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Living with Certainty in an Uncertain World

Dwayne Gandy
02/09/25 - Praise and Preaching Service

Summary: Living with Certainty in an Uncertain World

Sermon Date: February 9, 2025
Series Theme: Finding Stability Through God

Opening Praise

The message opens with two foundational praises:

1. Praise God for being a stabilizing influence we can always count on.
2. Praise God for giving us stabilizing instructions that we can pass down to our children and grandchildren.

These praises set the tone for the main theme: Even when the world around us feels unstable, God provides both Himself and His Word as reliable anchors to help us live with certainty.

The Problem: Life Is Inherently Uncertain

The sermon highlights that uncertainty is a shared human experience:

• The last few years have reminded us how unpredictable life is—especially since COVID-19, with events like global pandemics, inflation, unstable elections, wars, artificial intelligence anxiety, hurricanes, and wildfires.
• The uncertainty isn’t just external. People worry about their finances, health, careers, and relationships.
• Despite how bad it may seem now, this is not the most uncertain time in human history. Life has been uncertain since the fall in the Garden of Eden.

Two biblical references remind us that suffering and temptation are universal:

• 1 Corinthians 10:13 – No temptation is unique to you; all are common to mankind.
• 1 Peter 5:9 – The same sufferings are experienced by believers all over the world.

Examples from Scripture: Certainty Amid Chaos

The sermon walks through multiple biblical characters whose lives were marked by uncertainty, helping us relate to their situations and learn from their responses:

1. Abraham (Genesis 12:1)

• God called Abraham to leave everything familiar and go to a place He would later reveal.
• Abraham obeyed, stepping into the unknown—a literal and figurative journey of faith.
• He faced famine, made mistakes (e.g., lying in Egypt), and dealt with internal family tension.
  Despite all this, Abraham trusted God's long-term plan.

2. Joseph (Genesis 37)

• One day, Joseph was wearing a colorful robe; the next, he was thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, and carted off to Egypt.
• For 13 years, he endured injustice, imprisonment, and betrayal.
• Yet through it all, God was working behind the scenes to elevate Joseph at the right time.

3. The Israelites During the Judges (Judges 2:14–18)

• Words like despoiled, distressed, plundered, oppressed, and harassed describe the Israelites' experience when they disobeyed God.
• Their chaos was self-inflicted; they lived in confusion because they rejected God's laws.
• This reminds us that turning from God’s instruction adds to our instability.

4. David

• David was anointed king but spent years running from Saul.
• In Psalm 13 and Psalm 22, David cries out in sorrow, fear, and spiritual depression.
• He openly expresses emotions like anxiety and despair, yet always returns to trust in God.

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” – Psalm 13:1
“Why are you so far from helping me?” – Psalm 22:1

5. Early Christians

• Many lost their homes, were persecuted, imprisoned, or killed for their faith.
• Despite instability, they clung to hope in Christ and the promise of eternal life.

The Impact of Chaos on Our Lives

• Chaos and uncertainty are not just spiritual—they affect mental, emotional, and physical health.
• Over 40 million Americans (19%) suffer from anxiety disorders.
• Young adults (18–25) experience the highest levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
• The COVID pandemic led to a 25% global increase in anxiety and depression.

These stats underscore why a solid spiritual foundation is more critical now than ever.

The Solution: Jesus Gives Us a Rock to Build On

The sermon pivots to a practical solution based on Jesus’ conclusion in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock...” – Matthew 7:24–27

Jesus offers a clear path:

• Hear His words.
• Obey His commands.
• Build your life on Him, not the shifting sand of culture, emotions, or human wisdom.

This approach results in spiritual resilience. Even when storms come, your foundation holds.

Object Lesson: The Jenga Tower

A Jenga tower was used as a metaphor:

• Each block represents a command of God.
• As long as all the blocks stay in place, the tower is stable.
• But when you remove or ignore even one command, you weaken the structure.
• Eventually, enough missing blocks will cause everything to collapse.

This visual emphasizes the danger of “cherry-picking” God's instructions. A strong life demands full obedience.

