When the Faith You Knew Isn’t True // Help! I’m Losing My Religion! - Read

In a world where things change minute by minute, one thing is consistent—we’re losing our faith. Every year, the percentage of people identifying as “Christian” drops lower and lower. People just aren’t buying what the Christian faith is selling...maybe you aren’t buying it. Maybe it’s the Church’s treatment of people groups. Maybe it’s your own past trauma. Maybe it’s the injection of politics into the pulpit. Whatever the reason, the Christianity you knew began to crumble, and so did you. But if you’re walking this difficult path, there’s good news—God is not afraid of your deconstruction. In fact, your deconstructing faith could be the doorway to a deeper faith. One richer, stronger, and more profound than you could ever imagine.

Deconstruction is often a terrifying journey. The faith that you thought you knew crumbling around you? It disrupts and challenges the very core of what you believed was true. But what if the faith that you knew isn’t the faith that is true? What if your faith was actually built on a counterfeit version of Christianity? And what if deconstruction is a doorway to a deeper faith?

See, are you guys excited to be in the house of God today? Who's excited to be in the house of God? Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're excited online, you can make some online noise. I don't know what that looks like, but you can get excited as well. So happy everybody is here today joining us, man. Let me tell you last night, we had our Saturday night service. It was a hot one in here. Like it was hot. The air conditioner wasn't working in here. We were working at about 79 degrees last night. Here on the stage, it was more like 82 It was like we were preheating an oven in this place last night. If you've ever heard of the saying sweating like a sinner in church. We were living that Outlast. But it's a lot better today. So we're thankful for that. And hey, I want to give all of you gigantic kudos today for being here. You are the diehards. Do you know who's here today and who's watching online? These are the diehards, this is how I know it because you're the post-Easter crew. This is Yeah, yeah. These are the real people because you know what happens traditionally in the church world, the first week after Easter is one of the lowest attended Sundays of the year because people like just worship their face off the week before and they just want to chill the next week. So the people in here you can't get enough of it. And I love you for it. I love that you're here because I love the week after Easter. I love the week after Easter because we can get so caught up in the moment last week. I like the Sunday right after because it's kind of a reminder that hey, he's still resin, okay, he's still alive. This tomb is still empty. He's still moving. And he's still working. Because really that's what every weekend is that we celebrate used to be just Sundays. But now it's our Saturday service. Every weekend at Cornerstone is like a little Easter every weekend is another opportunity, another chance for us to join together and to celebrate what God has done for us and this new life that He has given us. I'm excited to celebrate that with everybody today. And I am really excited to start this series today. How help I'm losing my religion. This is a four-part series. It's going to be a discussion on deconstruction. I have been pumped to preach this series since we planned it at the beginning of the year since I was kind of setting up what I'm going to preach on whenever I saw this one. I'm like, Yep, I cannot wait for that. So I've been looking forward to this for some time now. Now, deconstruction who in here has heard of it, I want you to shoot your hand up if you've ever heard that term before deconstruction, deconstruction online, if you've heard of it before, okay, if you if you've heard of it, let me tell you there's like a million definitions for this thing. Like I was talking to my friend Josh in between services, and we're talking about like, man, there's so many different ways people define deconstruction, classically the original term deconstruction because this is kind of like an intro to deconstruction, today, what we're going to be talking about, I want us to all be on the same working definition. Traditionally deconstruction is, it's a philosophical framework, brought up and made up by this guy, a French philosopher by the name of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida, came up with this framework, and basically what deconstruction was to him is that as you take a philosophical view at the world, you have to question everything, like except nothing on its face, just question everything, break everything down, deconstruct everything, so much to the point that Derrida would say, you wouldn't even deconstruct like your thoughts or philosophy, you need to deconstruct the words you use to describe that thought and philosophy. He was all about breaking literally, everything down now in the terms that we're going to be talking about when we talk about deconstruction, we're talking about faith, deconstruction, and I guarantee you, if you're someone in here, someone online who raised your hand, saying, you've heard of deconstruction before, that's what you've heard of. You've heard of faith, deconstruction. And again, there are so many different ideas and interpretations, and definitions of what this means. But the most agreed-upon that I found in my time of studying this generally, centers around this idea that faith deconstruction is a fundamental questioning and breaking down of the fundamentals of the faith. So just a fundamental, completely tearing everything down to the fundamental building blocks of the faith, just like questioning everything, just like Derrida questioning everything, not taking anything at face value. And so what I want to say to you in the first service, we had tons of hands go up, we had about 50% of the auditorium, shoot your hands up, but let me tell you this much. This next sermon series, this sermon series that we're doing right now, you may think okay, deconstruction, doubt, uncertainties about faith. It doesn't really apply to me. Do you wonder who this applies to though? Your kids, you got teenagers to apply your teenagers, got kids getting ready to go off to college, it applies to them. If you're a teacher, you've got kids in your class, it applies to them. Because let me tell you, you may be out of the loop like reconstruction. What's he talking about? Your kids aren't? It's of its consistently one of the top trends on tick-tock on Instagram. It's what people are talking about in the faith community right now. deconstruction is a huge, huge, important thing that we need to discuss now. Why is it happening?

