WHY DO YOU FEEL EMPTY?

0:00 Church, would you join me in prayer before we dive into the teaching of the Word of God? Jesus, thank you for these minutes and moments that we share here together. Certainly not wasted minutes and moments when we get to come around your Word. And Lord, I pray that this morning we would not simply be hearers, but we would be doers of your Word. Jesus, I am acutely aware that I can't change anybody's life, but you can. And so I pray that you would show up and you would meet us in this place. we ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody said, amen. There is a, uh, a building in New York city known as 161 maiden lane. It was supposed to be one of the most luxurious skyscrapers in all of lower Manhattan. And they started building this thing, the glass exterior, 60 stories high, multi-million dollar condos, the kind of building that if you saw somebody that lived there, you'd be like, yo, they made it. So they started building this project. And as they finished the exterior, the glass windows went on and they made it all the way to the top. Someone looked at it and goes, does that look like it's leaning to you? So they did some research and they found out that it was leaning eight centimeters, three inches to the north. Not a tremendous amount. I heard that like, ah, what's the big deal? But when you're talking about a 670 foot skyscraper, that kind of lean can be fatal. And so they hired some engineers to research and dive into what the potential problem was for the lean and if they could fix it. And the engineers started searching and figuring out what the problem was. And they came to the conclusion that it wasn't the weight of the building. It wasn't that it was built at an angle. The problem was underneath it all that the developers had decided to cut costs when laying the foundation in that area of lower Manhattan. You've got to dig 155 feet deep and anchor that thing to the bedrock, but they didn't

2:08 want to spend the money and the time. So they chose a soil improvement plan. So essentially they laid a 670-foot skyscraper on top of some dirt, and they paid the price. To this day, there is a quarter of a billion-dollar building sitting in the heart of New York City that is empty, hollow, vacant, and some believe potentially on the verge of collapse. impressive on the outside but empty on the inside i am afraid unfortunately that this is the picture of many people's lives there are people who go through life and they get the degree they get the job they make the money they get the stuff they get the cars and there's nothing inherently bad about those things unless you build your entire life upon it and so people from the exterior can look at people in those categories and go, wow, isn't that impressive? That's amazing. But internally they are empty, hollow, anxious, exhausted, and on the verge of collapse.

3:24 Because there are people who have built careers, but don't have any character. There are people who have produced platforms, but don't have any purity in their heart. there are people who have made an image for themselves, but don't have any intimacy with the God that created them. And here's the funny thing about foundations. Nobody cares about them until something goes wrong. In just a couple of hours, over 1.4 billion people are going to watch Lionel Messi in Argentina take on Lamin-Yemal in Spain. And just a reminder to all the Texas natives in the world. The greatest sport in the world is not American football. It's European football. Can I get an amen? I love it. I'm waiting for like someone in the back. I hear you. I'll keep preaching though. A couple of weeks ago, I had a friend that had an extra ticket to a world cup game and I'd never been to one in my life. I played soccer growing up. And so he's like, Hey, um, there's games here in Dallas, but I've actually got an extra ticket to a knockout game with England and Atlanta. And I'll give you the ticket for free. If you can find yourself like to get to Atlanta, like the tickets yours, do you want to go? And I'm like, uh, is the sky blue? Yes, I'll be there. And so I get on a plane and land in Atlanta and head to the stadium.

4:47 And I'd never been to Mercedes Benz stadium and walk in. It's just absolutely amazing. That stadium is stunning. I got to see Harry Kane put the whole nation of England on his back. They were down by one goal. He scored two, buried him back in the net. None of you care, but I do. It was emotional. I'm hugging strangers. Like, this is unbelievable.

5:10 Putting on a fake British accent. But I'm walking around the building and I'm amazed by some of the architecture. There's this retractable roof. It was closed at the time, but just the fact that that thing can open and all this stuff. And I'm seeing other people experience the stadium for the first time as well. And just kind of their eyes opening like this is unbelievable. And here's something I didn't hear one person say, man, this place has got a sturdy foundation.

