George the Angel. So the guy that the that owned the boat uh came over and he he's like, Hey, you guys need help? And so uh we found out he's George. Uh and so I said, Well, you're George the Angel. And I said, I actually think you might be an angel, and God put you here waiting for us to come so you could save us. I said, I'm thinking I'm gonna leave, and you're just gonna poof, you're gonna be gone. Uh I don't Think he found that as music as I did, but he he appreciated it. Um, he said, I'm not an angel, I'm a DJ from Miami. Um, so well, some people think you are an angel. Uh I do. So this is our text. So George came over, he brought his buddies over. They didn't really speak much English, but they he kind of got them over. They came and helped us. He said, If we'll help you, if you'd be willing to come help us. Now their boat was a lot bigger. It was one of those fishing boats. You see the guys all the back, deep sea fishing. Uh it was like 15 feet or so, 20 feet. And so we're like, sure, yeah, if you could help us out, we'll get it. So we got five guys now dragging this thing through the sand because it's still heavy enough. Five guys can't just lift it. We're like pit lifting it enough to drag it, lift it, drag it, lift it. We finally got it to a deep enough spot that Mike could get on it and drive it out. So Mike got it, drove it all the way around. We tied it off to the other one that was anchored where the phone was, and then we had to all walk the long trek back across the sandbar and over to the other boat, and then we worked on that other boat for 45 minutes an hour. We couldn't get it to budge. That thing was so huge, and it was only getting lower and lower tide. And so finally, uh, Mike's like, hey, you know, we'll call the tow and get you guys towed. And so, like, he's like, That's all we can do. We don't have enough guys to move this thing. And they, the problem was for them, I was a long way from deep water. They were about six feet from deep water, and we couldn't get this thing to move at all, and it was just getting lower and lower. And so we we uh we ended up leaving after trying to help them forever, and we we called the tow for them, so you can see you guys get towed, and no. He said that at 10:38 marina. Now we said thanks. And then down here he goes, last night I have bad experience. Next time I think something bad is good happening to me, it's too cool, it's the too windy and too dark. I don't take the boat out in the sand. So he had a bad night because the storm came at dark. It's 10:38. All we could think about is we hope they don't die out there because we tried to help them. But they were out there in 35-mile-hour winds with just the waves and the wind just coming and just rocking that little boat. And the problem was they weren't floating, so they weren't gonna bob in the water. That thing just kept getting smashed by wave after wave after wave after wave, and it just kept rocking with each wave. It was probably a miserable experience. Um, so I was hoping it was George the Angel, so he wouldn't be there, but he he was. And uh I've been trying to find him, he's a DJ of Miami. If you can find him, let me know. I wanted to vent some money, thank him. Um a gift, but can't find him. So uh I've tried. But like that's that is my angel. See, there was rescue there. God had a plan. They were there, stuck. They came to help us. So there is a window for rescue in your life, but it doesn't stay open forever. We could have said, no, we don't need your help, we'll figure it out. We're like, no, we want the rescue, we want the help. We're stuck in the sand. We got a problem, the storm is coming. Yes, help me. See, God has help for us, God has hope for us in our situations. The foundation that you need is there. And we want to go to 2 Corinthians 6. This is Paul, and Paul is writing about a time that Isaiah, he's writing and he's referencing the passage in Isaiah we'll get to. But he's referencing the Old Testament. So they'd have known these words. In Isaiah, this is God speaking. And so it says, he, for he, God, says, in a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. So basically he's saying, God says, hey, I I I show up, I'm gonna show up at a favorable time, I'm gonna help you. And what Paul says to the people, he says, Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. That time is not tomorrow, it's right now. The storm is coming, everyone, is what he's saying. The storm's coming, right? Death is coming, destruction's coming, it's coming for you. There's life everlasting through Jesus, but that time is now, that day of salvation, now Jesus has come. You need to accept it, you need to build your foundation on him. This comes from Isaiah 49:8. In Isaiah 49.8 it says, the says the In a time of favor I've answered you. In a day of salvation, I have helped you. See, God has a plan to help us. The salvation is here, but it comes through the foundation, which is Jesus. Those problems that you have, they can be built in the rock, and then they're not internal problems anymore. Right? They're not eternal problems anymore. They're just problems that you navigate. But for some of you, you're so stuck that it's just the problem is destroying you, and you don't want to tell people about it. It's just destroying you from inside. You know the storm is about to come, or you know the storm is just hitting you, and all you feel is splat in your life, your emotions, your relationship, mentally, with your career, whatever it is. You know the storm's coming, or you know the storm is here. And someday thinking has stranded more people than sin ever has. That putting that off for the someday, yeah, yeah, it'll be fine. Someday it'll, you know, it'll work out someday. See, someday we say things like, someday I'll work on it. Someday I'll work on it, someday I'll work on my faith, someday I'll, someday I'll get right with God, someday I'll make better choices, someday I'll stop doing this thing I know I need to quit doing. Someday I'll be nicer. Someday we just have all these somedays. I'll just, it'll, it'll be there. But the problem is the storm's coming and the storm might be here now, and that someday