Practical Applications: How to Cultivate Certainty

Here are some takeaways to live with stability in uncertain times:

1. Hear and Do the Word of God

• Stability begins with learning and obeying Jesus' teachings.
• It’s not about being smarter—just humble enough to follow God's wisdom.
• God’s instructions are designed for our good (Deuteronomy 6:24).

2. Pass Down God's Word

• Teach your children and grandchildren God’s principles.
• Create lasting traditions and object lessons—like writing verses on Jenga blocks and using them in family devotionals.

3. Meditate on God’s Unchanging Nature

• Malachi 3:6 – “I the Lord do not change.”
• Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
• God Himself is our stabilizing force, even more than His rules.

4. Use Prayer to Cast Your Anxiety on God

• 1 Peter 5:7 – “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
• Philippians 4:6–7 – “Be anxious for nothing… and the peace of God… will guard your hearts.”

These verses remind us that God wants to carry our burdens and replace them with His peace.

5. Focus on the Eternal, Not the Temporary

“Our light affliction… is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” – 2 Corinthians 4:16–18

• Earthly chaos is temporary.
• Heaven is eternal and unchanging.
• Think more often about heaven, and it will shrink your earthly anxieties.

6. Use Daily Bible Reading and Psalms to Anchor Your Spirit

• Especially David's psalms, which are honest about pain but always end in hope.
• They model how to express emotion while still affirming trust in God.

7. Memorize and Meditate on Scripture

• Choose a favorite stabilizing verse (e.g., Philippians 4:6–7).
• Write it down, memorize it, post it on your mirror or fridge.
• Use it as your anchor during chaos.

8. God Is Our Refuge and Rock

“He only is my rock and my salvation; I shall not be moved.” – Psalm 62:6

• God is the refuge we run to when life breaks down.
• Like the cities of refuge in the Old Testament, God offers safety to those in trouble.

Final Encouragement

The sermon closes with a heartfelt invitation:

• If you're not yet part of God’s family, become one today.
• He wants to adopt you, protect you, and give you stability.
• In a world where everything changes, God never will.
• Life can be filled with storms, but you can live with peace when you're built on the rock.

Complete Transcript

02-09-25-AM

All right, we're going to start this morning off with a couple of statements of praise. You're welcome to say amen after these statements. Praise God for being a stabilizing influence in our lives that we can always count on.

And praise God for giving us stabilizing instructions that we can pass down to our kids and grandkids to make their lives stable. God is such a great God that gives us so many ways that we can have a certain life in an uncertain world. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

How can we have a life of certainty even though everything around us seems so uncertain all the time? If you're visiting with us, we're glad that you are here and a part of our assembly here at the Palm Springs Drive Church of Christ. We have sort of a stabilizing visual that we use to illustrate what we are trying to do here. First of all, we want to worship God.

We want to study his word. We want to love one another and we want to reach out to people who don't have that proper relationship with God. So hopefully this lesson will be beneficial as we go over and look at the uncertain world and how we can live a certain life in it.

If you think about it, the last five years has been filled with uncertainty. I was thinking about this this week. March of 2000, Shelly and I drove down from Columbus, Indiana to Bowling Green, Kentucky and we went to watch a baseball game there at Western Kentucky.

They played Purdue. We watched that game with our oldest daughter. You know, free travel.

We went out to eat. We had a good time at a baseball game and they played one more game the next day and they had one more game early in the week and that was it for baseball. We didn't really know at that particular moment as we sat there watching that baseball game that things were really going to take a turn and make life so much more uncertain than it had been for the previous years for us.

There's also uncertainty that follows almost every election. Regardless of what side there is, there's always these questions. What's going to happen when this person takes over? Is this world leader going to get along with that world leader? Is there going to be unity between the people in the House and the people in the Senate and the President? There's just uncertainty that goes along with that.

And oftentimes, whether it be the uncertainty caused by COVID or elections, then there's uncertainty when it comes to our financial situation. When inflation starts to rise, we start thinking, am I going to be able to pay all my bills? Am I going to be able to pay my rent on time or buy the groceries that I need? It just adds more uncertainty to our lives. And then when other nations start to fight, whether we're involved or not, it adds more uncertainty.

Russia and Ukraine begin to fight. That adds uncertainty to them for sure. And it also gives us a sense of uncertainty.