Well, I mean, man, we could talk for weeks on end about this. I'm going to try to sum it up in the next two weeks, we're going to look at some of the big two reasons why I believe so many Christians are deconstructing are questioning the fundamentals of faith, and walking away from faith. We're going to look at the two big one's next week and the week after that. But today, I want to kind of give a general overview of why I think people are deconstructing why people who have grown up in faith and who have had faith are turning and leaving it. And to do that, I need to use a little illustration real quick. So be back in just one moment. All right. What is this? What kind of Lily? Easter Lily? I know you're thinking right now pastor Jacob. So week after Easter, you need to get yourself a calendar. What are you doing? Bringing Easter lilies up on stage? I want to talk about Easter lilies for a second. These are beautiful, right? They're gorgeous. Jen on our worship team was even saying she's like, Hey if that Easter Lily goes missing after service, don't look at me. But I might take it right because they're beautiful. And not only are they beautiful, but they also smell great, right? They're nice. We have this in our house last night. And you know, it was on our coffee table in the whole little area. You can smell the fresh flowers. It's nice like Easter lilies are beautiful. But I want to ask you something. Did you know that what you're looking at right now is a genetic freak of nature? Lilies should not look like this right now in Northeast Ohio. Typically speaking, this should not be happening. Actually, if you look up Easter lilies, they are a specific kind of flower. That's why I said they're not just lilies, what are their Easter lilies, Easter lilies. If you read up on them, you learn a little bit about their background. These kinds of lilies are specifically engineered and bred to bloom on the church's timetable for Easter. Easter is different every year, right? It's different every year. It falls the first Sunday after the vernal equinox and spring. And so it changes up all the time. And so what they do is they'll get this ball, they'll get the bulbs ready, they'll genetically engineer or modify him a certain way. They'll send them to greenhouses into places for sale across the country. And the people who get them will put them into certain conditions and environments that have been modified and changed so that they bloom in time for Easter. And they look all beautiful for Eastern Hallelujah, Amen. It looks so great. And just like Jesus rose from the grave, these blooms rose out of their balls, right? Like, we that's what we want. It looks good. It looks beautiful. It looks perfect. But it's manmade. And it's artificial. Do you know what just normal lilies should be doing right now? Now granted what I'm about to show you, it should be a little bit taller. I'll give you that. But this is what lilies to a degree should be looking like right now in Northeast Ohio. Isn't that sad? Just Oh, poor little guy. Look at this little thing. Has this bloomed yet?

Of course not, which is normal for this time in Ohio. Despite how hot it has been these last few days and how it's been cooking in this auditorium. It's not summer lilies in Northeast Ohio typically are supposed to bloom in early summer. mid-April, is not early summer. See this is the God-designed Lily. It has no business blooming yet. It's still unfinished, it's still a work in progress. It's still growing. But the church-designed Easter Lily has to look perfect. It has to be all put together. It has to be ready for Easter and it has to look a certain way. And what I believe as we begin this discussion on deconstruction is this is why so many people have left the faith, not because it's trendy not because Oh, it's cool to deconstruct it's a popular thing. These people are broken. It ain't trendy. It's not fun. What they have been told as they have been struggling with faith and they've been working through disappointments and letdowns and questions. They've been told, Hey, pick it up look like this. This is what faith looks like in church. If you can't get here if you're just struggling here, get out, go somewhere else. Maybe when you come back like this and you look pretty like we want you to look then you have a place in our church. But until then we don't want you. We don't want your doubts. We don't want your questions. It makes us uncomfortable. And what I want us to do is to get to a place where we can embrace the questions, embrace the doubts and see that they will push us to further deeper faith in Jesus. Absolutely. You can clap for that. Yes.

