John asked me this week if I would be willing to preach. He is out of town. He's down in AC watching his nephew wrestle in the state championships down in AC. And so he said, we just finished up.
Why are you so, why am I so afraid? You guys, you can do anything you want. I said, well, actually, let's do one more week. I want to piggyback off of what you've talked about.
And so that's what we're going to do this morning. We're going to continue one more week in this series on why am I so afraid. But to do that, I want to tell you a little story that I found this week that I found fascinating. Anybody know the experiment that was done called Little Elbert?
No? This was, let me get this right, this was done in 1920 at John Hopkins University by a professor named John B. Watson. And he was fascinated by earlier, about 20 or some years, about the experiment of Pavlo's dog.
Remember this one? Where they brought a dog in, they'd ring a bell, then they'd feed the dog, they'd ring the bell, feed the dog, ring the bell, feed the dog, do this over and over. Until they would ring the bell, and the dog would just start drooling. They conditioned, the classical conditioning, that.
Now I ring the bell, and you are conditioned that food's coming. And so Watson was intrigued by this, and so he decides to do kind of an experiment of his own. Now as I tell you this, this would never fly today. There are so many rules against what he did now.
But they look back at this as kind of a fascinating study. They take this young boy, and by boy, I really mean infant, somewhere around nine months, named Elbert, Little Elbert. And they bring him into a room, and then they start to show him different things. They show him a nice little bunny, they show him a dog, they show him a rat, little white lab rat, they bring in.
And the boy kind of likes the rat. He doesn't know any better. And so he kind of is reaching for the rat. He wants to play with it.
And so this is where it takes a turn. Actually, right there, I don't think today we'd be able to put a nine month old baby with some lab rats. But they take a steel pipe, and they attach it to the wall, so it's down, and they take a huge hammer. And every time they bring the rat next to the baby, they take the hammer and hit the steel pipe so that it creates this huge clang.
At that age, the child is terrified. And so Elbert cries, right? This big loud noise, and he cries. And so they keep doing this.
They bring the rat in. They bang the pipe. Elbert cries, right on cue, right? And before you know it, they've now done this over and over.
They just bring in the rat, the rat which at one point he liked that he reached for, and he starts bawling. No banging anymore, but he has been conditioned now to fear the rat. The what comes out of that, kind of what is fascinating about that, is what comes next. In that they start bringing back the bunny, the small dog, and guess what?
Elbert's now afraid of those things too. Because all of a sudden he's associating his fear of the rat to anything his mind can make a connection to. Even this is the most fascinating one, like why they brought all this stuff, and I don't know. But they bring in a man dressed as Santa Claus, and he's terrified of the white beard.
Because the rat kind of reminds him of that. They call this, today they call this fear generalization. This is where I'm afraid of, fill in the blank, whatever you're afraid of. Whatever scares you, whatever brings on anxiety.
And that fear starts to trickle out. It starts to breed itself, grow in other places. And soon, I'm not just afraid of one thing that actually, for Elbert's case, he was really afraid with that rat, because there was that big banging. But now it starts to associate all these other things.
This is maybe for some of you very real, in that maybe a small fear has now grown. Almost cancerous, the way it will take hold of us. And start to bring fear about in all these different areas. And the fear itself, in the beginning, might have been a real true fear.
But all of a sudden now it's in place, and it's taking hold of things that at once I never was afraid of, or shouldn't be afraid of. This also then goes out farther than just ourselves. Our fear, one person, one writer wrote, is contagious. It's like an infection.
Because we are people that are influenced by those around us. What people are, who they are, what they talk about, what they do that it influences us. And the fear that someone has can influence us as well. Let me show you an example of this.
This is almost at ridiculous levels. There is this show called, would you fall for that? No, it's kind of older. I don't know if any of you've seen it.
But in this, they take unsuspecting people, and they put them in a somewhat awkward position to see what they would do, to see if they would be influenced by those people around them. And so this is kind of a comical look at it, but let's watch this video together. I'm not sure if you're close, so close to a paying delight, but maybe they need just a little nudge. Okay, I'll go into the front.
I venture out. I'll take a couple of different, like, order pie. Just one can pie. Thank you.
Theresa, the producer, is controlling my red light, and she's messing with me. But I stay in the game, I am okay. I am acting like this, totally normal behavior. But my heated obedience, my behavior, proved infectious.
She's looking at me. She's almost taking notes. And then we started turning her light off. And his light?