What's going to happen over there? What's our part in this? What's going to be the outcome of this? You have the idea that what happened with Israel and Hamas. Again, uncertainty. It just makes things more difficult when we live in a life of uncertainty.

Some people are worried about artificial intelligence. Is it going to take over my job? What's going to happen? Is it going to take over the world? Uncertainty is not good. Then you have all these hurricanes that we've had, right? And what happened in Georgia and North Carolina.

These terrible... You talk about their life went from a certain degree of certainty to their houses being demolished, and now they live in total uncertainty. What about the wildfires in California? That not only do you have these fires that are taking place, but then you have the heat and the wind that just made these fires just go crazy. These poor people, their life was certain.

They had a house. A lot of them were probably paid for. And the next thing you know, they have nothing.

All their childhood memories are gone, everything. And the point that I want to make from that is just that we understand life is uncertain. And sometimes I think that we feel that we're living through the most uncertain time ever.

You know, where we are in the world somehow is the worst the world has ever been. There's never been this level of uncertainty ever in the history of the world. That's just simply not true.

Life has always been uncertain. Since sin entered the world and Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, uncertainty is the norm. And I bring that up because sometimes it's good for us to know what we're going through is not new.

People have gone through it before. And with God's help, these people have overcome uncertainty. And I want to point out two verses to you that show that this is important.

Because sometimes when we're going through suffering, the last thing we want is for someone to tell you, well, there are other people that had it worse than you. You know, we want to just know, no, we've had it worse than anybody has ever had it. But look at 1 Corinthians 10.

This is not in your outline. Let me just read it to you. It says, Right? Temptation is common.

If you're suffering through temptation, guess what? So am I. And so is everybody else in this room. And so is everybody who's ever lived in the history of the world has suffered through temptation. And then in 1 Peter chapter 5, but Brian referenced this verse earlier in the Lord's Supper talk.

It says, And here is the phrase I want you to focus on in relationship to everybody goes through this. Knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. So if you're going through suffering, understand that other people are going through suffering all over the world because they're trying to do the right thing.

And so I want to take you through a few not obscure characters in the Bible who had lives that were filled with a certain degree of uncertainty, a certain degree of chaos. The first is Abraham. For some reason, it says Genesis chapter 12 and verse 7. It's Genesis chapter 12 and verse 1. It says, That's uncertainty.

When God says you just go somewhere where I'm going to tell you and that's where you're going to live. Abraham left what he was comfortable with, left what he knew, left certainty, and he went to a life not knowing where he was going. He went to a life of uncertainty.

And not long after he gets there, there's the famine in the land. That's uncertainty. Where am I going to get food? And so what he does is he goes down to Egypt.

When he gets down to Egypt, he adds uncertainty to his life and other people's lives by not following God's commands and lying. And so he's living with more uncertainty. He doesn't know if Pharaoh is going to kill him, how this is going to work out.

Pharaoh is living with uncertainty. There's just uncertainty going around. And then when he gets back to the promised land and these promises that God gives him, he doesn't know how this is going to work out.

Maybe it's going to be Eleazar. Maybe it's going to be Ishmael. Let them be my heir.

And once Isaac is born, what does he have to do at the end of his life? He has to send all of his other sons away. So what? So that Isaac could have stability. In other words, if all these other sons are here, they're going to try to take all the possessions.

And so I have to send them away. Abraham's life was uncertain, as is our life sometimes. But it's just not Abraham.

What about Joseph? Could you imagine living the life of Joseph? In Genesis chapter 27 and verse 23, it says, So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. And they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty, for there was no water in it.

And then they sat down to eat a meal. Their life seemed certain to them, while Joseph's life suddenly seemed very uncertain to him. Then the Midianite traders passed by.

So the brothers pulled Joseph up, lifted him out of the pit, sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. And they took him to Egypt. So in just a few hours, think about this, in just a few hours, just a few moments, Joseph's world of certainty turned into a world of chaos.