5:38 Honey, take me down. We're going to we're going to go get a photo of the concrete. This is unbelievable. nobody cares about the foundation and yet here's what's interesting the stuff that everybody celebrates the architecture the glass the design the retractable roof only exists because of the thing that nobody sees the foundation and if the foundation isn't strong and secure then friends all of the trinkets and all of the stuff that people take photos of is not going to be there or if it is, it won't be there for very long. And so here's the concern I have for us in our Western world in 2026 is we have become obsessed with height and not realize that we should become obsessed with depth. Like we want all the stuff. Everybody's like, I want to be a skyscraper in my life. Nobody's like, I want to dig deep in my life.

6:33 and one of the tragedies of being a pastor is seeing people who build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and build and then stop at some point and go, huh, I feel like I'm leaning a little bit. I might be leaning in my marriage just a touch here. I could be leaning in my integrity and my character a little bit. I feel like I'm leaning in my relationship with the Lord. Ah, it's only eight centimeters. Not that big of a deal. I'm going to keep building and building and building and building. And eventually there is a crash, which is why Jesus at the conclusion of the most famous sermon in human history does something very contrary to what most speakers and preachers do in 2026.

7:32 He does not try to stir an emotional response that might end in a standing ovation. He does something rather unique. He speaks to the idea of foundations. He speaks to the idea more specifically of obedience. That's not going to end in an eruption of praise. But here's what we have to remember. Jesus didn't come to earth to impress us. He came to transform us. and that's what he desires to do to every single person in the room in our different locations this morning. If you have your scripture, you can turn to Matthew chapter seven, verse 24. We're going to read through verse 29.

8:16 This is what the word of the Lord says. It says, therefore, anyone who hears, somebody say hears, say it like you're awake. Say hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Someone say rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house. Yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew. and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. Verse 28, when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law. Before we dive too deeply into this text, I want to take a look at verse 28 and 29, and that is the reality. Keep in mind, they're amazed at the whole teaching, the whole Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapter 5 to Matthew chapter 7.

9:32 And they're like, whoa, something is different about this guy when he talks. Now you and I are like, yeah, it's because it's Jesus. But keep in mind, this is the crowd pre-death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So to them at this point, he's just another teacher of the scriptures, but they had heard other teachers of the scriptures talk before. And when they did, they'd say things like the scripture says, the Torah says, AKA they taught off of borrowed authority, but Jesus doesn't need to borrow authority. Jesus is the final authority. His words are the very bedrock to life itself, which begs an important question for us today. Though his words have final authority in your life. Why does that matter? Jesus says, because storms are coming. Both built the house.

10:26 Both experienced the same storm. Why is that important? It's important because sometimes we can be convinced that following Jesus leads to a storm-free life. Jesus comes to burst your bubble this morning and mine because in John 16, 33, he says, in this world, you will have trouble. You don't have to go looking for it. is going to come looking for you. And for those of us who have been alive longer than 37 seconds, you know this to be true. The cadence of life is one of. You are either in a storm, you just came out of a storm, or you're getting ready to go through a storm. Which is why Jesus asks the crowd, and it's the same question the Holy Spirit of God is asking you and I today. What are you building your life on? What kind of builder are you?

11:19 And I would venture to bet that there'd be some people here this morning and you'd be like, I don't even believe in God. I'm not building my life on anything. Oh, you're building your life on something. You're building your life on something. Some people build their lives on themselves. Some people build their lives on pleasure. Some people build their lives on fame or success. The problem is those things are 161 maiden lane lives. lives. You're going to find yourself leaning. And Jesus says, you're going to find yourself eventually crashing. There's only one foundation that can stand strong in the storms of life. I shared this before, but my wife and I went through a really challenging storm in our life a few years ago in 2021. My wife lost her sister, Lee Beth, our pastor's daughter. It was one of the most challenging things we've ever had to walk through. And a few months after that, my wife finds out that she's pregnant with our third child. And so it's this really weird mixture of emotions because you're grieving the loss of life and celebrating new life coming.

