Faithfulness: How to Hold Up the People You Love Without Going Under

How to Hold Up the People You Love Without Going Under

Christian Freedom Series, Week 24

Stand on the Mountain. Become one.

Download the printable discussion guide (PDF)

Summary

Galatians 5:14–25 names faithfulness as the seventh fruit of the Spirit, and David Hancock, preaching at The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida, opens with a picture everyone recognizes: life as chaotic water, and every one of us swimming hard to hold the people we love above the waves until we go under. He traces the Greek word for faithfulness back to its twin, faith, and defines the two with one image: faith is walking on the mountain you trust, faithfulness is being that mountain for others. Faithfulness is grammatically passive, but it is anything but passive in action. The trouble is that swimmers make poor mountains. From Eden’s four rivers to the chaotic sea of Psalm 69, the sermon shows how humanity left solid ground and now grabs for anything that floats, pulling each other under in the process, which is exactly the biting and devouring Paul warns against. The answer is Psalm 46 and Psalm 125: God is the only mountain that cannot be moved, and those who trust Him become mountains because they abide on one. The sermon ends with Robertson McQuilkin resigning a seminary presidency to care for his wife, and with Christ, the Amen in whom every promise of God finds its Yes.

Key Takeaways

• Faithfulness and faith are the same Greek word; faith is trusting someone who has proven dependable, and faithfulness is being the dependable one, built from small ordinary days of staying, keeping promises, and telling the truth.
• No one can hold another person up while drowning; since the first humans chose to be their own gods, every person has been born into the chaotic waters of a world far from God, and whatever we grab to stay afloat, whether a lover, a child, a career, or money, is sinking sand.
• You cannot be a mountain to someone unless you have a mountain under you; God alone cannot be moved, and those who trust in the Lord become like Mount Zion because they abide on Him.
• Faithfulness grows by walking by the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit, the daily discipline of depending on the Spirit to animate the faithfulness of Christ in you rather than relying on your own strength, so that year by year you become a greater mountain with more room for others.

Read Galatians 5:14-25 (ESV)

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Talk about it

1. Think of the most dependable person in your life, the one you would call first if everything fell apart. What makes you so sure they would come? Who, if anyone, would say that about you?

Being the Mountain: What Does Faithfulness Mean in the Bible?

Faithfulness and faith are the same Greek word. Faith is the active side: putting your trust in someone who has proven dependable. Faithfulness is grammatically passive, but not passive in action. It means being someone others can depend on. Faith is walking on the mountain you trust. Faithfulness is being that mountain for others.

KEY WORD: FAITHFULNESS The Greek word Paul uses in Galatians 5:22, pistis, is the ordinary New Testament word for faith. Whether it means trusting someone or being trustworthy depends on the direction it points. Pointed outward, it is faith: leaning your weight on someone who has shown himself reliable. Pointed inward, it is faithfulness: being reliable enough that others can lean their weight on you. A faithful person keeps his word, shows up when called, and wants to be there. The fruit is not one heroic act but a long run of small, ordinary days of staying when it was hard and telling the truth when a lie was easier.

There is an ancient practice of answering a sermon with Amen. When the preacher said something true and full of hope, the people would say: Amen, that is true, that is something I can build a life on.

Imagine the end of your life, and the people at your funeral saying Amen before they leave. That was a life that was faithful and true. He was a mountain.

Faithfulness is why a crowd on the beach will smile at a couple in their late eighties walking hand in hand. Behind those hands are sixty years of standing beside each other through a failed business, buried parents, bankruptcy, seasons of fighting, three children born and one lost. They know each other’s scars and faults, yet they were mountains to each other. Faithfulness is fruit in a desert, a mountain that keeps bearing love, joy, and peace while the waters rise.

Talk about it

2. Faithfulness is built from small days, not one big moment: staying when it was hard, keeping a promise that had become inconvenient, telling the truth when lying was easier. Which of those three is hardest for you right now, and who is paying for it? If your life ended this year, who could honestly say Amen over it?

Swimmers Don’t Make Mountains: Why Can’t We Hold Each Other Up?

Here is the problem. How can anyone be a mountain when all of us are swimming? Swimmers do not make good mountains. The Bible tells how we ended up in the water. Eden was the mountain garden of God, the highest ground, where calm water bubbled up and pooled into four rivers. The farther those rivers ran from God’s presence, the wilder they grew, until they became a chaotic ocean. In Scripture, those waters stand for sin, death, and evil: life far from God, with nothing to stand on.