It's like they put me down the hat. She actually just took a french fry out of her mouth because of the light. She's so obedient, she even stops wiping her mouth. I'm giggling on the inside, struggling hard to keep my poker face.
It's working, like a shark. Again. Again. Again.
Again. Again. Again. I'm concleaning and I'd come out of town.
They do a whole bunch of these, where they bring people into an elevator and everyone else will be facing the wrong way. And the one person walks in and it's hysterical because I, you've already an elevator, you face the door. And the person walks in and kind of eyeballs the others. And then this is what will happen.
They'll be like, you know what? And then before you know it, they're standing with their back to the door. It's hysterical. There's one more where they take a person walking on kind of a busy street and they take a whole group of people that are in on the joke and surround the person as they're walking.
And sometimes they all duck and start screaming. Guess what? The person ducks and starts screaming and looks up in the air like this guy is falling. Right?
It's somewhat comical. But it just proves the truth that people influence us. Right? How people think, act, what they do, it matters to us.
We take our cues from them. We watch them and we change our behavior based on at some levels those around us. You stopped eating because the guy next to you did it. I mean, can you say you wouldn't fall for it?
But I bet you would. I want the red light to make you stop preaching. We'll save that one for John. So how does this have anything to do with what we're talking about?
As we talk about fear and we've talked about fear and how it spreads a little, I want us to take a look at a man in the Bible that is actually renowned for his faith. And we sometimes take these guys that are heroes in the Bible and we put them up on a pedestal and they kind of deserve it. But many of them have big flaws. Many of them have issues.
And it's important to not only look at the positives, but to also kind of look at the negatives and learn from that story. And so we're going to do that together today. I'm going to kind of tell you the story because it spans several chapters. But the story is about a man named Abraham.
Abraham starts in Genesis 12. If you're going to go home and read it and goes somewhere, the story will end around Genesis 25, 26 about his life. And so if you know, go home, read it because I'm going to skip over big sections. But I'll try to fill you in and try to make the point here this morning that we need to watch how we pass on our fear because it's affecting those around us.
And especially for you parents in the room, it's affecting your kids. And so Abraham, if you don't know where he falls in kind of the story of the Bible, you have Genesis opening up with the story of creation. You have the fall of man, right? The sin of Adam and Eve, then leaving, well getting kicked out of the garden.
You have the world kind of tanking. The world continually to get worse and worse until at one point God says enough. And he takes Noah and we know the story of Noah. And he kind of starts over with Noah and his family because Noah was a righteous man.
And then some more generations go by and by and I know I'm covering things very broadly. But generations go by and God had told them I want you to spread out to populate the earth. Instead the people clump up. They band together.
They say we are going to make our name great. We are going to build a giant tower that will reach to the heavens, basically saying that we are gods. This is the story of Babel. And God dismantles that and spreads them out.
And generations go by and this is where then we get Abraham. Abraham, we don't have a whole lot of backstory other than in Genesis 12, God comes to Abraham with a promise. God says to Abraham, I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to take your descendants and make them as numerous as the sand, as numerous as the stars.
And through you, I'm going to bless you and through you, all people are going to be blessed. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to pick up what you have. I want you to take your stuff and I want you to go to a land I will show you.
Now this isn't a small move, this is a big move. This isn't like honey, I've been praying and talking to God. I know we've lived in a long time, but I think we need to move. We're going to Chester.
Right? This isn't that type of move. My family made one of those moves when we were a kid. I grew up in a city.
And parents had four kids at the time and they needed a bigger house on my mom's side. We're going to move out to the country and get a bigger house, have more land. And so they looked and looked and we ended up moving a mile and a half down the street. And by down the street, I literally mean on the same street a mile and a half down.
I grew up on South Avenue my entire life, just a mile and a half down, a couple blocks. This is a big move, this isn't a small move. And this also isn't a move when you think about this and what the faith Abraham had. It wasn't like he knew where he was going.
This is a land I will show you. This isn't a small journey. We have the map of what they kind of think Abraham traveled. This represents from, he starts an err here on your right hand side all the way to when he ends up hitting in Egypt and he stops along the way.
This is hundreds, if not thousands of miles that he went. This isn't like, let me pack up and go for a day trip. This isn't like jumping a plane. This is a whole lifestyle change.
This is, I'm all in. And so Abraham takes his belonging. If you know the story, he takes his nephew lot as well. And he starts traveling to where God has called him to.