12:20 And then 14 weeks into her pregnancy, she goes to a routine doctor's appointment, FaceTimes me. I'll never forget it. Says, Sam, there's no heartbeat. And I hang up the call and I cry and pray the entire way to the doctor's office. Doctor says, I'm sorry, gives us a hug. And due to the fact of how far into the pregnancy she was, we had to go into the hospital and she had to deliver our beautiful baby girl. I'll never forget this moment. Right before, she put her hand on her belly and she said, God, thank you for the gift of being able to carry this girl for 14 weeks. And thank you that she's with you. I just remember being wrecked. and then she gives birth to our beautiful baby girl who was about that big. I'm just looking at her and I'm, I'm a mess. And you better believe in that season of our life. There were some damaged windows in that storm, but by the grace of God, we're still standing. Cause I'm amazing. No, just decided to build our lives on the rock of Jesus Christ. And here is one of the beauties of being involved in the church.

13:37 Here's one of the beauties of being involved in the church. There are people that like have walked through unfathomable storms. We could hand the microphone around. And yet there are stories of people who have built their lives on the rock and have seen the faithfulness of God in the storms of life. It's the beauty of coming together as a community. You get to be reminded of the faithfulness of God through the highs and yes, through the lows of life. But here's the danger in a room like this, because most of us are going to be like, yeah, I'm building on the rock. I don't know if you know this, but we got Bible verses in our house. It's like in her kitchen and stuff. The one asked for me in my house, you know what I mean?

14:30 We're going to serve the Lord. He's got good plans for me. I don't know what Jeremiah is something, but it's good. And my house, it's on the rock. But the danger is, only you know if what you did Friday night reflects on what you heard on Sunday morning. Only you know the way you handled your finances on a Tuesday, the entertainment choice you chose on Friday, the conversation you had with your spouse on Thursday. Only, you know, if that's reflective of a life of obedience and allegiance to Jesus. And so we can come in here and play the church game or we can get honest with each other. Yeah, I might be leaning a little bit in this area. So I'm going to work on building my life on the right foundation, not the wrong foundation. And the difference of the foundation was both of the builders heard the words of Christ. The difference was what they did with the words, put them into practice. And so I hear some people like, man, I got to read the Bible and I've been joining this Bible study so I can learn, you know, about the Bible and I'm all for it. That's amazing. Do you want to know what's just as maybe not even a little bit more important than just reading the Bible, living the Bible, like live it. Like let's, let's, let's live the pages of the word of God.

15:53 In fact, thinking that reading the Bible is going to turn you into a stronger, more obedient Christian is like going to the gym and looking at some weights and thinking, yeah, I'm getting jacked right now. I had a friend a couple of weeks ago, take me through like a quarter of his arm workout. And I was on the floor, like a mess. I couldn't move my arms. And then after he's like, you want to play pickleball? I'm like, yeah, sure. Yeah. I can't move my arms, but you go through a workout and you, you lift the weights. Why it's painful in that moment, but you know, it's going to produce a strength that wasn't previously there. And oftentimes it's the same picture with the word of God. You start to really live this thing out. Oh, it can be painful in the moment. It can be challenging in the moment, but rest assured it is producing a strength that was not previously there. And so I think the question we have to ask ourselves, this is where it gets raw and real, is this question. When is the last time you changed the decision you were going to make because of something you read in the word of God? If you consider yourself to be a Christ follower, that should probably be happening like daily.