In that garden a fallen angel told the first humans they could be their own gods, their own mountain. They would not need Eden or God. They bit, and immediately knew something was wrong. They hid from the mountain maker, blamed each other, and ran from the garden like the rivers, thrown into the very waters they had become. David later sang the human condition: “The waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold” (Psalm 69:1–2).

THE SERMON’S ILLUSTRATION: THE MAN IN THE RIP Years ago, David and a friend were surfing in big waves when two men wading up to their necks were caught by a small rip current. One was pulled just past where he could stand, and it was obvious he could not swim. The friend paddled over, and the drowning man grabbed him and pulled him straight under. David held out his board, but the man lunged for him instead; he had to swim away and shout for the man to take the board. Finally the man grabbed it, was pushed into a wave, and washed into the shallows, where he climbed out wearing jeans and tennis shoes. He had no business in that water. Neither do we. We were born into it, and a drowning person will pull down anyone who swims close.

When people are going under they grab for anything that floats: a lover, a child, a career, a bank account. We make it sacred and build a life on it, and Jesus calls all of it sinking sand. Then we do to others what the drowning do. We climb on them and pull them down, or we avoid everyone because they keep pulling us under. That is the moment Paul warns about: “if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” Jealousy, rivalry, fits of anger, and division are the works of people who are drowning and will not admit it.

Talk about it

3. Everyone in the water grabs for something that floats: a person, a child, a career, money. What have you made sacred and built your life on because it felt like it could hold you up? Who was the last person you pulled under while trying to stay afloat, and who was the last person who pulled you under?

The Only Mountain: How Do We Become Someone People Can Count On?

If you want to be a mountain to others, you need something under your feet. God is the only mountain that cannot be moved. Psalm 46 says that though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved” (Psalm 46:5). He is what everything of substance is built on. He is faithfulness itself.

Here is the point of the sermon: you cannot be a mountain to someone unless you have a mountain under you. The man in the rip was not saved because the preacher held him up; he was saved because the preacher handed him the thing that was holding the preacher up. “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever” (Psalm 125:1). When you trust the Lord, you become a mountain because you abide on the Mountain.

KEY PHRASE: WALK BY THE SPIRIT, KEEP IN STEP Galatians 5:16 says “walk by the Spirit,” and Galatians 5:25 says “keep in step with the Spirit.” Walking describes a habit, the ordinary pace of a life. Keeping in step describes discipline inside that habit, the way marching soldiers match their stride. The habit itself is depending on the Spirit to animate the life of Christ in a Christian. Animate means to give breath or life to something; the Spirit is pictured in Scripture as wind and breath. So faith sets a person on the rock of Christ, and daily dependence on the Spirit breathes Christ’s faithfulness into that person until he becomes a mountain others can stand on.

Jesus used the same word: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). To abide is to be connected to something that can hold you. The surfboard held the preacher up because he was attached to it, and the drowning man was saved when he stopped grabbing a swimmer and attached himself to the board. When you build your life on Christ, He grows in you what is in Him.

Some Christians are people no one can count on. The reason is they are not keeping in step with the Spirit. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that all the promises of God find their Yes in Christ, which is why we say our Amen through Him. He is the Amen, the trustworthy mountain. Build your life on Him and your life becomes an Amen that others can build on.

Talk about it

4. The man in the rip was not saved by a swimmer but by being handed the board that held the swimmer up. When someone you love is going under, what do you hand them: yourself, your advice, your money, or the Christ who holds you up? Where are you trying to carry someone by your own strength this week, and what would it look like to hand them the board instead?

Monster or Mountain: What Happens When We Try to Hold People Up Alone?

There is another option, and most of us take it. You can try to be the mountain by yourself, abiding in your own strength. Paul has a name for that: the flesh. The flesh is self-reliance, and Paul describes it as a dark, monstrous figure in every one of us whose works bite, devour, and consume. Rely on yourself and you become a monster with good intentions, unable to hold anyone up; when they start pulling you under, you bite them to make them let go. Without Christ, at our very best, we are drowning men trying to save drowning men.

So give up the desire to be like God. Give up on being the mountain, and stand on the mountain of Christ. Then you become strong, steady, and trustworthy, not because you are, but because you are standing on solid ground. When the unexpected hits the people you love, there will be something under you worth standing on.

