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The River ChurchSermons

Hold Fast

Josh Yates · Sunday, 16 August 2026 · 39:56 · 6,210 words

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The sermon examines Hebrews 10:19‑25, explaining that Jesus' sacrifice tore the veil and opens a way for us to draw near to God. It tells how Chuck Colson, a powerful but broken man, found salvation through faith in Christ. Listeners are urged to hold fast to the confession that Jesus is Lord, keep their eyes on him despite life's storms, and join the gathered church for encouragement and healing.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

confession 23 blood 25 curtain 15 jesus 91 sink 10 draw 18 near 18 fast 15 eye 19 idol 12 temple 13 presence 13

Topics

Faith 6 Sin 3 Atonement & Sacrifice 3 Salvation 2 Grace 2 Prayer 1 The Body of Christ 1 Assurance 1

Scripture referenced 15

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Hebrews 10:19-25 3:47 Hebrews 10:19-25 3:53 Hebrews 10 7:29 Romans 6:23 8:00 Hebrews 9 8:07 Hebrews 10 8:22 Hebrews 10:10 8:29 Matthew 27 16:15 Romans 8:31-34 20:47 John 4:23 22:30 Acts 4:12 24:14 John 14:6 24:23 1 Timothy 2:5 25:04 1 John 5:11-12 25:14 Matthew 14:22-33 31:57

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:35. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Josh, and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

We are so glad that you're here, and we want to connect with you and your family.

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You can also visit our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Like Pastor Jewel said, and Hebrews was written to, well, the Hebrews, to the Jewish people, Christians that were Jews.

And this book presents Jesus as our great high priest, which is something that would have stood out to the mind of a first century Jewish person.

And Jesus as our high priest today might not be something that we think too much of, but it's so very important.

Because Old Testament imagery is all over the book of Hebrews, and we're going to learn about that as we go along through this series.

But this is a book that we're going to talk about today.

But this series is called Let Us.

There are many different Let Us statements in the book of Hebrews.

We're not called to just know Jesus ourselves, but serving him and worshiping him in the context of the body of Christ.

Let Us.

I hear people tell me all the time, well, I had church by watching this morning.

I had church in nature.

I had church on the lake.

I had church here.

You can't have church by yourself.

The church is all of us sitting here.

It's when the gut.

The body of Christ gathers together to worship the Lord, to serve the Lord, to give the gospel, to encourage one another.

The church is the body of Christ together.

I sometimes am so very grateful for the gift of people being able to watch online.

But it also breaks my heart when I hear that there are some people that only attend online.

Because as much as I'm glad you're here today online, you can listen to a lot better preachers online than me.

The church is the gathering of the people.

And we can't love each other over the internet.

At least not well.

Right?

I love the gift.

When we're sick, especially those that are shut-ins, I love that gift.

But may we not just rely on listening to a talking head on a screen talk about Jesus.

Because you can grow a little, but you're not part of the church by doing that.

You only have church when the church comes together.

And it's a beautiful thing.

And we're going to learn that in the book of Hebrews as well.

Over the coming weeks, we're going to be called.

We're going to be called to, like today, we're going to be called to hold fast and to draw near.

We're going to learn about let us stir.

Let us worship together.

Jesus took naps.

I'm so grateful for that.

We should all take naps.

Let us pray and let us go.

There's going to be a lot of let us in the next coming weeks.

But don't worry, it's not the parasitic kind.

Had to let that sit for a minute there.

Ah, good old pastor dad joke.

All right.

But today, we're focusing in on Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 to 25.

So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn there.

Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 to 25.

We, and if you have a device, please use your device.

You can download the River Church app as well.

And the Bible is in our app too.

But we're going to be learning about what it means to draw near to God

and hold fast to our confession of faith.

What we believe, but actually living what we believe.

So that talked about.

All this stuff about drawing near to God.

And maybe some terminology that we're not used to hearing

about drawing near to the blood of Jesus and the holy place

and open for us through the curtain and all of these things.

Now, my first question that I talked about this,

it says we can have confidence to draw near.

What does it mean to draw near to God at all times and all circumstances?

We saw how to do that in the book of Psalms for sure.

But what we're called to do, it's,

it's what do we really believe about life?