And what I want us to read real Quick, this is such a good I mean, if this doesn't capture the heart of so many people who have deconstructed, Of course, there are some people who do it because, well, my friends are doing it and kind of makes sense. That's, that's so the minute so many people are losing faith because of real trauma because of real questions. And I love this. This is so good. This is from Mark chapter nine. This is Jesus talking to a man who has brought his son before Jesus, and he is pleading with Jesus to help him listen to what it says, starting in verse 20, of Mark nine. So they brought the boy to Jesus. But when the evil spirits saw Jesus, they threw the child into a violent conversion, and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth. How long has this been happening? Jesus asked the boy's father, and he replied, since he was a little boy, the spirit often throws him into the fire into water trying to kill him, have mercy on us and help us if you can. What do you mean, if I can, Jesus asked, anything is possible if a person believes the father instantly cried out, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief. If that is not the cry of so many people's hearts, who are deconstructing and walking away from the faith that they knew and thought they loved that? I want to believe you think I want to believe that there isn't a god? You think I want to believe that this is the end when I close my eyes someday in the future, like, do you think I want that I don't, I don't want that. I want to believe helped me overcome my unbelief. And I believe that's what God's gonna do for us. During this series. Can we pray one more time? Real quick, Heavenly Father, we ask that You would speak to us so clearly from your word that you would reveal yourself, not our preconceived notions of who you are not what we think you should be like not any of that God. You reveal yourself to us. Because we want to know you, not our own made-up conception of you, not what somebody else told us. We want to know you for who you are. Do that today for us. God, we love you. We pray all this in your name. Amen. Amen. Well, hey, today's sermon title, if you're taking notes is when the faith you knew isn't true. Can you say that with me when the faith you knew isn't true? Has anyone ever experienced this before? When the faith you knew isn't true when the thing you thought isn't true? Our crisis of faith anybody online, if you've ever experienced this, this is a terrifying thing. I experienced it whenever I was young. And I started to realize what it meant to be a Cleveland sports fan at a crisis of faith and like God, why would you Oh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why am I rooting for teams that are in sports? Purgatory, right? But seriously, no, I had a crisis of faith like Not, not like a crazy one or anything like that. But whenever I was in high school, like I'm a logical thinker, like I like to really play things out and know why I believe something. And I had a lot of questions in high school questions about how I can know that what I'm truly believing in the faith that I have is really true faith. Maybe that's you, maybe you've had something happen in your life, you got married, you thought it was gonna be forever, and it ended up not being forever. Now you're feeling now you're questioning things, what you thought was true, isn't true anymore. Maybe you've been diagnosed with an illness and what was supposed to be a three to four-week recovery. Now, suddenly, you're looking at like, man, is this a lifelong thing? Is this something I'm going to be dealing with for the rest of my life? And that has you shocked? Maybe it's the death of a loved one? If you're someone who's lost a kid, I can't even begin to comprehend how traumatizing that would be and how that would send your faith on just a spiral, wondering how this could be real how God could be true. In the midst of that, maybe you are someone who is, you're like me, you're kind of a logical thinker. And so your questions about faith are rooted in logic and reason. And you're like, Man, I, you know, I used to Sunday school, I was down on Sunday school, I was good all throughout that stuff. But then whenever I went off to like high school, and when I went off to college, I mean, come on six literal days of creation, like really, really a worldwide flood. Really, the Earth is like 6000 years old. Is that what the Bible says? Like? I mean, really, Jonah in the whale? Is this all? I don't know? Is this all legit? Is this all real? How can I have faith in this without just completely ignoring science and what the world seems to tell me maybe you're that kind of person. Or maybe you're a person who is deconstructed? Because Can we just be honest, you see how terrible Christians have been? And you see it and you're like, Ha, how can this stuff be real? If that's what they're like? Can I get real Ouchy? Real quick? Can I get real outshooting? You guys do not get too mad at me. We have people who are deconstructing because they see people on Facebook who say they are stalwarts, and they're defenders of what biblical marriage is while they're on their third marriage.

Right, and they're condemning everybody else not from a sense of humility and realizing, hey, yeah, that's where I've been, but God is seeing me through but they're, I'm up here and you are all down here God looks at you in disgust. And the rest of the world looks at that and goes, this is true. Do you guys really believe this? No, no, no, no, no, you just you like your flavor is sin and everyone else's flavor. Sin is bad and gross. That's all that it is. People see the way that we've injected politics, both the right and left have done it. They see the way we inject politics into faith. And we're more concerned about who wins the next election cycle than what we're praying for every week. They look at this and like, Dude, you guys don't really believe that there is a risen, living God living inside of you and affecting the world. You just, there's no way you believe this. And that's why people are deconstructing not because it's trendy, not because it's popular, because they're broken by are terrible examples. No wonder people are deconstructing No wonder people are walking away from the faith. And if that is you, I want to let you know, if you have started to lose faith in one way or another. This is going to sound very heretical. Don't throw stones yet, just keep them in your pocket. Let me finish my thought on this. But if you've started to lose your faith, can I tell you well, good.