may never come, and that's the problem. See, people often wait until life forces urgency before they do anything about it. When you're a follower of Jesus, do something now, before the storm comes. Luckily, I took my phone. So then uh what I did for my wife is once I got my phone back, I just thumbs up a post about dinner. It's like, well, if I thumbs up the post, she'll see it and realize I didn't die and I'm okay. Because I figured they were probably worried because we were supposed to be back long before we were. She never saw the thumbs up. They were worried, and it was a problem. So um it was a nice dinner. Uh so we had my we had a great dinner. We survived. Uh, I told Mike the whole time in the sandbar, like, listen, I'm gonna preach this, Mike, so just get ready. This is great content. Uh I did. He's like, this is great. Um, but we wait until life forces urge. We wait until the storm comes before we actually gonna do anything about it. When we know the storm is probably coming, what we should have realized is like we probably shouldn't have gone out in the storm when the, you know, knowing the storm is coming. Um we did get back, obviously, I'm here, and uh, we made it. But some of you, you know where you're at in the storm right now. You storm's here, storm's coming, you know, or it's brewing. And what you ignore in the calm, you're gonna confront in crisis. The problems that you have right now that you know are there, you might the water might be calm, the storm may not be here, but that crisis is gonna come soon, as soon as your storm in your life hits. And it's gonna, you're gonna splat. And you're if you don't do anything now to change the outcome, that's the outcome that you're gonna have. And so, what does this mean for you? I think you don't wait for the storm to take seriously what God is already trying to rescue you from. That's the truth. That's the truth. You know what you need rescued from, you know, you know what's broken your life, you know where things are off mentally, financially, physically, emotionally, relationally. You know what's off. You know, you know if you're in the sand, you know if you're on firm foundation, you know. Let God rescue you. He has a better way. It's his word. My eyes on my Bible, my phone's on my Bible, or my not my phone's in my Bible, my Bible's on my phone. I guess they're both interchangeable these days. His word rescues us, his people rescues us, his church rescues. Bible studies, life groups, getting around people of God, that's how you get rescued. I was thankful that that we had those three angels come to save us. They weren't actual angels, but it was for me, they were because I didn't die in the storm. See, God already sent help before I knew how desperate I was. Has God already sent you help in the form of this church, form of your life group before your Bible study for the people you make, but you're not doing anything about it? That's the hard part. Do you know you need to get more connected in community? And one of the people tell us all this all the time, oh, your church is really fun. It's the reason there's a reason why we do a lot of fun stuff. We're trying to build community for people. So when the storms hit, you have help, you have rescued. That's why we do a lot of fun community-building stuff at our church. It's not because we just like to hang out together. There's an intentionality. When those storms hit, the only way through is Jesus and the people who love Jesus. And when the storms hit my life, the only way I got through it was the people who were around me who showed me Jesus, pointed me back to Him. When my wife and I, when our first child died, the only way we got through it was the 50 people at our church that loved us through that storm. If we didn't have them, we would have been lost. It would have been splat. And it was a really hard season, a really long storm, but we got through it. That's what God does for us. That's what the foundation looks like. And some people are stuck and they just don't know it yet. You might be stuck today and you just didn't you don't realize it. You're just stuck. You might have said one of those sayings before, all of them. You might realize I'm more stuck than I think I am. But when that storm comes, you're gonna find how stuck you are, how weak the foundation is. And some people they know they're stuck, but they don't feel any urgency. I know I'm stuck, but I don't I'm not gonna change this until later in life or until I wanna something forces me to change until I get caught, then I'll change. There's a lot of people that just once they get caught, they'll make changes. But they don't want to make changes until they get caught. The urgency's here. Paul says it the time is now for salvation. That's the time. You've got to build your foundation on Jesus now. And when you build your foundation on Jesus and His Word, it changes everything in your life. It gives you hope for the eternity, it gives you hope now. Your perspective changes. It does. And some people feel urgency, but they don't realize that help's already there. Some people are just you're in it, you're in it right now. When the storm is just about to hit you, know it. But you don't realize there's people in your life that can help you through it if you just actually let them help you. We have people in this church that have financially been in ruins and they've got together with other Christian couples who do better financially, and they said, Hey, help me. Here's my mess. Can you just give me some advice? They've listened to advice, and God has drastically transformed their life, their marriage, their family, their future financially. We have people whose lives are you know falling apart in their relationship and their marriage, and they've got together with other Christian couples and said, Hey, help us, advise us. And they've listened to that vice and it's drastically transformed their marriage. And I can give you example after example in very different ways. The help is already here, but the time to respond is now, it's favorable now for you to be saved from the storm. And I think the response for us as a church, as individuals, if you're