And he lived a life filled with turmoil for 13 years, from the time he was 17 to the time he was 30. Those of us who are past 30 understand, that's some prime real estate of years right there, right? I mean, you think about this, from the time you're 17 to the time you're 30, you're strong, you have energy, your brain is functioning on all cylinders, you're learning all kinds of stuff, and you have all kinds of confidence, and you think you can take the world, and all these wonderful things are happening. He spent those very important years of his life living uncertain exactly what was going to happen next.

So I think that's important. And I was thinking about this also as I was preparing the lesson. Some of our young people have lived a big portion of their life in more uncertainty than I lived in those same years of my life, and a lot of you lived in your life, right? If you can not just go back five years, if you go back to 2001, 9-11 and 2001, that sort of changed some things, right? That made a lot of things more uncertain all around.

And then you have 2008 with a big economic issue. My oldest son was born in 2000. My oldest daughter was born in 98.

That's their whole life. Has been more chaotic than my childhood was in a lot of ways, and sometimes more chaotic than your childhood was. Think of Joseph.

Those huge moments of his life, those prime years, turmoil, chaos. He lived it. And we're not going to read Judges 2, 14 through 18 partly for time's sake, partly because this is Brian.

He's going to cover this on Wednesday night. But I do want you to just look at the words that I have highlighted there, and we're going to use some of these words in the blank. Look at verse 14.

It says, So he delivered them into the hands of the plunderers who despoiled them. Does despoiled sound like chaotic? Yes, despoiled. It's not a word that we use very often.

And then in verse 15, distressed. Verse 16, plundered. And end of verse 18, oppressed them and harassed them.

So why I want to put this verse here is because we're going to study a very chaotic time in Israel's history. And the reason for their chaos is they're not doing what God tells them to do. And God doesn't shield them of the chaos of their own bad choices.

He allows that chaos to come to teach them a lesson to bring them back to him. So during the time of the judges, the children of Israel were despoiled, distressed, plundered, oppressed, and harassed. That sounds like chaos.

And to be honest with you, I'll have to tell you, that's probably worse than my life. I don't look at my life and say, hey, my life is despoiled. You know, my life is I'm distressed or I've been plundered or I'm oppressed, I'm harassed.

So they lived through some very, very difficult time. And I wanted to share with you what that word despoiled means since it's not a word that we use very often. It means to be stripped of belongings, possession, or value.

So not only are your things taken away, the value of who you are as a person is now gone because you have no identity left. Everything has been taken from you and you have nothing. A synonym is pillaged.

That's a word that we might use more often, but we still don't use that very often. And it's not just Abraham and Joseph and the period of the judges. David lived an uncertain life.

Esther, we're going to talk about her in two weeks, she lived an uncertain life. The early Christians lived in fear of losing their possessions and being persecuted and killed. What

happens to people who live in chaos? What happens to people who live with an unstable foundation? You know people like this.

We all know people like this, right? How are you even surviving? I mean, your life is total chaos. If I had to live your life, a lot of bad things would happen. Well, uncertainty produces anxiety and it produces stress.

Both are bad for our mental, emotional, and physical health. And most importantly, they're bad for our spiritual health. Over 40 million adults in the U.S., that's 19.1%, have an anxiety disorder.

That's not people who just are anxious sometimes. We're all anxious sometimes over certain things that happen in our life. But this is basically almost one out of every five people we meet have some kind of an anxiety disorder where it really does affect how they live on a regular basis.

In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year. That's up for 37% in 2023. And 32% from 2022.

Young adults aged 18 to 25 in the U.S. are facing higher levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness compared to other age groups. And then the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide. I don't think that comes as a surprise to any of us, that anxiety is on the rise and depression is on the rise and how we live a more unstable life than ever before.

So what I want to do is just share with you two verses from David. I told you David lived a life of chaos for a large part of it, at least a good chunk of his life. From the time he was told he was going to be king until he actually became king, he was running for his life from King Saul, right? That's chaotic.

I've never had to run for my life. Has anybody here ever had to run for their life? Don't answer that question. And hopefully nobody has had to run for their life, especially not for years and years and years.

But look at Psalm 13 and verse 1. David expresses chaos in his life. He says, How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? And then Psalm 22, 1 and 2, he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me? And from the words of my groaning, O my God, I cry out in the daytime, but you do not hear, and in the night season, and you are not silent, and I'm not silent. So David had sorrow in his heart every day.