How do we actually live our faith?

Not what comes out of our mouths because it's what we say we believe,

but what we actually live.

That's our real faith, our real belief, our real confession.

That's how we draw near to God.

We're going to be learning about an individual by the name of Chuck Colson

this morning and all throughout the message.

He was born in Boston in 1931, driven by an intense desire to succeed.

He turned down a scholarship to Harvard and chose Brown University.

Later served as a chaplain in the United States Marine Corps.

And by his late twenties, he was an administrative assistant to a US Senator.

And by 30, he had co-founded a successful Washington law firm.

He was a sharp tactical strategist who viewed politics as an arena for winning

at all costs.

When Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968,

Colson was appointed as special counsel to the president and in the West wing,

he became Nixon's primary enforcer,

the political operator willing to handle the administration's dirtiest fights.

He was known for his unyielding,

um, loyalty to Nixon once reportedly declaring that he would walk over his own grandmother

to ensure Nixon's reelection.

He enjoyed maximum power, prestige, and influence at the highest level of world politics.

Ambition was his religion and winning was his standard.

But when the Watergate scandal exploded,

Colson was tied directly to the coverup and to the dirty tricks campaigns

and the administration's opponents.

He resigned from his White House position in March of 73,

facing federal indictments and public hatred.

As the media swarmed and his reputation laid in ruins,

his legal defense mounting,

Colson experienced total isolation.

For a man whose entire identity was built on control and political authority,

losing both left him feel completely broken.

Every single one of us in this room is broken in some way,

shape, fashion, or form.

Every person on the face of the earth is broken.

Maybe to this level, maybe not to this level,

maybe in other ways.

But we are all broken and we need a savior.

And this passage talks, speaks to this,

And you wanna know why it says that?

'Cause it starts with a specific word in verse 19.

The word there is therefore.

And as we say often, we've gotta find out what it's there for.

You can't understand this passage of scripture

that we're looking at this morning

if you don't know what has been said

at least immediately before it.

Because this is what's called the connective word.

The writer of Hebrews has talked about all of chapter 10,

what Jesus has done for us.

We have to understand this.

And for the sake of time, we don't have time to read it all,

but I will kind of summarize it.

The writer of Hebrews is speaking to the Jewish believer here

and he speaks of the sacrifices that were continually made

in the tabernacle or the temple.

In the Old Testament, there was a sacrificial system.

And the people had to continually bring the best

of what they had to make sacrifice to cover their sins.

God's word tells us that the wages or the penalty of sin

is death in Romans 6:23.

We also learn that without the shedding of blood,

there is no remission or forgiveness of sin

in Hebrews chapter nine, just before this chapter.

And so the people of God made sacrifices

of animals to atone for their sins.

It covered their consciences,

but what it did is it covered their sin.

It didn't pay for it.

And we learn in chapter 10 that Jesus' sacrifice

of his blood was once for all.

In Hebrews 10:10 it says,

"And by that will we have been sanctified

through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ

once for all."

It covers our sin forever.

His blood shed for us is enough to forgive us of our sin.

It's an interesting thing though.

We don't like to talk about blood a lot in the church.

We don't talk about the blood of Jesus often.

It kind of sounds rough.

Honestly, in our culture of movies and everything around,

talking about blood too much can even sound

a little cultish, right?

Let's just be honest in our culture.

But we have to understand that in biblical times,

blood was thought to have life in it.

I mean, it kind of does.

We don't have to carry oxygen to every part of our body,

but blood signified life in the Old Testament.

And the giving of your blood was to give of your life.

I think it also makes sense that it's kind of weird

to talk about blood today because we have an enemy

that doesn't want anybody to know about the salvation

offered by Jesus Christ and his death, burial,

and the resurrection.

I think it kind of makes sense that that's the case.

Because sin isn't that big a deal, all right?

I mean, God is love.

Yes, God is love, but our sin separates us from a holy God.

And the only way that we can have a relationship with God is because Jesus shed his blood on the cross for us.

And it covers our sins.

It cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

What we're going to hear today is life-changing if we hold fast our confession and draw near to God.

Every single one of us is a broken person that needs a savior.