Now, some of you go, okay, I could get on board for this. But as the story progresses, before he reaches, it goes to Egypt, we have him in the land where he's kind of setting up, setting up, if you see where Jerusalem, Betho, Jopa is probably one you can maybe read. He's set up in that region and a huge famine hits the land. I find that fascinating for one reason.
And that God's, Abraham's following God. He's going where God has called him to. And yet, there's still a famine in the land. For me, maybe for you, I often think if I follow what God is asking me to do, there shouldn't be any famines in my life.
That way, you told me to go here, like, what's up with a famine? But a famine comes up. And so Abraham decides to go all the way now to Egypt. Egypt will have food.
And so I'm going to go to Egypt. And so as he goes to Egypt, and he's thinking about this promise of God that God has promised that my descendants are going to be great, that he's going to bless all people. But at this point, Abraham and his wife, Sarah have no kids. In fact, for some of you Bible readers, you're like, wait, wait, wait, that's not his name yet.
His name is actually Abraham and Sarah. And God changes that as we go. And I'll tell you a little about that as we go. We'll just keep calling Abraham and Sarah for this, for our point.
They go to Egypt. And they've promised that I'm going to bless you. They don't have kids yet. And so just before they get into Egypt, Abraham goes to his wife.
And if you want to put that in Genesis 12 starting in verse 11, we get this. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarah, not yet Sarah, but it's going to be, I know what a beautiful woman you are. We'll hold it, can you go back to this one? I know what a beautiful woman you are.
For men in the room, this is how you start things with your wife before the next request comes up. You're very beautiful. Now I have a question for you. I actually have a request.
And so he starts, you're very beautiful. And because of that, here's what I need you to do. And he continues. He said, when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife, then they will kill me, but will let you live.
Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake, and my life will be spared because of you. Abraham and Sarah go to Egypt. They have this great promise of what God's going to do in their life. But Abraham starts thinking and fearing what might happen to him when he gets there.
And how can God promise comes true if I'm dead? Right? So I need to take control of the situation. His fear is driving him and his decision making.
And actually, it's kind of half-truth what he's telling them. You read some of this. Sarah is actually his half-sister. And so he's not technically lying.
Right? Like, oh, just say you're my sister. You know, omit the wife part. Just the sister.
Well, they get to Egypt. And sure enough, the Pharaoh sees Sarah, thinks she's very beautiful, and takes her for his wife. Think about that for a second. Abraham, driven by fear and afraid of what would happen, tries to manipulate her.
He tries to manipulate the situation to get what he wants. And yet now he's in the same place that he was before with his fear. That what if I die now? Well, my wife's gone.
And as far as I know at that time, it takes two people to pass on your genes. And so now Sarah, what's God going to do? What am I going to do? The Pharaoh just took Sarah.
Well, God intervenes. He sends a disease on the household of Pharaoh. And Pharaoh starts to put two and two together. Let's see.
He's had all these problems since this woman came in. She must be the reason for the problems. And he calls Abraham and he said, she's your wife, right? This isn't your sister.
And he goes, no, it is. Right? She's my half-sister. And he's furious.
And he said, you tried to deceive me. And you brought this upon me. And so kind of a little bit of a turn of fate. He sends them away.
He sends them away, though, which is crazy, with a great amount of wealth. Because he's afraid of what might happen if he doesn't. And so they go. They go out of Egypt.
And the story continues. And we could get into some of the things that happen next. But one of the stories that happens next is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember this?
This is where it's fascinating. Because of all the wealth they had accumulated, his nephew Lot and him were at odds. There wasn't enough space for their cattle. And so Lot goes off.
And he ends up in this city of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's a wicked city. And God comes to Abraham and he said, I'm going to destroy it. And Abraham begs and pleads.
And he should read about that in Genesis. And he ends up, God saves and spares Lot and some of his children. But the city is destroyed. It says that Brimstone comes down and burns the whole city.
A side note, we've talked about this with your students just the other week. And do you know that they have discovered a city in the region where Sodom should be? And they have been excavating it for the last decade. And in their excavations, as they go, right, there's going to be a city built on a city built on a city.
And so they have to go down and down. And as they go, and they get to the time frame of where Abraham would have been in that region. They find the city layer burned. There's a huge ash layer that goes through the city.
Right at the time that they would have said that Abraham would have been there. Another interesting fact, they find in that area, sulfur, at a pure form of like 98%. Nowhere else in the world can it be found in that kind of concentration. Other places they'll find it at the 40 to 60 range.