That sounds like depression to me, right? Or at least a sense of not knowing what's going on, to have this sorrow in your heart every day that led to words of groaning. Anxiety, sorrow, and fear are not new in this world. They've been around for a long time.

Now, we'll circle back to David at the end and part of our practical application for us. But I wanted to spend the bulk of our time this morning talking about the solution. So what are the solutions to living in a world of chaos? I want to take you to the very end of the most amazing sermon anyone has ever delivered or anyone has ever heard.

It is the Sermon on the Mount. The concluding remarks to the Sermon on the Mount start to give us some insight in how you and I can live with certainty in an uncertain world. So Jesus says this in Matthew 7 and verse 24.

Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell and great was his fall. I mean, that's the favorite part of the kid's song, right? And it fell. They're like clapping together to let you know that that house that was built on the foolish sand fell.

And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings that people were astonished at his teaching for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. So one of the things that amazed people about the teaching of Jesus is it wasn't overly complex. So you want to know how to live with certainty in an uncertain world, Jesus says this.

Listen to what I have to say and do that. And if you listen to what I have to say and live according to those principles, you will have some stability. So regardless of what the world says is acceptable, determine to keep, hear and keep Jesus' commands.

And I do want to pause here briefly because in this room are many people who are not smarter than anyone else. Sorry to tell you guys this. This isn't going to be an insult.

You're not just more brilliant than everybody else in the world. What you have decided to do is follow this passage. You've just simply decided Jesus knows better than me.

I'm going to listen to what he has to say and I'm going to do it. And there are so many stable lives in this room based upon doing that one thing. Not following God's rules, as we'll see in the book of Judges, causes chaos.

God tells his people, I want you to keep my laws because the laws I give you are for your good. And that's what he tells us. They're for our good.

So we need to learn to keep them. And then we need to make sure that we are passing these God-given teachings down to our kids and grandchildren so that they will have the consistency in the life that they need. Now here's what I want to do.

I know this has gotten a few of your attention because you already said it has. So what I want us to think about just for a second. I want us to think about this Jenga set being the commands of God.

And if they're all the way God has put them and they're all established like this, it's pretty steady. I really didn't worry too much about Jeff knocking it over. I mean, he could have.

He would have had to have been pretty clumsy to do that. He would have had to be singing with this hand or something. But I wasn't worried.

I mean, you could hit it. But as you, in your life, when you decide, and I don't know that I've ever played this game, to be honest with you. I went and bought it this morning.

I know you're not supposed to touch it with both hands. I know that's one of the rules. I did look at the rules.

But as you decide in your life, that one looks like it's easy, that you are going to, that was probably not the best move, that you are going to start taking out just one of God's laws. It's still going to be stable. You know, my life's still going to be pretty consistent, right? If I just take out one of God's laws and just discard one of his laws, right? That's okay.

That's not going to cause any chaos. But as you can imagine, and I'm not going to play this whole game, but as you can imagine, and you're only supposed to be able to touch it with one hand at a time. So I can already tell you, I stink at this game.

Oh, all right. So the point is, what is going to happen to my life eventually if I just decide I'm going to do it my way and not do it God's way? I'm not going to have a stable life. And whose fault is that going to be? It's really going to be my fault because I've made choices to ignore the plain teachings of God and Jesus who are giving me those teachings so that I will have a certain life in an uncertain world.

Uncertain world because God has not said, hey, you know what I'm going to do for you? I'm going to make sure that everything in your life, everything you're around is always going to be certain for you so you have a stable life. He says, no, I am going to help you by giving you instructions so even in the middle of chaos, you can still have a stable life. And what an incredible witness that is to the power of God in the world when they see your life, when they see that you've been married 50 years and that your parents were married 50 years and you were following God's laws.

You treat your wife the way that you're supposed to. You're honest. You work hard.

You do all these things. And they look at you and say, man, Dave, how's your life always so, seems so put together? And Dave's not going to say, it's because I'm smarter than the rest of you. He's going to say, it's because I follow the principles in the Bible.