We look to so many different things that

to try to save us from our brokenness.

I'm sure we all have lists here today.

We need Jesus over all.

We need Christ over all.

We're all desperate for a savior

whether we realize it or not.

In August of 1973, a friend gave Colson

C.S. Lewis his mere Christianity.

That night, sitting in his car outside

a friend's house in Maine,

Colson wept openly, confronted his own pride,

and surrendered his life to God after everything

he'd been through. Shortly after his conversion,

Colson pled guilty to obstruction

of justice, related to water,

and was sentenced to

Maxwell Federal Prison Camp in Alabama.

Colson went from the halls of national

power to a prison cell block.

The media ridiculed his conversion as a cheap

PR stunt to get a lighter sentence.

But rather than fighting back or trying to rebuild

his political reputation, Colson

acknowledged his sin publicly, pled

guilty, and went to prison.

He realized he couldn't enter God's presence based on his status

but only through grace. In prison,

deprived of all power and reputation,

he drew near to God with a broken

and sincere heart.

Every single one of us has to do the same.

What we learn today will change

our lives and can change our eternity.

But I want to get back to the Old Testament

sacrificial system for a minute.

Because only one time a year was

the high priest alone

allowed to enter the very presence of God

on the Day of Atonement.

The people of Israel saw

the presence of God over the tabernacle

or in the temple.

They saw it fall once, but only one

time a year could the high priest, the only

the high priest, could enter into the

very presence of God

after cleansing himself

to be able to carry the sins of the people

into the Holy of Holies.

It's the only way. It was only possible.

That's how their sin was atoned for.

He would enter before

the Ark of the Covenant. He would take

the blood of a bull and the scapegoat

and sprinkle it on the

mercy seat that was in between the cherubim

on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant

where God resided in the temple.

That's how God dwelt with His people

at that time. This was

the only access given to the people

in order that their sins would be taken care of.

It was the only way to have a relationship with God

through the high priest

in Jerusalem or at the

tabernacle, wherever they were in the early

Old Testament. This is how they experienced

the presence of God. And then the writer of

Hebrews says, therefore,

but now, look at what is

available to us. The writer of Hebrews says,

by the blood of Jesus

who entered into this Holy of Holies,

entered into this scene of only

one person can come into the presence of God.

the Holy of Holies with His own

blood. And it doesn't say around

the curtain or just

with the curtain there. What does it say?

It says through the curtain.

Through it. And again, we can go,

oh, that's nice. It's like draperies.

That's not what we're talking about here. Not at all.

In this tabernacle, because

this curtain, it kept people

out of the Holy of Holies for everyone's

safety. Because anybody who

went into the presence of God unworthily,

outside of how God

determined it, they would

die. I mean, God's presence was

so with the people that when the people

carried the Ark of the Covenant,

this is a whole other story in 1 and 2.

I think it's 1 Samuel. I think it could be

2 Samuel. The Ark of the Covenant had

been stolen by another country. It was taken

back to Israel. David had messed up

in any way. It was being taken back.

And the guys carrying it, they carried it with

rods because they couldn't touch the Ark of the Covenant.

God's presence is so real

that the Ark of the Covenant started to

fall and somebody, because they weren't

carrying it correctly, a guy went

up to try to steady it and when he touched

the Ark of the Covenant, he fell dead.

Because sin cannot be in the presence

of God. This is the situation that

we have in the Old Testament. And Jesus

comes through this curtain. So this

curtain was there for the safety of the people.

But this curtain was nuts.

In the tabernacle days,

it was 15 feet

tall and 15 feet wide.

We don't know the thickness of this curtain,

but it was made of heavy, woven

linen, dyed blue, purple,

and scarlet, and embroidered

with cherubim. And it was set up to

separate the Holy of Holies from

the outer court. And I may have that right or wrong,

but it was meant to separate the Holy of Holies

from the rest of the tabernacle. Then in Solomon's

temple that was built, it was

now 30 feet tall and 30

feet wide. It doubled in size.

Again, we don't necessarily know

what its thickness was. But

then the temple that they were talking about

here is Herod's temple. The largest

temple that was built in Jerusalem.

It was now 60 feet

This is the picture that

the Jewish mind would have of

Jesus going through this curtain.