17:11 But if you were getting honest with yourself, when's the last time you got wronged by that person and you're like, oh my, are you kidding? I'm going to get so much revenge on them. But you pause and you were like, you know what? If Christ has forgiven me of everything that I have done and ever will do, who am I to hold unforgiveness against somebody else? When's the last time you were going to go to that website or slide into that person's DMS and you said, you know what? I'm not going to do it because I know Psalm 1013 says I shall set no worthless thing before my eyes. When's the last time you were going to pad the numbers like everybody else does in your business to make some more cash, but you paused and you said, what's worth more money or becoming a man or a woman of integrity? Um, it's integrity for me. When's the last time you changed the decision you were going to make because of something you read in the word of God. This is where some people go, ah, legalism rules, list of do's and don'ts. Here we go again. You've got to do this and you can't do this. I believe it was Tozer who said the church will be at the height of its heresy when it calls obedience legalism. So picture this for a moment for a word picture. Imagine you're at the beach in Mexico. Wouldn't that be great? And you're standing there and there's a lifeguard and stand and the sand is kind of elevated to the ocean. And you see like, I don't like a 13-year-old kid swimming in the water.

18:56 He's having the time of his life. It's just him. And you hear a loud whistle. And the lifeguard pointed the kid and say, you, you need to get out. You got to get out of the water. And you see the kid, he's visibly frustrated. Are you kidding me? Because until a teenager, it's like this is just another grown-up trying to ruin my fun. And so he's mad. He's walking to the beach. You got to be kidding me. Lifeguards. Doesn't even know what he's doing. I can swim. and you look at where that kid was, and you're like, oh, he was about to get caught in a rip that was going to suck him out into the ocean. You're like, I'm so thankful that he blew the whistle. Two different responses. What was the difference? Elevation. The lifeguard could see something the kid couldn't, and he wasn't blowing the whistle to punish him. He blew the whistle to protect him. The word of God, anytime it gives us a command or a way of living is not stepping in to go, ah, punishment for you. No, God is trying to protect you because his ways lead to life.

20:04 And oftentimes I have found in my life, God sees stuff I don't. So I've learned to trust him. and I pray that you will too. There's an incredible young man and part of our student ministry who's one of the top recruits in the state of Texas, if not in the country for American football.

20:26 He's an amazing young man and was just having a conversation, catching up a couple of weeks ago with him and was like, man, how's the college process looking? He's like, it's busy. I think he visited like 30 colleges in 21 days and I said, man, what's it like? You're trying to decipher what decision to make. And obviously every coach is going to over promise and under deliver. How do you kind of navigate that? And he's walking me through it. I said, have there been like any crazy stories about things that have taken place? He's like, oh, there's been some crazy stories. And he told me a specific story of a coach in a school that if I said and shared, you'd know the name. And he said, we sit down and within the first few minutes, this coach is just offering blatantly immoral things to me.

21:16 Like just one after the other. I can get you this. I'll get you this. I'll get you that. I'll get you this. And I go, how did you process that? My heart was broken because the state of college sports in that area is just like such. There's so much nonsense that goes on. And he's like, I just, I sat there quietly. And then I finished the conversation, shook the coach's hand and walked out and said, not going to that school in a million years. Don't care if there's a starting spot. I'm not going. Now, here's the question. What's the difference between a 17 year old man who sits in that seat and goes, no, not even, not even a question. And another 17 year old young man who goes, that sounds awesome. Yes, I'll sign right now. it's not necessarily that one kid is better than the other it's just that there's one who's decided to build his life on a different foundation and while the whole world is asking what's in it for me this young man is asking is this going to form me into the young man that I want to become or the young man that God wants me to become and guess what that transcends a 17 year old kid sitting in a college coach's office.

22:24 Every single one of us can ask the question, is this forming me into the man or the woman that God has called me to be? Paul in Romans chapter eight, like underlines what the goal of every single Christ follower on planet earth should be. I don't have time to read it, but it ends by saying that the goal is to conform us to the image of his son, AKA for us to become more like Jesus. Like that's the goal. Your highest achievement in life is not to build the business, retire early, become a mom, become a dad. The highest goal and achievement in life is to be more like him and to build your life on him. That is the goal. I've got a three-year-old girl.