And if you do it too, your life can have a little more stability to it. So that's the first thing that each of us can start doing immediately to bring stability back to our life is go back to the teachings of Jesus, hear them and do them. But it's not just the teachings that are important.

Malachi chapter 3 and verse 6 says this, for I am the Lord. I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed.

Oh sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers, you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. And then we find out in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Do not be carried away about with various and strange doctrines for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. So what do we learn from this? It's not just the laws of God that are unchanging and provide stability. God himself gives us stability.

So we need to meditate on the unchanging nature of God and his son. When we're talking about spiritual disciplines, what was one of the, you know, keeping the tea bags in there longer. One of the things in tea, keeping the tea bags in the water longer, the tea gets stronger.

So if we meditate on God more and on his word, our faith is going to get stronger. And if our faith gets stronger, what's that going to do to the stability of our life? It's going to make that more stable and we're going to be able to handle the uncertainty of life in a certain way because we know that God is not going to forsake us. We know that God is our one stabilizing force that we can always turn to.

Can you imagine if you didn't have that? How chaotic would your life be if you didn't have the stable relationship with God that you have? And so what a great joy it should be for us to share that with other people. I want you to know the God that gives me stability in my life through all the chaos. I'm not worried about necessarily who wins elections or what the economy is doing or what's happening here, what's happening there because God's in control and I serve him.

And I know he promised me that I'm never going to go hungry. As long as I'm righteous, I'm following after him, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things like food, clothing, shelter is going to be provided for me. I can be more stable in my life because of that.

Psalm 62. Again, I put the whole verses there sometimes for you to have context to go back to and look at later. Here's what I want you to look at in Psalm 62.

Verse two, he only is my rock. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved.

Verse five, my soul waits silently for God alone for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense.

I shall not be moved. Verse seven, and God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God.

In verse eight, God is a refuge for us. In verse 11, that power belongs to God. Oh Lord belongs mercy.

Remember that God is your rock and you can always go back to him for that stabilizing place in your life. He is our place of rest. He is our refuge.

We've looked at the city of refuge recently, right? And how if somebody committed a crime, they killed somebody accidentally, they could go to these cities and they were protected as long as it was true it was an accident. They didn't hate the person ahead of time, just something happened, they killed somebody and they can have protection, safety there. Well, for us, there's no cities to go to for that.

We go to God. He is the one that we go to for that kind of safety. First Peter chapter five in verse six says this, Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him for he cares for you.

Philippians chapter four in verse six says, Be anxious for nothing, be anxious for nothing, that in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. That sounds like some security to me. That sounds like I can live a calm life even when everything else is going around me because what God has said, you know what? All your anxieties, Duane, all your worries, all your cares, all your concerns, bring them to me.

Tell me about them. And I'm big enough to take care of those for you. Cast your care on God and let him take your anxieties and replace them with his peace.

That's what we need. So if we have a relationship with God, we have this incredible blessing of prayer that we can say, God, I'm really worried about this. And I know intellectually I probably shouldn't be.

And I know, you know, if I had the faith maybe that I need to have, I wouldn't, but I don't have the faith. Give me more faith. Give me more trust that you can take these anxieties away from me and help me overcome these.

And then there's another thing we can do. 2 Corinthians 4 in verse 16. It says, therefore we do not lose heart.

Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

So how are we going to overcome all this chaos? Focus on the eternal, perfect reward instead of the imperfect, always changing afflictions that we face on earth. So just think about this. If we were to say, hey, don't think about the chaos on this earth.

Think about the stability that is in heaven. And that the one in heaven reigns over heaven and earth. And there is no changing in him.

Many of you have said, and I just want to bring back, we'll bring Adam back here for a few minutes. And Adam is going to tell you, think about heaven more often. And if you think about heaven more often, you'll be less anxious about what's happening now because chaos is temporary.

Anxieties are temporary. There's no chaos in heaven. There's no anxiety in heaven.

There's no depression in heaven. And so if we take time to think about, you know what, regardless of what I'm going through, and it might be bad, it might be hard, it might be a true struggle for us, and I do not ever want to underestimate the chaos that we go through

or the anxiety that we feel. But sometimes saying, you know what, no matter what it is, I know it's temporary, and I can handle it temporarily knowing I have something eternal in heaven waiting for me, where there is no chaos, and there is nothing bad.