And it was 30 feet wide still.

But the Mishnah tells us that it was

thick of cloth.

In fact, according to rabbinic tradition,

Herod's veil was so

massive that it took

to maneuver it.

And then we hear this in

Matthew chapter 27.

"And when Jesus cried out again with a loud

voice and yielded up his

spirit, and behold, the tipple

of the curtain was torn in

two from top

And the earth shook, and the rocks

were split. God

tore the veil between

himself and us through the blood

of Jesus Christ,

who went through the curtain." Amen!

He went through it. Not

around it, but through it.

Because he loves us. And by a new

and living way he's opened this access

to himself as our

high priest. He functioned as the

one that entered the Holy of Holies once and

for all. It's permanent for those

of us that have given our lives to Jesus Christ.

There's no waiting for the high priest to come

back out and signify that atonement had

been made for another year. It's once

for all. Jesus entered for all

time those that choose him.

Because we have this high priest in Jesus

over the house of God,

we can now draw near to

God. I've always thought, you know,

knowing that about the Old Testament believer

and the Jewish people and what it was like

to know that God was in their midst was

an amazing thing. But to only have a

relationship through the high priest,

knowing that you had to follow all of these different

things to have a relationship with God, which was

a, just an echo

of what would come through Jesus.

But we don't know anything else

but God's grace, my friends.

We don't know anything else but his grace because of

what Jesus did for us. It says

our hearts have been sprinkled clean because

of Jesus and his blood given for us.

We can now have a clean conscience.

When these Hebrew people came to faith and

believe in Jesus, their hearts were

sprinkled clean for the first time.

They were used to continually having to go back

to the temple, go back to the temple,

go back to the temple. And now for the first

time, their consciences were clean

because they were washed clean

by the blood of the Lamb.

And that can be true of us if we would

give our lives to Jesus. If you're here this morning

and you don't know him, Jesus is the way,

the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the

Father except through him. No one comes to the

Father except through him. But he's given us

this gift to be able to know him

and to be cleansed of our sin.

My friend, if you know Jesus today, you can

rest easy that your guilt

is gone. It's probably one of

the toughest things of being a Christian, at least

it is for me. Because I know me.

I know my attitudes. I know what I struggle with.

And I often can feel guilty for

that. But the Bible tells us that our

consciences can be clear because we've

been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb.

That should give us confidence

in who we can be, who God wants

us to be, to live into his purposes

for our lives. And not just

kind of wallow around in our sin

and go, "I can't become any better." No, God

calls us to so much more.

Our bodies have been washed clean with pure water.

It's the significance of baptism, the outward

expression of the inward reality of Jesus'

cleansing blood on us.

And we draw near in full assurance

of faith. Full assurance of faith,

the writer of Hebrews says.

There's no wavering in Jesus. There's no change.

He's not going to go back

on his word. We can know

that we are saved by the blood of Jesus when we

trust in him, when we give our lives to him.

Jesus is both the curtain

-- the commentator says it like this -- he is

both the curtain, our access,

and the priest, our advocate.

His torn body and shed blood provide

our access to the presence of the Father.

And our access,

and in our access, he is our perpetual

priestly advocate. This

was meant to make the ancient church and us

confidently point our ship

into the high seas with

strength and power. We're not

only to exist in a hostile culture,

but to buck its waves.

While arrogance can never be the Christian's

way, confidence must

mark the Christian's life.

Because it's about what Jesus did,

not what we do. We

should be able to have confidence.

Believer in Jesus,

have confidence in your salvation, and

that he is the answer for a hurting world.

Because Romans 8:31-34,

what shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son,

but gave him up for us all, how will he not

also with him graciously give us all things?

Who can bring any charge against God's

elect? It is God who justifies.

Who's to condemn? Christ

Jesus is the one who died. More than

that, who was raised, who is at the

right hand of God, who indeed is

interceding for us. Who can

be against us?

Again, this is what it means to come into full

assurance of faith, to hold fast

to our conviction, to our

confession. It doesn't

matter what happens to us

when we have confidence in Jesus.

We are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ.

Romans tells us this. Church father

Chrysostom was brought before the Roman emperor.