For the vast majority of people, I am glad that you have lost your faith. Because let me tell you, some of us, some of us, in fact, I would say many of us, in the United States, many of us our faith, maybe the best thing for your faith is to lose it. Because your faith is one of three things. It's casual, it's conditional, or it's circumstantial. It's a casual faith, it's yeah, I'm a Christian the same way, right. I'm a Christian in the same way that I'm a, you know, I'm a Virgo, or I'm a Libra. That's how much effect it has on my life, right? Or I'm a Christian in a circumstantial sense. Where, yeah, I'm, I'm a Christian. And it's based on circumstances, I believe in a circumstantial, God, I believe that God is either if I do x, then God does y, right. If I give money to God, God blesses me hallelujah. If I pray to God, if I pray to God, then my kids won't get sick, and I won't get sick, we'll be healthy our whole lives like I believe in a circumstance of God in a circumstantial faith. Or maybe you're someone who has a certain faith, you know, what faith is supposed to look like. And you know what God looks like to every cross t and dotted I, and nothing can ever waver, nothing can ever be different. And if it ever is, it rocks, your faith, right? All of those kinds of faith, a casual faith, a circumstantial faith and ascertain faith, those can go ahead, deconstruct all day, tear those blocks out, tear those down to the studs, because that is not a faith that will last, that is not a faith that's alive, it's a faith that may look pretty for a while, it may look good for a little bit, and it's gonna get thrown out. Because it's not going to stay for the long run. It's not going to actually be rooted in anything that matters. So maybe the best thing for your faith is to lose it. That's what the Father had to do as he came to Jesus. We just read it in Mark 9:24, the father had to lose this kind of whatever faith he had, where he's like, Jesus, can you do this? If you can, if you can write like, yeah, this kind of faith in Jesus saying, hey, look, I need you to get a new faith. A new faith just goes, Yes, Jesus can do this. Yes, I believe he can do this. The father had to ditch preconceived notions about it, and trust and have confidence in Jesus, maybe the best thing for your faith is to lose it. So if that is you, if you're someone who has started to lose your faith, even if you look like a great Christian in here, and you come every week, and you were a glory, hallelujah, but on the inside, you're like, Man, I don't know about this. I've been going through some stuff. I'm not sure if this is true. If that is you, and you've been questioning things and you have doubts. Good. That's, that's fine. That is fine. That means you're taking your faith seriously, right? You're taking your faith seriously. And this is actually what I would tell you. If you do have doubts, that's not a bad thing. Doubt is often a doorway to deeper faith. Right? Doubt. Often it's a doorway, it's not the opposite of faith. It's oftentimes a doorway to deeper faith. The father in Mark 9:24 his doubts drove him to Jesus. Right? I mean, you read it, he's, he's saying to Jesus, have mercy on us and help us if you can. If you can't, I don't know if you can, if you can. But in the midst of his doubts, his doubts drove him to Jesus. And the same thing can happen with you your doubts can be a doorway to deeper faith. I know this from personal experience. Whenever I was in high school, I kind of had my little not crisis of faith, but just questions. It was my doubt that led me to a deeper faith because I had doubts. I am a logical thinker. Don't you dare tell me what the Bible says so I want to know why the Bible says so. That's not good enough for me. I believe God is a logical God. If he has put if he's created the universe, and there are certain rules that we can see that govern the universe. How in the world when would we then just chalk everything up to mystery? Just will everything's mystery there's, there's nothing we can No, no, I believe that God is a rational God and we can seek him out. And so in high school man, I'm having questions. What about evolution? seems to be some pretty good evidence for this. What about the age of the Earth? I have some Christian sound needs only 6000 years old. But everything else seems to point to not a tad bit older than that, like a literal six-day creation, all these things were so hard for me. And those doubts, as I investigated them didn't lead me away from faith. It led me to a deeper faith because they drove me to Jesus, in the Centricity of Jesus, and the fact that everything hinges on him. It doesn't my faith does not hinge on a literal six-day creation. It doesn't I really hope yours doesn't. I really hope it doesn't. I really hope that your faith doesn't hinge on Well if there wasn't a literal, global worldwide flood, I don't know where I'd be, man, I'm praying for you. I hope that's not where you're at. Your faith needs to be founded on nothing else than Jesus. He is the center. And this is why because if what he said is true, everything else checks out. You don't have to have answers for everything else. I've heard other pastors joke about this way, if a man calls his shot says I'm going to be crucified. I'm gonna die, and then I'm gonna rise again. And then does it. He wins. You just like Yep. All right, I got it. Right. You just, you just kind of go Yeah, I'm, I go with him. Like, I mean, how do you top that? You can't. Right.