But sulfur is what the Bible refers to as Brimstone, burning rock, burning stone. They find this embedded all over by the city. So much so that at times it's encapsulated itself because of how hot it burns. That it almost, thing of like when you let the water run and it starts to drill a hole in the ice, right?
And the bottom, that's what the Brimstone, the sulfur did until it's totally encapsulated by the ground around it. Just a fun little fact, you're not taught right that in school. I'm not saying that that is necessarily Sodom. There's no sign that says this is Sodom.
But you start to go, boy, that's fascinating. And in a place where they say a city should be, there's a city. There's a giant ash layer at the time that it should be. And there's all this burning sulfur at a concentration level that's found nowhere else.
It's fascinating. So that's, you know, we get into that. But a lot escapes and the story continues until God comes to Abraham once more. And he comes once again with the promise that I'm going to make you a great nation.
It's kind of like he doubles down. Now I've never played Blackjack, but I'm guessing that if you had like a face card you might want to double down on your bet because you're hoping to get a certain card coming from it. This is kind of what happens. That God goes to Abraham.
He says, I'm doubling down on my commitment. That you are going to be a great nation. I know you don't have a kid yet. Don't worry.
It's going to happen. I'm going to bless you and you are going to be a blessing to all people. He even then at that point changes their names. He takes Abraham, meaning high father and changes his name to Abraham, father of the multitude.
He changes Sarah's name, which meant princess to Sarah, meaning mother of nations. So right now people that have no children have been given the names father of multitudes and mother of nations. God is saying this promise is coming. Has it come yet, but it's coming?
Well, it's hard when we don't get the answer right away that we want. I was talking to a friend and they were saying when they talk to their kids sometimes, they'll tell them it's not a no, it's a not yet. And I was like, that's a great line. I'm using that one next time.
It's not a no, it's a not yet. I think that's what we get from God sometimes, right? It's not that we're getting to know. We might think we're getting to know, but he's saying not yet.
Not yet. And so the story continues that Abraham and Sarah still don't have a kid and they end up in the land of Jorar. And in this land, there's a king named Abimalek. And as they get there, Abraham starts thinking, God just promised that I'm going to be a great nation, a father to the nations.
You're going to be a mother to the multitudes. If we go to this place and the king wants you because you're very beautiful, what's going to happen? It says he's afraid. And so he says to his wife for the second time, hey, when the people ask, tell them, you're my sister.
Remember how great it worked out for us in Egypt? Right? Say that you're my sister. So guess what happens?
The king sees Sarah. And even in, now she's kind of ancient at this point, but even in her ancient of days, she is still beautiful. And so it says that he takes her. Never make the same mistake over and over.
It's unbelievable when you see in other people's lives. It's totally reasonable when it's your own. And so Sarah gets taken by Abimalek, but God intervenes again. And he comes to Abimalek and he says, hey, don't you touch her?
Actually, because you took Abraham's wife, I'm going to kill you. And Abimalek says, wait, wait, wait. I didn't know. He said it was his wife.
I didn't know. And so God says, hey, if you give back Sarah to Abraham, I'll spare you. But you do nothing to harm them. And so Abimalek calls Abraham.
He says, what were you thinking? Why did you say this? What's your sister? And so here's what Abraham replies.
We have the verse in, yep, in Genesis 2011, Abraham replied, I said to myself, there is surely no fear of God in this place. And they will kill me because of my wife. Once again, fear, motivating, pushing him. That God is in control.
These people don't fear God. So how can God be in control of this situation? I have to do something. And he tries to take it once again into his own hands.
And it's only really because of God's intervention that that doesn't lead to something else. But eventually they leave the land. And guess what? God fulfills his promise.
And you know the story that Abraham and Sarah, even in their old age, give birth to a son named Isaac. And the promise the covenant is fulfilled. That you will be a great nation. And so we have the story, if you know kind of some of the scripture of God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
And he is faithful in that. But God doesn't, you know, spares him. God continues to bless Sarah and Abraham and Isaac. And they're becoming a great people.
And as time progresses, Abraham and Sarah pass away. They die. And Isaac is left and he gets himself a wife named Rebecca. And you should read about this.
Once again, start in Genesis 12 and read through a big chunk of it. It's great. It's all narrative. It's story.
Easy to read and follow through. And Isaac gets a wife named Rebecca. And here is where this is the most fascinating part of the story for me. It's like deja vu happens.
Rebecca is a beautiful woman. And God comes to Rebecca and to Isaac and said, hey, remember the promise I made your father? I'm going to continue that in you. That I'm going to bless you so you can be a blessing to all.