The Roman emperor threatened

banishment to him

if he remained a Christian. Chrysostom

replied like this,

"You cannot banish me, for this

world is my father's house. But I will

slay you," said the emperor. "No, you

cannot," said the champion of faith,

"for my life is hid with Christ in God.

I will take away your treasures,

no, but you cannot, for my treasure

is in heaven, and my heart is

there. But I will drive you away from man,

and you shall have no friend left.

No, you cannot, for I have a friend in heaven

from whom you cannot separate me.

I defy you, for there is

nothing you can do to hurt me."

Rather than deny Christ, he held

firm to his confession. And just like we learned

last week in John 4:23, it won't be on

the screen, but it says, "But the hour is

coming, and is now here, that when the

true worshipers will worship the Father

in spirit and in truth, for the Father

is seeking such people to worship him."

My friends, we draw near to Jesus because of what

he's done. And he's given us access to

God through his

blood. Not only this, we hold

fast to our confession. Back to Colton

for a minute. He was a convicted

and he was stripped of his law license, his

career, and his political standing.

Yet, he held fast to the hope that

God had a purpose for his life beyond his past

mistakes. He chose to trust that

he who promised is faithful,

even when his public legacy was shamed.

Shattered, and beyond compare.

We're going to hear about the rest of his story in a minute.

But there's more to verse 23 that

says, "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope

without wavering, for he who promises is faithful."

What is the confession?

What confession are we supposed to hold fast to?

It really is simple. Jesus

is Lord, and Jesus

saves. It's that

simple. Jesus is Lord,

and Jesus saves. But there's

implications of this. Because if Jesus

is Lord, what's he Lord over?

He's Lord over all. Christ

over all. This is our confession.

Christ over all.

Jesus saves. Salvation

is found nowhere else.

Acts 4:12, "And there is

salvation in no one else. For there

is no other name under heaven given

among men by which we

must be saved." John 14:6,

Jesus said to him, "I am the way,

the truth, and the life. No one comes to

the Father except through me." I've got to tell you,

the progressive

church, if you can call it the church

in America, is attacking

this verse. Is attacking

whether or not Jesus is the only way

to heaven. I cannot state

it soundly, firmly,

holding fast to a confession.

And it's by faith in

him alone that people can have a

relationship with God. Nothing else.

1 Timothy 2:5, "For there is one

God, and there is one mediator between God

and men, the man Christ

Jesus." And then finally,

1 John 5:11-12, and this

is the testimony that God gave us

eternal life. And this life

is in his Son. Whoever has the

Son has life. And whoever does not

have the Son of God does not have life.

And then the confidence in our salvation

in the very next verse John tells us,

"I write these things to you who believe

in the name of the Son of God, that you may

know you have

eternal life." You don't

have to question it. Believe

on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from

the dead. And you will

be saved. There

is no question, no ifs, ands,

or buts. Signed, sealed, delivered.

Your sin is paid for by the blood of

Jesus Christ. And if you accept him as your

Savior, you are washed clean.

Praise God. It's the only

way. And we don't waver in this confession.

Though there will be things that

try to tell us in the world that save.

How about being self-righteous or just being

a good person. Sometimes I bet we're

tempted to boil down our following

Jesus into just being nice.

We're not called to be nice. We're called to be

kind. Kind is different.

Kind isn't always nice. But that's a whole

other message. How about wealth?

Wealth. Wealth. Gotta add the L in there.

Wealth. I don't even know what that is.

Wealth or financial security.

We're tempted to look at

money to be our salvation.

How about our human relationships or our family?

It's real easy to look to have

our foundation there. Career,

status, achievements. Absolutely.

A lot of this happens today.

Politics, ideology, and government.

My friends, ain't nobody sitting

in the White House gonna save you. I don't care

what party you're from. It's about Jesus.

It's about Jesus. Science

or intellect. Technology. We can

look to that easily. Universalism

and false religions. All paths

lead to God. That is becoming a more

and more of a statement and a mantra that I hear

that all paths lead to God.

No, they don't. It's through Jesus Christ

alone. Pleasure, comfort, or

escapism. We can all be tempted with that

one. None of these, they save us. Not

one. Because these counterfeit gods

are not divine. They can't bear the

weight of human expectation.