So that's why we as Christians, our hint, our faith is completely and utterly hinged on Jesus. And so our doubts can actually become a doorway to deeper faith. So if you are having doubts because of a miscarriage, if you're having doubts, because you have a church here that you've looked up to, and man, it just seems like every week, new church abuse or scandal comes out, and you are rocked by that because someone you looked up to you watch their sermons you, you were so formed by them, you read their books, and now they're leaving the faith or they've been doing questionable things. And now you're questioning your faith. If you're someone who's questioning your faith because you've been hurt by a church in the past. Your doubts are valid, don't you dare let a Christian leader try to dismiss them and say they're nothing big, your doubts are valid, but don't just stop at your doubts. Drive through them. Like, partner with GOD, me and partner with God in prayer. Ask God I don't even God. I don't even know if you're hearing me. I don't even know if you're real right now. But I'm asking you, I'm asking you earnestly. Please show yourself to me. Please show yourself to me, please, please reveal Yourself to me. Because I want this. Just like the father cried out, I want to believe helped me with my unbelief, please meet me where I'm at. And God will do it for you. God will do it for you. He will meet you where you're at. So investigate your doubt about partnering God with God in prayer, find a C group here at Cornerstone get involved in a small group, read scripture, and read God's word. And as you do that, as you investigate it, I promise you, God is faithful. God is faithful, He will meet you where you're at, and he will help you see it through. And one thing I promise you will start to discover as you do this, as you work through your doubts, and I gotta be careful, I don't eat up the rest of my time on just this part. As you start to pray through your doubts, as you start to ask God to reveal things to you, as you're reading scripture, I promise you so many of the beliefs that may have led to your deconstruction, so many beliefs that may have led to you walking away from the faith and saying this can't be real. So many beliefs are based on bias, not Bible. I'm going to say that again. I don't think you got it. So many beliefs, things that we would say I yeah, I believe that because the good word says so many beliefs, they are based on our biases, not in our Bibles. We just have a bias. Let me read you. I want to read this. This is going to be the scripture that we look at for the rest of our time together, John one, verses 43 through 49. This is Jesus calling his first disciples and we see a big issue where one disciple almost misses Jesus' call because of bias strictly because of his bias against something. So listen to this. This is John one starting in verse 43. The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, he found Philip and said to him, come follow me. Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter's hometown. Philip went to look for Nathaniel and told him we have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about his name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Look at this next verse, verse 46. Nazareth exclaimed Nathaniel, Can anything good come from Nazareth? Nazareth is his little podunk town since this is like a little tiny town. Basically, it would be like modern-day if we're like Pittsburgh, Can anything be good? Come from Pittsburgh? Detroit Can anything good come from Detroit? I'm sorry. Hey, I'm an Akron Cleveland guy. I don't know what to tell you.

But he can't he can't even begin to comprehend it. He has a bias. He has a bias. Is it based on Bible? No. But he has a biased Nazareth? How Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see for yourself? Philip replied. As they approached, Jesus said, nowhere is a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity. How do you know that about me that day? And you asked Jesus replied, I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you. So Jesus is like, I was able to see you even though I couldn't see you like I was able to see you. And so Nathaniel exclaimed, Rabbi, You are the Son of God, the king of Israel that convinced him. But you see, he came into this interaction with Jesus with a bias. And that bias was not biblical. That belief was not biblical. It was his own belief. It was his own thoughts. It was his own ideas about what was true and what could and what couldn't be. We need to be so careful. So many of our beliefs can be based on bias rather than Bible. I want to just hit a few real quick, the idea of biblical manhood and biblical womanhood we hear we hear this a lot that biblical manhood is I'm gonna hunt and kill and I'm gonna protect and that's what a there's a biblical man, right? Like I'm, and whenever it comes to the household stuff, and then whatever, that's, that's women, I don't do household stuff. Like I'm just I'm all about this. And whenever it comes to kids, I'm pretty much just like, you know, pat you on the head, and that's it. That's, that's the most affection the most child-rearing. You'll see me do, right? That's Biblical manhood. That's what a lot of people obviously it's a caricature, but that's a lot of what people will say, all about just rough and tough and around, you know. And on the other side, biblical womanhood, being barefoot in the kitchen, having seven or eight babies, right, and you just nurture them all day, and you cook all day, and you just you nurture them. And that's all that you do is you nurture the kids, and that's where you're at. And the husband isn't worried about the kids. It's just you doing the kids? And what we think is that that's, oh, well, that's, of course, because that's Bible. That's Bible. Like that's, that's how it's supposed to be the women are all the kids and the men aren't really anything with the kids. Did you know that's more biased than Bible? If you don't believe me, do the research yourself. I want you to go back. I want you to read some sermons from the 1600s and the 1700s. Because I've read them. Go read some sermons in that time period. And you'll notice at that time, our country our culture was an agrarian culture was a homestead culture was your work at home, we have fields that we weren't we have livestock that we tend to, only after the Industrial Revolution did things change, that factories sprang up warehouses and men would leave to go work in those in the city, and the wife would be at home with the kids. You want to know what you would find in those sermons from the 1600s and 1700s, when sermons were written with child-rearing, being the main topic of the day, guess who the preacher talked to? Fathers? Fathers, not moms. But how things have changed. You come on a Mother's Day sermon. And we'll cater everything to talking about raising your children how to raise godly children how to love your children, and fathers days, who cars and trucks and we're gonna have a great, great time here at church today. Just completely ignore it, man, that a Bible, that's bias as bias, but it's become so ingrained, we just think no, that's just, that's how it is, isn't it? The husbands just don't really do anything. It's all it's all the wise. But that is not the case. Our Bible translation issues. I mean, my goodness, there are so many people who believe that if you read anything other than the King James Version, you're in danger of hellfire, right? Like, you're, it's got to be that because that's the only true translation. But the fact of the matter is, the King James translation is guess what a translation, you want to be, you want to be a real Bible believer, and I only read the original brush up on your Greek hope you got your Aramaic and handy and your Hebrew, right? Because that's the only way.