I will make your people, your offspring great. They will be as numerous as the stars and the sand on the seashore. He like, I don't know, tripled down as a word, right? He reaffirms what he had done for his father, Abraham, and says, this I will do for you too.
Okay, we're in a great place. And guess what happens? A famine hits the land. Just like in the days of his father.
And so Isaac and Rebecca head to the land of Girard. And guess who is king at this point? This guy named Abimelek. Now scholars will argue whether it's the same guy or his son or his grandson.
For me, as I look at it, I think it's the same guy because of how the story plays out. And here's how it plays out. Isaac and Rebecca go to the lands. And as they go there, Isaac starts getting worried.
What, you know, you're very beautiful. And here's what he says to his wife. When the men of this place ask me about his wife, he said, she is my sister because he was afraid to say she is my wife. He thought the men of this place might kill me on account of Rebecca because she is beautiful.
The fear that Abraham has and how he reacts to it is exactly, I mean, it's almost word for word what his son ends up doing. Abimelek though, because God's going to keep his promise, actually doesn't take Rebecca. He keeps an eye on him though. You know, he hears about, you know, there's this foreigner with quite a amount of wealth.
He's got a beautiful sister. I imagine if Ben-lek's sitting there like, I've heard this one before. And it says at one point, Abimelek is, I don't know if this is creepy or not, but he's watching them. He's keeping an eye on them.
And as he's watching them from the palace window, he sees them together. The word in the Hebrew translates to laughing and playing together. Probably not playing Monopoly. But he realizes, hey, that's your wife.
And so he calls Isaac up and he says, what's going on? That's your wife. I saw you together. What if somebody would have taken her?
You would have brought guilt upon us. And Isaac replies just like his father before him. I was afraid. I had fear that you would take her and you'd kill me.
It's amazing. This man of faith that is held up all throughout scripture, which he should be, Abraham was faithful in so many ways, still passes on this fear to his son. It's amazing. And you might sit there and go, actually, Steve, that's not amazing.
Like, that's a depressing story. You're saying that the patriarchs of our faith, who are known for their faithfulness, messed up their kids. Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. And this is why I wanted to keep speaking about this topic.
Because you dealing with what John talked about the last five or six weeks, it's important. Your kids are watching. Some of you are like, well, I don't have kids. Well, guess what?
Your spouse is watching. Your siblings are watching. Your family is watching. Your coworkers watching.
Your friends are watching. And it starts to affect them. We're living in a day now that fear spreads like this, right? One stroke of a key.
And fears that you never even thought you had are filling your newsfeed. This is why, one study said that we are a culture that is fearful and anxiety-ridden because we constantly see it and hear it from all angles. There was a study that was done. There was a little controversial because of what they did.
It was published in 2014. Engineers at Facebook and Cornell University manipulated the newsfeeds of more than 600,000 users. And what they did was they made sure that what came up on some people's newsfeeds were negative post. Fear, stress, anger.
And on others, they cut all of those back. Guess what? The results were. People that were constantly bombarded by those negative posts were so much highly likely to share negative, anger, fearful posts.
The people that those were pulled back from were more likely to share positive, joyful responses to what's going on in their life. Think about over the last couple of years, like the fear that has gripped our country. I mean, right now it's political fear. I mean, my newsfeed, right?
You just see it constantly. You have terrorist fear. You know, like, are we going to get attacked? You have Ebola a couple of years ago?
Right? That's all that they had a chart of showing like the Twitter reaction to Ebola and how like it was nothing for years and years and then all of a sudden it just blew up. And that's all anybody was talking about. And that fear starts to penetrate us because we're being inundated by it.
It's bombarding us. And all of a sudden my life is controlled by fear because it is all around me. Speaking of as kind of the youth pastor for the longest serving youth pastor, over the last decade, like that's kind of scary to say. I've been doing this for a decade.
But your kids, for you that have kids in the room, like they are getting hammered with this. Times Magazine, just several months ago, I was reading an article that came to mind. That was the cover. Anxiety, depression, and the modern adolescent.
Said this, teens are more fearful and anxiety ridden than ever before. And this is leading to an ever-increasing amount of depression, self-harm, and suicide. If you think you're above that, I'm telling you as the pastor that has had hundreds of kids come through here, you're not. Your kids are dealing and struggling with this stuff.
And how you react and what you pass on matters. This is why all of this stuff that John talked about shouldn't go in one ear and out the other. You influence those around you. You influence your kids.