THE SERMON’S ILLUSTRATION: ROBERTSON McQUILKIN Robertson McQuilkin was president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary for twenty-two years, and under him the school doubled and launched two radio stations. Then his wife Muriel, the girl he fell for as a student, began to forget things. Alzheimer’s took her slowly. By 1990 she could not be left alone; she was calm when he was in the room and frightened when he was not. Friends gently urged him to place her in professional care, since he had a calling. Instead he stood before the school and resigned, eight years short of retirement. “I promised, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. And I’m a man of my word,” he said, and then the line people still quote: “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.” He cared for her thirteen years, until she died in 2003. When he died in 2016, not one of his accomplishments made the first line of his obituary. Every remembrance began with Muriel. He was her mountain, and the Amen over his life was his faithfulness to her.

Talk about it

5. McQuilkin said “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.” Where in your life has faithfulness started to feel like “have to” rather than “get to,” and what does that reveal about what is under your feet? Where have good intentions and self-reliance turned you into someone who bites the people you are trying to hold up?

The Heart of It: Why Is Christ the Only Mountain That Can Hold You Up?

Everything in this sermon comes down to one question: what is under your feet? Jesus said that a life built on anything other than Him is a house on sand, and when the flood comes it falls. He did not shout that from dry land. The eternal Son came down into the chaotic waters we made, let them close over His head at the cross, and rose again as the one piece of ground in the universe that cannot be moved. Every promise God ever made finds its Yes in Him (2 Corinthians 1:20). He is the Amen.

That is why faithfulness is a fruit and not an achievement. No one swims his way to being a mountain. Faith sets your feet on Christ, and the Spirit animates His faithfulness in you, so that the people drowning around you can climb onto something that will hold.

Some are not holding anyone up yet because they are still swimming on their own. Most adults do not come to Christ until they realize they are about to drown; if that is you, it is time to put your faith in the only mountain. Others have built their lives on Christ but never learned to keep in step with the Spirit, so they remain a small mountain with room for one person at most. It is time to learn dependence on the Spirit, so you grow into a greater mountain with more room for others.

Talk about it

6. There are three kinds of people in this room: those still swimming on their own, and those standing on Christ who have stayed a small mountain with room for almost no one, and last, those who are growing in dependance on the Spirit, yearly making more room for those to claim upon. Which are you, and how do you know? If you are still swimming, what is keeping you from trusting the only mountain? If you are standing, who needs room on you that you have not yet made?

Questions This Sermon Answers

What does faithfulness mean in Galatians 5:22?

Faithfulness, the seventh fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, is the same Greek word as faith, pistis. Faith is trusting someone who has proven dependable; faithfulness is grammatically passive but not passive in action: being someone others can depend on. A faithful person keeps his word and shows up when called. It is fruit, not willpower.

What is the difference between faith and faithfulness?

Faith and faithfulness are one Greek word pointed in opposite directions. Faith leans your weight on someone who has shown himself reliable; faithfulness, passive in grammar but not in action, is being reliable enough that others can lean on you. Faith is walking on the mountain you trust; faithfulness is being that mountain for the people you love.

Why can’t I hold up the people I love?

Because everyone is swimming. The Bible pictures life far from God as chaotic water with no foothold, and a drowning person cannot hold up another drowning person; he pulls him under. Even the strongest grow weary because nothing is under their feet. Only a person standing on solid ground, which Scripture says is God alone, can hold anyone else up.

What do the chaotic waters mean in the Bible?

In Scripture, chaotic waters represent sin, death, and evil, the condition of life far from God. Eden was high ground where calm water flowed out in four rivers, and the farther those rivers ran from God’s presence, the wilder they became. Psalm 69 describes the human condition as sinking in deep mire with no foothold, which is where every person begins.

What does Psalm 125:1 mean when it says those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion?

Psalm 125:1 says, “Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.” The point is that trusting God makes a person stable. Because God is the one mountain that cannot be shaken, anyone who builds a life on Him takes on His steadiness and becomes solid ground others can rely on.

What does it mean to walk by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit?

Galatians 5:16 and 5:25 describe a habit and a discipline. Walking is the ordinary pace of a life; keeping in step is bringing discipline to that habit, like soldiers matching stride. The habit is depending on the Holy Spirit to animate, or breathe life into, the faithfulness of Christ in a believer, rather than trying to be dependable by self-effort.

Why did Robertson McQuilkin resign from Columbia Bible College?