I can take this for a season, right? Because I know that God has something better for me. So here's a couple things that you can think about by way of practical application. The first one goes back to our game here, and David and the daily Bible reading.

Please do the daily Bible reading, not just the reading, but listen to Brian's recordings because what you're going to find in that is you're going to find several people, but primarily David, that will tell you his life was chaotic, and he will just tell God, God, my life is a mess right now. My enemies are pursuing me. They're chasing me.

I don't know what to do. I feel really down about this. This is awful.

This is terrible. But you'll also notice where he always ends up. He always ends up recognizing, regardless of what life is like for me right now in the moment, I know you're my rock, and I know your promises are true, and you are faithful to your promises.

So if you do that daily Bible reading and listen to those recordings that Brian is doing over and over and over for this year, you're going to see this play out in David's life and other people's lives and how they overcame it by their faith and trust in God and how we can overcome it by our faith and trust in God. And the other suggestion that I want to make going along with this, I didn't buy stock in this company or anything, but if everybody were to go out and buy one of these games and then on every block, maybe have your kids participate with this, write down a Bible verse or God's instructions. And then as you play the game and somebody pulls one out and puts it on top, when it all comes crashing down, and you see how, you can make the point, see how unstable life is when we're not following these principles that are here? When it all comes crumbling down, you can take whatever verse is on the particular last one that was taken out, you can open your Bible up to it and read it and say, this is what God said in this verse, and that's why, how does this verse bring stability to our life? And you can just keep playing over and over.

It could be like a huge family thing that your grandkids one day come to your house and they have their dad wrote this when he was eight years old, this particular verse, you can tell the handwriting, and they can play the game too. And I think it could be a very helpful thing to teach our kids, look, when you do what God says, your life's going to be stable. When you're following what God wants, there's still going to be chaos around you, but your life can be stable.

As soon as you start taking out anything God says and casting it aside, you're adding a certain level of uncertainty and confusion to your life unnecessarily, and remind them to continue to go back and do what God says. And it's not just your kids. I need that reminder too, don't you? I need the reminder.

You know, Duane, you can't just pick and choose to do what God says, what you like and what you don't like. It's total surrender. It's total obedience to him that really makes sense to us.

The other thing that I want you to do, and again, if all you do is buy the game, write Bible verses on there, and that is a lasting game that you play, this lesson will have been very, very helpful, I think, to at least a few of you. But memorize a passage that reminds you of God's unchanging character. It can be the Philippians 4 passage that is in your outline.

It says, Most of you probably have 75% of that memorized already. Just memorize that verse. So when things become chaotic in your life, and you're looking around saying, look, there's a lot of bad things happening, quote the verse to yourself.

That was another one of the spiritual disciplines, if you remember, memorizing Scripture. Not only meditating on Scripture, but if you memorize Scripture, then you can meditate on it that much easier. So we're bringing that back into it as well.

And if the only thing that you do is take the picture in the bulletin, color that picture, read that verse, and post it on your refrigerator so that you see that verse, or on your mirror, you see that verse and you're reminded, I am about to go out into a world full of chaos. I have a stabilizing force in my life, and it's God and his word. And I'm gonna focus on that today instead of the chaos that's all around me.

God is so awesome that he gives us things that will stabilize our lives and help us live with certainty in an uncertain world. And if you're not part of his family, you need to be, because if you're his family, he adopts you as one of his, and he loves you like way better than your parents ever loved you, or even more than you love your kids. You think you love your kids like way better than, let me think, you think you love your kids more than I love my kids.

Doesn't everybody think that? Oh, nobody loves their kids as much as I do. Well, I don't know about that. I can tell you this.

God loves your kids more than you love your kids. And God loves you more than you can even muster to love your own kids, because God is love. And he wants to extend his love to everyone.

So if you wanna become a child of God, we wanna help. And if we can help, just let us know, either now as we sing this song, or talk to us afterwards, and we'll just help you on your journey to having a life that is certain, even though we're living in an uncertain world. So if you need to, you can come as we stand and sing.