23:20 Her name is Bowie Sunshine Kelly. That's why I have this really manly bracelet on my wrist. I don't know if you can see it at campuses, but it's got a lot of pink on it. It's pretty cool. She's the cutest thing in the world. And a couple of weeks ago, we went on our first date, bought her some flowers, and her face when I gave her the flowers was the cutest thing ever. And she's like, Dad, you can have some of my toys.

23:41 Dads, I want to encourage you though, date your daughters. Because you get to set the standard for what kind of man that girl is going to look for one day. One of the best ways that you can take care of that girl is to love her mom. So anyways, I'm trying to get this little girl to swim this year. That's my goal. And she'll swim with floaties in the shallow end, and I can even bring her in the deep end. But the real goal that I have, even with floaties on, is I want her to jump off the diving board into the water. That's the goal of this summer. We're not there yet. If you could pray for us, that'd be great.

24:16 And here's what's so funny. She'll stand on the edge of the diving board and I'll be swimming in the deep end. I'll be like, Bowie, jump. She's like, nope. And I'll be like, Bowie, do you believe dad is going to catch you? Yep. Do you think if you jump in with your floaties that you're going to pop right back up? Yep. Do you think anything bad is going to happen to you with dad being here? No. Okay, then jump. No.

24:41 I'm like, girl, let's run it back. Do you think dad is going to catch you? Uh-huh. Do you think with your floaties on, you're going to pop right back? Yeah, dad. Yeah. They jump. No. and that is a picture unfortunately of many people in their relationship with christ do you believe god has a plan for your life yep do you believe his ways are better than yours yeah you believe he created it all yeah his way is the best way yeah then jump in give him everything. Live a life of obedience. No. No, not for me. Okay, let's run it back. Do you believe like he created it all? Like the universe is known and unknown, created you. And I don't know, maybe every other human being on planet earth. You believe that maybe he knows better than you do.

25:43 Yeah. Trust him with your finances. No, no, no. saying you believe in something isn't actually necessarily believing in something acting on it is that's the goal that we would be people who would live out what we believe that we would build our lives on the rock of Christ because storms are common. And every single one of us at moments in our lives, find ourselves in positions. Oh, I'm leaning. Best thing you can do. I'm a dig down deep and I'm a build on the rock of Christ. And by the way, this isn't necessarily just a message of like grit your teeth and try to obey as hard as you can you can't do this without the help and the horsepower of the holy spirit god i need you i was reading an article about 161 main lane because the building still stands there i'm like surely that's illegal right like they gotta tear this thing down and there was a phrase that said it's too damaged to complete too risky to demolish, too damaged to restore.

27:13 and maybe you're in the room and that's how you feel the storm came, my house fell, I'm a wreck, and I'm, man, I love the encouragement, too far gone, the compromise was too great,

27:42 the sin, it's too much, the beauty of the gospel, is that there is no one, no one too damaged or risky to redeem. The gospel says all are welcome. And I could even argue that if you find yourself at the end of yourself, it's the best place you can be because you become desperate enough for the one who can restore and rebuild. Would you pray with me? maybe you're in this place and you've never built on the rock you've never put your faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ who came to earth to die for your sins rose again from the grave three days later giving victory over sin and death I'd love to lead you in a prayer to make him your rock.

28:53 Just simply repeat this after me. You don't have to say it out loud. You can just say it in the confines of your heart. Just say, God, I admit I've been leaning. I've been building my life on the wrong stuff. Today, I'm choosing to build on you. I admit that I'm broken. I believe that you died on a cross for my sin and three days later rose again from the grave. Today I choose, I choose to follow you.

29:25 Lord, I pray for your people, your sons, your daughters, that we would assess the areas where we are leaning in our life and have the confidence to confront them and build again on the rock to be men and women who want to build deep foundations that our lives would stand through the storms of life. We ask all these things in your son's name. Absolutely. Everybody said.