stuck, admit it. I've been stuck. I've been stuck at times. The way through is God, his word, his people. So admit it. And then once you can admit it, you get help. That's simple. We can help you as a church, your life group would help you, your Bible study, the pastors can help you, but you gotta admit that you're stuck, and then you gotta actually do something to get unstuck. A lot of people say, Well, I'm stuck. But if you don't ask for help, you don't receive help. I mean, I could have I could have called Patty and said, I'm stuck, but I don't want any help. I'm a man, I'm gonna figure this out. I'd also be with Jesus right now. So the truth is you gotta admit it and get help. We don't care about your sin at this church. You're a bunch of sinners, and I'm a sinner. Guess what? We're all sinners. God knows, we all know. I don't care what your sin is. It doesn't matter to me. You can tell me, I'll be like, I don't really care. I have sinned too in my life. Because guess what? Let's move forward. Let's we got a God that loves us, he forgives us, let's move forward. That's the truth. So then if you're not worried about what people are gonna think, move forward and get the help you need to move forward. Relationally, physically, emotionally, mentally, in your career, financially, whatever it may be, get the help you need and move forward. And that's why we have Bible studies, and that's why we have life groups, and that's why we have this dinner with friends, where you can get together with some stranger, just have a dinner, get to know people. We're trying to make the church a smaller place so you can have community, so when you need help, you can be rescued. But you gotta be willing to admit I'm stuck. This is how I'm stuck, this is where I need help. And then let people connect you with the right person of people that could help you move forward. And if you're stuck, that's what the church is for. We we can send you to counselors, we can counsel you as pastors, we can we can connect you with the right people. That's I love doing this. I love helping people. When you people text me, I might say, I'm not the best person to help you, but so-and-so in our church probably would love to have a conversation with you. I'm not doing that to pass you off or pass the buck. I'm doing it because there might be somebody who's way better in that thing who, if you just sit down and have a coffee, they may be able to give you the advice to help you support you need, and and you may be able to get your situation resolved. They might have the time that you need for them to invest in you to do that. If you're if you need a couple to come alongside you, I might know the right couple who's been through what you've been through. This happens a lot of time with like give you a recent example, like fertility issues. We have a lot of couples with fertility issues. Guess what? We've had fertility issues in the past. We we've been able to have kids, we can help you, but there's other couples who have had a bigger struggle and have had other ways that they move forward with success. We can connect you. Or if you've gotten marriage problems, we can connect you. Somebody who's had marriage problems, figured it out, they're happy, they've applied all that, they've learned, and they can help you do the same thing. We can connect you. That's what help looks like. But you've got to admit they need help, and then you've got to actually get the help and receive the help. How we can help you as a church today is we can, with our connection cards, we can pray for you. That's what we always do. We every week we get together a staff meeting, we pray over the prayer requests. So you can put your name on the front, and you can just put stuck. That's all you put, stuck. We'll pray for you. I don't know what you're stuck in, and I that's not my business unless you tell me, but we'll pray for you. But then I'm gonna make the challenge. If you're stuck and you need help and you don't know where else to turn, write stuck and then help. And Pastor Matt, who looks at these every week and text them all up, um, he will call you and say, How can we help you? Do you need a conversation? Do I need to connect you to a group? Do I need to help you? Do we need to send you to a counselor? We'll pay. If you can't afford a counselor, we'll pay for two sessions as a church to get you started because we believe that matters. And that's that's hugely important to move forward. We have a biblical counselor that we recommend. We will help you in whatever way we can to help you get unstuck. That's the church. And if you don't want to do that, if you know something in your life that you think you could trust that's been where you you know, what you've been stuck where you're stuck, and they've got unstuck, say, hey, I'm I'm this is what's going on in my life. I need help. And then let them help you. But you gotta admit it and you've got to seek help. That's how we can help you as a church. Because we want to be a church where we are not stuck, but we're moving forward. We understand the time is now. These problems that we have, they're not internal problems when our foundation is on Jesus Christ, on his word, his way, and his truth. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just pray that we are a church that gets unstuck. Lord, we know it, we all have the propensity to be stuck at different times and different ways in life. I pray for anybody here who's stuck, Lord. Whether they know it or they don't, Lord, that they recognize it's time to admit I'm stuck and I need help because the storm's here or the storm's coming. And we pray we can be honest and have the courage to admit where we struggle, where we're stuck, and that have the courage to seek help. To just tell somebody I'm stuck and I need I need direction, I need help, I need support, I need encouragement. And I need Jesus. And we pray we can we can help each other get unstuck. We can br we can help each other build our firm foundation on the word, on Jesus and His way, and then we'll be a church where you see God, you do amazing things as people move forward with you. And we just pray this in Jesus' name, amen.