That's the only way and we have people who will say you, you can't mess with the Bible. If you remove even a period or a comma, you've tampered with it beyond comprehension. And yet to tell people, you know, the original Hebrew doesn't have punctuation. We added it in, we don't know where the punctuation was because they didn't have it in their language at the time. Like, we believe these things, but man, it's biased. It's not Bible. We talked about this here at Cornerstone a lot. There are churches, and I don't begrudge them at all, but they'll say, Hey, if you want to be able to lead in a church, you know, it's kind of like a pyramid and we have a certain threshold and the higher you go, the more that you have to be like right on the straight and narrow and the higher you go, it's just got to be like this. And a lot of times it's couched as if well that's because what Scripture shows that's what Scripture says. That's not what Scripture says. There's no pyramid model. Scripture does not outline who's allowed to be a greeter and who's allowed to serve coffee and who's allowed to park cars, the office, the offices of the church and the New Testament, you know, how many there were two, overseer elders and deacons. That's it. And when you read their qualifications, you know what the most apples-to-apples comparison is for what our churches look like nowadays, pastors. So whenever you read about Paul's qualifications, essentially what he's giving his qualifications for the lead pastor, the leading pastors of churches, but we take them and we're like, yeah, so all the qualifications are for every volunteer ever. Like, everyone has to match up exactly with this. And we say it's Bible, but it's biased. But it's this is what we're comfortable with. It's this is what we can excuse to our big donors, but you know, we don't want to upset them. It's biased. It's not Bible, we have got to be so careful that we do not fall into thinking that what we believe is Bible whenever it's really biased. So how do we avoid that? How do we be careful about that, man, get into Scripture yourself. I love that you come and listen to me on Sundays and on Saturdays. That's great that me and Pastor Brenda, Pastor Donnie, and reading books is awesome, too. Don't just take other people's word for it. John Wesley Wesleyan theology, that's our background as a church here at Cornerstone. Wesleyan theology says the best way to know God and the best methodology for interpreting God and His will is four things, chiefly scripture, and then tradition, like church tradition, the wisdom of the ages. So scripture, tradition, reason, the logic that God has given us, and the number four experience and what John Wesley said is that the two greatest ones are scripture, and then experience and what he said about I love this, this is so good. John Wesley said, the reason that is is that he says, As I read scripture, what Scripture promises I enjoy. I see in Scripture, the promise of sanctification, and then I experience it in my own life as the Holy Spirit works on my heart. So those are the two greatest ways that we can know God and encounter God. So man, read scripture for yourself, and pray on your own worship on your own, don't you dare let this be the only time you do it all week, man, you need to come here full not come here hungry, you need to come on Sunday is full. And you only do that by encountering God throughout the week and getting close to him. And as you do, I promise you, he'll start pointing you more and more towards Bible rather than bias, he'll start revealing what's actually true, what he's actually said, instead of what you just have happened to believe, for a long time. One thing that will happen in those moments too, as you're studying is you will see a shift happen because I experienced this shift, and I see countless other people do it too, you will notice there will be a shift as you study God's Word. As you pray on your own, you will start to become less and less certain about everything but Jesus, you just will. The certainty that you just You're so certain that this is what everything has to look like, this is going to fade away, man, it's going to fade away, you're going to start feeling a lot more I don't really know, I don't really know.