Robertson McQuilkin resigned as president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary in 1990, eight years before retirement, to care full time for his wife Muriel, who had Alzheimer’s disease. He said he had promised to love her in sickness and in health and was a man of his word, adding, “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.”

What does it mean that Jesus is the Amen?

Second Corinthians 1:20 says all the promises of God find their Yes in Christ, which is why believers say Amen through Him. Amen means “that is true; I can build my life on it.” Jesus is the one trustworthy ground under every promise, so a life built on Him becomes an Amen that other people can build their lives on too.

Vision for the Christian Life

The Christian life this passage envisions is a people with a mountain under their feet. They have stopped trying to be God and stopped pretending they can swim. They have given up the exhausting work of holding everyone up by their own strength, and in losing that burden they have become strong, because what holds them is Christ, and what moves in them is His Spirit. Their friends call them in the worst hour and know they will come, and want to. Their marriages survive bankruptcy and grief. Their word means something. They keep in step with the Spirit day after ordinary day, and at the end, the people they loved stand up and say Amen. Stand on the Mountain. Let Him make you one.

Discussion Questions for Small Groups: Galatians 5

Download the printable discussion guide (PDF)

1. Think of the most dependable person in your life, the one you would call first if everything fell apart. What makes you so sure they would come? Who, if anyone, would say that about you?
2. Faithfulness is built from small days, not one big moment: staying when it was hard, keeping a promise that had become inconvenient, telling the truth when lying was easier. Which of those three is hardest for you right now, and who is paying for it? If your life ended this year, who could honestly say Amen over it?
3. Everyone in the water grabs for something that floats: a person, a child, a career, money. What have you made sacred and built your life on because it felt like it could hold you up? Who was the last person you pulled under while trying to stay afloat, and who was the last person who pulled you under?
4. The man in the rip was not saved by a swimmer but by being handed the board that held the swimmer up. When someone you love is going under, what do you hand them: yourself, your advice, your money, or the Christ who holds you up? Where are you trying to carry someone by your own strength this week, and what would it look like to hand them the board instead?
5. McQuilkin said “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.” Where in your life has faithfulness started to feel like “have to” rather than “get to,” and what does that reveal about what is under your feet? Where have good intentions and self-reliance turned you into someone who bites the people you are trying to hold up?
6. There are three kinds of people in this room: those still swimming on their own, and those standing on Christ who have stayed a small mountain with room for almost no one, and last, those who are growing in dependance on the Spirit, yearly making more room for those to claim upon. Which are you, and how do you know? If you are still swimming, what is keeping you from trusting the only mountain? If you are standing, who needs room on you that you have not yet made?

Related Messages in This Series

• Goodness: How Bad Are You, and How Good Could You Be?
• Kindness: Why the Best Things in Life Can’t Be Earned and Aren’t Free
• Patience: How to Finally Be Patient with God and Others

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Pastor David Hancock is the Lead Pastor of The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, FL, a church where believers and skeptics wrestle honestly with faith and doubt.

Wrestling with a question this raised? You can text in your question on any Sunday and hear it answered after the sermon. Or come sit with people asking the same things. Plan Your Visit

Read the full sermon manuscript

Life in this world is chaotic waters. We all want to be a mountain of dry land for the people we love to climb upon. A symbol of strength and dependability. Are you this mountain? Even the strongest grow weary, because there is nothing under our feet to hold us up. So we swim with all our might to hold up the people we love above the waters of pain, sorrow, heartbreak, and loss, but eventually we go under.

We are in our series called Christian Freedom, and today my aim is to help you find something solid to stand upon so you can rise up as a mountain and help those you love who are being swallowed up by the world. This is what Paul calls Faithfulness, what Paul calls the 7th fruit of the Spirit.

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

What does faithfulness mean? Faithfulness is the same Greek word as faith, but passive. Faith is putting your trust in something or someone who has shown themselves dependable. Faithfulness means being trustworthy and dependable.

Faith is walking upon the mountain you trust. Faithfulness is being that mountain for others.

Faithfulness means you keep your word; people know you have their back. If they call on you, they know you not only will be there for them, but you want to be.

And you show up with strength, wisdom, love, joy, and peace.

You know the ancient practice of saying Amen after someone preaches? If the preacher said something that was right, true, full of hope, and offered people strength, the people would say Amen. Why do we do that? Amen means that’s true. That’s something I can build my life on.

I’d like you to imagine the end of your life. At your funeral, the people all say, before they leave. Amen. Meaning that was a life that was faithful and true. They were a mountain of hope and strength.