They can't bear the weight of our sin.

But the thing is about these things

that they demand your ultimate worship. If you fail

your idol, like you fail an exam

or you lose money or you're rejected by people,

it offers no grace. It offers

only guilt, despair,

self-hatred. When you make those things

your idol and they fail you,

you have no grace. They

enslave you. Because an idol controls

your thoughts, emotions, and decisions.

Pastor Tim Keller says this

in his book Counterfeit Gods. He says

that if you feel runaway

anger, deep despair, or

paralyzing anxiety, an

idol is almost certainly being

threatened. Think about that. Your money

isn't doing what it should and you have overwhelming

anxiety. Probably an idol.

If you feel so guilty or despair

when somebody rejects you,

relationships is almost certainly your idol.

It doesn't mean you don't feel bad about

it or you're concerned about it or you have

that struggle. But it does mean that

it's not overwhelming and you can't even

function and oh my goodness my life is

falling apart because our lives are hidden

Christ in God when he is our

savior and he alone saves us.

But here's the thing about these idols. They have to be

replaced, not just removed. Pastor Keller

says again that willpower alone can't destroy

an idol. Trying to force yourself to stop

worshiping an idol leaves an inner vacuum that

will simply attract another idol. Idols

are only uprooted through a deeper, superior

affection. You break an idol

not by loving the good thing less,

I love this, but by loving

Jesus more. Loving

Jesus. You can't waver in

our confession of hope. Why do we not

waver? Because we've got to remind ourselves.

Why is it let us not

waver? Because some of us will forget

and we need to remind each other.

We've got to remind each other of our confession

because every single one of us in this room at some point

in life will forget our confession

because the boulders will drop

on our lives. It's the gift of

the church because we need each other.

We need each other. We keep our eyes

on Jesus because he who

promised is faithful. Jesus will never

leave you or forsake you.

Ever. While incarcerated, Colson

noticed the profound hopelessness, neglect,

and lack of spiritual support among

his fellow inmates. Get this,

instead of sinking into despair or

focusing solely on his own release,

Colson was moved to action. Upon

his release in '75, he

founded Prison Fellowship,

an international ministry dedicated to bringing

the gospel, practical aid,

and rehabilitation resources

to prisoners, ex-convicts,

and their families.

Because he saw Jesus

and held to his conviction, his

confession, and drew near to God,

he not only, his life

may have fallen apart, but God had a plan

for every single step. And now that

Ministry of Prison Fellowship ministers

to prisoners and ex-convicts

all over the world. Friends, we've got to keep

our eyes on Jesus. It's the only way

we draw near to God and hold to our

confession. We have to keep our

eyes on Jesus. It's the only way to

do this. There's something interesting about

an account that most of us have probably heard.

I want to read it, and then I want to talk about it

as we close this morning. Matthew 14:22-33

says this,

"Immediately he, Jesus, made the disciples

get into the boat and go before him to the other

side, when he dismissed the crowds.

And after he dismissed the crowds, he went up on a mountain

by himself to pray. When evening came,

he was there alone, but the boat by this time

was a long way from land, beaten

by the waves, for the wind was against

them. On the fourth watch of the night,

he came to them walking on the sea.

But when the disciples saw him walking on

the sea, they were terrified and said, 'It's a ghost!'

and cried out in fear.

I might do the same thing that you don't normally see people

walking on water. But immediately Jesus

spoke to them, saying, 'Take heart.

It is I. Do not be afraid.'

Peter answered him, 'Lord, if it is

you, command me to come to you

on the water.' And he said,

'Come.' So Peter got out of the boat

and walked on the water and came to Jesus.

But when he saw the wind,

he was afraid, and beginning to sink,

he cried out, 'Lord, save me!'

And Jesus immediately reached out his hand

and took hold of him, saying to him, 'O you

of little faith, why did you doubt

me?' When they got out of the boat, the wind

ceased, and those in the boat worshipped him,

saying, 'Truly you are the Son of God.'"

It's a scene that many of us have read before.

There's a ton going on here. Peter

got out of the boat. He started walking on water

to Jesus. He sees the wind in the waves.