But you are going to be so confident in who Jesus is. And what he has said in the claims that he made about himself, which is fantastic, because you know what certainty is cancer to faith. It kills it. Nate and Nathaniel, his certainty about Nazareth almost kept him from the adventure of a lifetime of following Jesus as a disciple. His certainty, nothing good can come from Nazareth, there's no way his certainty almost kept him from Jesus. We've had people who were certain about women, preachers almost kept them from the cornerstone, right? Thank God that they came and experienced it for themselves because it changed everything. But we can be so certain about things. And what I love is how Jesus is constantly flipping the tables on our certainty. He's just constantly we just talked about it for a seven-week series about how everything in the kingdom of God is different than what you would expect. Everything's different, like you want to be first you're going to be last. Everything is different. And Jesus is constantly throwing us curveballs from what we would expect. So for example, a lot of us would say we have certainty about who gets into heaven. We know, we know how this works. We know what a good Christian looks like. And if you don't do this while you're on the outs, if you're feeling hot today, it's gonna get a lot hotter one of these days. Amen. Like that's, that's how we feel we're so certain. And you know what Jesus does with our certainty. He has a conversation with the rich young ruler, and with a thief on a cross, and the rich young ruler who all of us would say, Hey, he's getting into heaven with more crowns on his or more jewels on his crown than me. The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, Hey, Jesus, how do I get eternal life? I'm just letting you know before we even jump into this, all the 10 commandments have been kept every one of them. And what did Jesus do? Does he congratulate them and say, hey, well done. Jesus says, No, I know you were certain I was going to do that. No, but you know what else you need to do? Sell everything you own, give it to the poor, then come follow me and the man left brokenhearted. And then the rich young is the thief on the cross, this man who did horrible things, and horrible enough that the Romans crucified Him. All he says to Jesus, obviously, this man was not keeping the 10 commandments in his life. All Jesus says is remember me when you enter your kingdom? And Jesus says, you'll be with me in Paradise today. How do you feel about certainly knowing things now? How do you feel about No, I'm certain I know? I know. Do you though, do you? Or is it really the only thing that we are supposed to be confident in Jesus. Jesus walks around and he says in Matthew, chapter five, talks about, hey, I haven't come to abolish the law, and the prophets have come to fulfill them. He says that. But then a couple of chapters later, he's breaking the Sabbath. And people are you saying you're not abolishing the law, but one of the laws if you broke the Sabbath, in an Old Testament days, the punishment, death, and Jesus is breaking, and people are like, you're just like completely disregarding Jesus, it was constantly flipping tables of certainty all over the place. Certainty is not what we want. It's not what we need. In our faith. I'm going to actually ask for volunteer help. Real quick, Cassie, would you mind being a doll and helping me out to get here, we'll give it up for Cassie. Real quick. Cassie helped me last night and then today too, and I appreciate it greatly. So I want to show you kind of my mental picture of how I've always envisioned certainty, like how I like whenever I think of certainty in my head. That's my picture. Cassie, can you just like stand your feet together? knees locked? And just, you know, there we go there that? Does that not look like a certain woman, right? Like she knows what's up, like, she knows what's up. She is certain. But you want to know what happens when we're certain. And when we're rigid? Is when something gets thrown our way and bumps into us. We don't worry, our insurance premiums are paid. If she falls, we're good. We're good.

That's what happens when you're certain when you're rigid. You take a push, and you fall, life throws a curveball your way you lose a job, you lose a kid you lose a marriage, and your faith falters. And it cracks because you were certain about how things would go. Now on the flip side, Cassie, can you kind of, you know, do this little bit and maybe like, yeah, there you go, little bounce a little bounce in the step. Now, whenever you do this, whenever you're not rigid anymore, whenever you're not firm, but you're flexible. Things change. I can push Cassie with the same force that I was pushing her before she moves like she's moving a little bit, but she's not falling over. Right? Do you know whenever we build skyscrapers nowadays, do you know what they look for? They don't look for the strongest metals. They don't. They look for the most flexible metals, metals that can take a hit metals that can take a gigantic gust of wind and move with the wind but then bounce back to where they were supposed to be. That's the kind of faith we need a faith that can take the hits in life. And it may not be pretty at first. But it's a faith that can take the hits and it can stand through it. And let me tell you, that's not a certain faith. It's a confident faith. We need to eliminate certainty from our faith walk and embrace confidence in Jesus. Can we thank Cassie as she grabs her seat again? Thank you, Cassie. Her eyes last night she didn't know I was gonna do as a Cassadine helped me you can tell she was like I'm about to get slimed or something up here. I don't like being a volunteer. We need to reject certainty and embrace confidence. That's exactly what Nathaniel did. As he encountered Jesus, He embraced confidence in Jesus. When Jesus comes up to him and encounters him. He just embraces confidence, his certainty