I'm not saying that you should never talk about fear with your kids. I'm not saying you should never show other people your fears or your anxiety. In fact, that would be unhealthy. One of the writers of Psalms was probably David in Psalm 71.
He puts it this way, and I really like how he talks about this. He says, even when I'm old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, until I declare the power to the next generation. You're mighty acts to all who are to come. Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heaven.
You who have done great things. Who is like you, God? Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again. From the depths of the earth, you will again bring me up.
You will increase my honor and comfort me once more. Notice what he says there. He said, Hey God, would you keep me? Like, don't leave me when I get old, because I want to proclaim what you've done to another generation.
And he doesn't gloss over that, Hey, I've had a lot of trouble. There has been fear in my life. Catch the words you use, many and bitter. Yet he says, God has brought me up.
He's not abandoned me. This is what we need to pass on to our kids. This is what I need to pass on to my kids. This is what we need to pass on to our neighbors and our coworkers.
It's not that fear and anxiety don't happen. They happen. This is life. But we have someone that has overcome that.
That holds faithful and true despite our actions. I recently, my six year old son came home. He's a kindergarten. And so this is not a political statement.
But he comes home and I get him off the bus. And like all six year old, lots of questions. And he said, Dad is Donald Trump a bad man. My family does not talk politics.
We never have the news on around him. I'm not a huge news watcher. We've talked very little. And so I know I'm like, where is this coming from?
And so I said, Prescott, why are you asking me this? And he goes, well, one of my friends said that his dad told him that Donald Trump is not a bad man. That Donald Trump is a bad man and is going to ruin our life. Kind of funny.
I like, you know, like his parents have never had to bite your lips. I'm like, okay. But then in another sense, I'm sad. I'm sad because my six year old son is coming home fearful and worried about his life being ruined by Donald Trump.
He has no idea who it is. But because that has been passed down to one of his friends, his friend now is passing that down to him. It matters how we deal with our fear and what we show to others. Give me one more story about this in the Bible.
As Abraham and Isaac and then Jacob come through the storyline, eventually God takes the Israelites out of Egypt and he's going to finally bring them into the Promised Land. If you know the story, they have to cross the Red Sea and then they have to cross the Jordan River. And the Jordan River kind of symbolizes this divide between where we're at and the Promised Land. And it says that God opens up the Jordan River and they walk on dry ground across the Promised Land.
And when they reach the Promised Land, he tells the leaders, hey, I want you to grab some big rocks, some huge stones. And I want you to pile them up right where you crossed. And when your children come and say things like, Dad, what's with that big rock pile? You can tell them about what the Lord your God did.
You can tell them how he split the Red Sea, how you crossed over the Jordan on dry ground. And how every generation to come is being blessed by him and he can be trusted. It's not never talking about our fears and our struggles or anxiety. It's coupling that with how great God is.
It's passing on a legacy of faith and not fear. Like for me, for you, what are you passing on? For you parents in the room, when is the last time you talked to your kids about how great God is? Not how terrible the economy is, how little we have in our savings, our 401k is tanking, right?
My house isn't worth what it used to be worth. That's the stuff we talk about all the time. Our kids, those around us, it's filtering in. It's creating a culture of fear.
Did you set up some monuments and tell those around you? You know what great my God is? You know what he's done for me? Do you know you can trust him?
Do you know that even when I'm faithless, he's faithful? Where are you passing on? The band's going to come up. We're going to take communion here in a second.
I want to tell you about my experience on Friday. If any of you are here, John Eismann, our senior pastor, his father-in-law, Joan, his wife's father died this week. And they had a memorial service for him here. I've met the man one time he came and kind of toured the church and shook his hand and just said hi.
But what struck me sitting in there, and it was a long service. But what struck me was, person after person kept walking up here talking about this man's faith. And I know I've been to a lot of services. And we always kind of try to say nice things maybe about the person.
But this was different. This was sincere, grandpa, dad, brother, friend, all of those names that he had for different people. The one thing that he wanted for all of them was faith in Christ and what he has done. I sat in the back, I don't even know him.
I'm almost crying and going, that's what I want my life to be about. I want to leave, pass on faith. I don't want to pass on fear. I want to pass on faith.
I don't want to pass on fear. So take comfort in that. Even when we do that sometimes, God's still in control. Even when we're motivated.
And fear kind of takes over. And hopefully none of you have called your wife your sister. But even in those times, God is still faithful. God still has to plan for you.
And it's a redemptive plan that started way back with Abraham. That he's going to bless all people through him. That ultimately was through Jesus.