I love the fact that Jesus didn't go,

'What, are you stupid?'

As soon as Peter

cried out for help, what did Jesus do?

He scooped him up. Lovingly, as a father,

he says, 'Man, why didn't you just

have the faith? Look at what you can do.'

And often we look at this and go, 'He didn't have

enough faith.' I'm not so sure it wasn't

that he didn't have enough faith. Because when he was

walking on the water, this hit me like a ton

of bricks about in the last month. As he

was walking on the water, what was he doing?

He had his eyes on Jesus. And as soon

as everything around Jesus got too much,

what did he do? He took his eyes

off of Jesus. He

began to sink. My friend, if you're

sinking this morning, call on

the name of Jesus, and he will

scoop you up. If you're being tempted

to get your eyes off of Jesus,

hold fast to your confession.

He's on you. Because it's when we get our eyes

off of him that we begin to sink.

This year marks, and this, please

don't clap for this. That's not the reason why I'm bringing

it up. This year marks 30 years of ministry

for me. And I've seen so many people

in this situation. And they

look at Jesus and get their eyes off and sink.

And they look at Jesus and they get their eyes off and sink. And they

get their eyes on Jesus and they look up and they

go, 'Why is this happening?' I tell you this

morning, keep your eyes

on Jesus. Stop looking everywhere

else. We have to keep our eyes on him.

These other things don't save us.

That's how we draw near. That's

how we hold fast to our confession.

We have to keep our eyes on him.

Because that torn veil

didn't just give us permission to get into God's

presence. It opened a way of

living so that no storm, no broken

past, no tidal wave of

circumstance can ever, ever

cut us off from him again.

Ever. Remember, Peter didn't start

sinking because the water got too deep.

He started sinking because he started measuring the

waves instead of keeping his eyes on

the one that controlled the waves.

Whatever counterfeit God is

trying to pull your attention away, stop

staring at the wind around Jesus

and fix your eyes

on Jesus. He who promises

is faithful and he won't let

you sink. Fix your gaze.

Two things. Fix your gaze on Jesus

this morning. The veil is torn.

The path is open to him. And guess

what? The temple of God is no

longer in Jerusalem. The temple of

God is you and me.

Because that temple veil was torn

and the Holy Spirit dwelled

in us when we know Jesus as our

Savior. The only thing that weakens

our step is getting our

focus off of Jesus

and onto the storm. And secondly, anchor

in his faithfulness. Holding fast isn't

about working up human willpower.

It's about tethering your life to the

unshakable truth that he

who promised is faithful.

Our confession is Jesus is Lord

and Jesus saves.

So draw near to him. Draw

close to him. Hold fast to your confession

by keeping your eyes

on Jesus. And if you're

struggling, it's what we're here

for. It's what the church is for.

I want to state this at the beginning of this series.

This is not ever supposed

to be a country club church. Don't

walk in here thinking that you gotta look better

than you are. I pray all the time

that we'd be a hospital for

broken people. That people could come and find

Jesus again. Be drawn

back to the Lord again. Hospital's

messy. It's okay to be messy.

It's okay to not be okay.

Because you have a Savior that loves you.

I pray that we will be a place

that draws you back into his presence.

That lets you see him again.

Lets you heal so that you in turn

can help others heal. Hold fast to your

confession, church. Draw near to him

and keep your eyes on Jesus.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you

so much for your love. Thank you for your grace

and your mercy. God, I just pray this morning

that we would just be reminded so deeply

to keep our eyes on you. But I

confess that there are times I get my eyes on

the storm, sometimes way

too easily. God, I pray

that you would help us to rely on your love

and understand that your blood

has given us access to you at any

moment at any time. And that you will never

leave us or forsake us. Help us hold fast to our

confession that Jesus you are Lord

and Jesus you save. And help

us to draw near in full assurance

of faith that you will do

what you said you're gonna do. And if there's anybody here

this morning that doesn't yet know you as Savior God, I

pray they would call on the name of Jesus

that Lord they would declare that

you are Lord and that they would believe

in their hearts that you are raised from the dead.

So they can be saved and forgiven

of their sin. Thank you God for loving us

the way you do in Jesus name.

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