cannot Can I just tell you his certainty? Jesus didn't answer his question. Did you notice that when we read through that earlier, Jesus didn't explain to him why Nazareth made sense? When Nathaniel was questioning how could Jesus come from Nazareth? Jesus didn't sit him down and be like, Well, hey, look, let me explain it to you. Let me tell you why it makes sense for the Messiah to come from Nazareth. Jesus didn't answer his question. That's an unanswered question and an attended doubt that just stayed there. But Nathaniel didn't care anymore. Because he encountered Jesus. And I feel like that's what Jesus is telling a lot of us when we don't know what to believe. Just come and see. Just come and see when you don't know what to believe when you're questioning everything when you're deconstructing everything. Hey, just come and see. I know you Have questions and Daniel, but just come and meet this guy, I promise you, the second you come and see him, you're going to believe things are going to change and things are going to shift for you. And that's exactly what happened. Jesus changes things. It doesn't mean all of our doubts are answered, it doesn't mean all of our questions are addressed. Oftentimes, they aren't. But when we encounter Jesus, it's enough. And everything else just kind of falls by the wayside. Just come and see. And this is what I can promise you as we close up today. As you do that, as you come and see, Jesus will meet you where you are at. He will meet you where you're at, it doesn't have to look like this. The last thought I want to leave us with today. And this is kind of a complex one. Let me build it out just real quick. Faith was never intended to be a carbon copy. Your faith walk does not need to look exactly like yours, or like yours, like yours watching online. That's not how it was ever intended. And this is where it gets kind of complex. And it's kind of a tension that we have to manage. Faith is incorporated. And it's intimate.

Faith is incorporated. The faith that we have today is the faith of the saints of the last 2000 years. It's that same fate the same faith that praises and worships Jesus as risen King and Savior. It's the exact same incorporated faith, but it's intimate. It's personal. It's close up. It's father and son. It's Jesus in God and the Holy Spirit relating to us on our level accommodating us on our level. Do we have any this is going to be kind of a crazy segue revenue, Chipotle fans in the house, right to pull the fans online. This is what I mean when I say faith is incorporated and it's intimate. If you've ever gone to a Chipotle out of town like you got one in Cleveland, and then one in Tallahassee, guess what? Same menu. Right, is incorporated. It's the same stuff everywhere you go. Christianity is incorporated. It's Jesus. It's his divinity. It's a real or real man who really lived who really died who really rose again, it's incorporated. But it's intimate, you got a favorite order at Chipotle. Chances are when you go to Chipotle, if you're a regular, they already know your order, they already got to prep for you. You really have to say a word. They're making it for you. Because even though it's incorporated, it's intimate. And it's personalized, and it's catered to you. Don't you dare let anyone force faith on you and tell you it has to look exactly this way in every way. Jesus meets us where we're at. He knows you better than I know you. He meets us where we're at. And it may look like this for a while. It may look as well, is anything happening? Well, are they even growing? We don't even know if they're growing right? Or how can we put them in that position? If we don't even know if they're growing? Like it may look like this for a while. I don't even know for how long? Peter Peter was screwing up the vast majority of what we read about Peter in the Bible, he's screwing up. He's missing it. Time and time and time again, over the course of years. He's missing it. We don't know what's going on. We have an idea. Jesus tells us you know, people's fruit can kind of show you here and there. But man, we don't know, we're the same people who would have condemned the thief on the cross and praise the rich young ruler. We don't know, everyone looks different. And so what I want to tell you if you have questions, you have doubts today and you're wondering, and you're on the verge of deconstructing just completely losing faith, your faith, I'm gonna let you know. It's okay. If it looks like that. It's okay. Don't let anyone try to force this on you. This is where God can work. This is where God can build a faith that lasts for the long haul. And that's what he wants to do for you. In the middle of your doubts. Can I pray for you real quick? Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that you are a good good father. And I think just like my kids, whenever they asked me questions, I don't talk down to him. I don't condemn them. But I welcome them. I help I guide them through it and God, you are such a better father. And so I think as we bring our questions and our doubts to you, they don't make you angry. They don't make you upset. In fact, you are probably proud of us, for coming to you with them for coming with our questions. They don't scare you. You're the God of the universe. We can bring our doubts and our questions and our deconstruction to you and know that if we partner with you, we will build a deeper faith through the process. And so that's what we're believing God for all of us today, who have doubts that we can hand them to you. And as we partner with you in prayer, through reading your word They're joining with other Christians that we will see our doubts may not completely go answered but we will encounter you in such a real way that they don't matter anymore. That's what you promised in your word. That's what we're believing in ourselves. Help us to do that today God will give you and you alone all the praise we love you. We pray all this in your name, amen.