Faithfulness isn’t about one big, amazing event; it’s a bunch of small, faithful days of being a mountain to the people you love. When it was hard, you stayed. When lying was easy, you chose honesty. You stayed true to your promises.

Imagine a line of people at the beach smiling. It’s not at the sunset, not a dolphin jumping; it’s an old couple in their late 80s walking on the beach holding hands. Why do we smile at this? Holding hands that way after 60 years of marriage is a picture of faithfulness. They were mountains to each other that survived: a failed business, the loss of their parents, bankruptcy, a few years of constant fighting, the birth of 3 children, the loss of one. They know each other’s scars, faults, brokenness, yet they were mountains to each other. They carried each other’s burdens and even each other when the other was drowning in the waters of life.

Faithfulness isn’t just about strength, but love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness in the face of life’s difficulties. Fruit when there is a desert. A mountain with fruit when the waters of difficulties rise.

But how can we be a mountain, when all of us are swimming in the chaotic waters? Swimmers don’t make good mountains.

How did we all get in these chaotic waters?

Eden is the mountain garden of God. The highest ground. The place of dependability, safety, and security. A place where the fruit of love, joy, and peace grows above the chaos.

In Eden, calm water bubbled up from under Eden and pooled into 4 rivers, and the rivers went out of Eden, and the further the rivers got from Eden, the place of God’s presence, the more chaotic the waters grew, until they became a chaotic ocean. In the Bible, these chaotic waters represent sin, death, and evil. Life far from God, with no dry land and nothing to stand upon.

That’s where we are. How’d we get here? One day, in Eden, a fallen angel came into the garden and said, did God really tell you that you would die if you at of the forbidden fruit? Oh no, you won’t die if you eat of that tree, in fact, you will be like God. He is holding out on you. He doesn’t want competition.

You will become your own mountain. You won’t need Eden; you won’t need God.

So they bit into the temptation and immediately they knew something was wrong. They felt distance from God, like they no longer belonged in Eden and to each other.

God came to look for them and they hide from the mountain maker, and they blamed each other and evil.

When the gates of Eden opened, they ran like the chaotic waters from Eden and God, and were thrown into the waters they became.

Eventually, King David would sing of our experience.

Ps. 69:1-2 sings, “The waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the deep mire, where there is no foothold.”

They have nothing to stand upon, swimming frantically, trying to stay above water, where life is as it’s meant to be.

What happens when all of us are about to go under? We grab for anything that can hold us up.

We put our faith in another person, a lover, our children, our career, our money to make us feel like we found something that can hold us up.

We make anything that looks like a mountain, or a float, sacred to us and build our life on it.

Jesus calls all of this sinking sand. No lover, child, career, or amount of money can hold you up through life’s difficulties.

What do we do to others when we are sinking and desperate? We become a whole bunch of people trying to pull ourselves up with others, but we end up pulling them down.

Or we avoid anyone altogether because they keep pulling us under.

This is when Paul says, watch out that you don’t bite and devour one another, because soon you will consume one another.

This is when we turn to the works of the flesh.

You see others above the waters and you are jealous and try and pull them down.

Or people pull you down, so it turns to enmity, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.

Think of the last person you brought down or the last person that brought you down. We are all just swimming in the waters desperate but never willing to admit it.

The truth is no matter how strong you are, we are all swimming in these waters and none of us can hold ourselves up or hold each other up.

Years ago, I was surfing beside a friend. The waves were big, and there were two men standing in the water but they kept going out deeper, up to their necks, and then a little rip in the water pulled one of them out just a little further, where he couldn’t stand, and it was clear he couldn’t swim.

We paddled over to help and he got hold of my friend and pulled him right under, but he got away from him. I tried to give him my board, but he swam right to me to grab me. He was a big dude, so I swam away and said, “ No, take the board.” He didn’t speak English, so I was absolute chaos. Finally, he took the board, and I held it out in front of me and kicked until I could push him into a wave that would bring him into shallow water.

We got up to shore; this dude came out of the water and he had jeans and tennis shoes on. He had no business being out there. Then gave me a big hug, told me he loved me like 5 times. Meanwhile he said nothing to my friend who he almost drowned.

We are all this man in the water in this life, no business being in these waters, but born into them, desperately looking for something to hold us up.

But how do we help those we love when we’re all sinking sand into others?

We must find solid ground to build our lives on. If we want to be a mountain to others, we need something under our feet. You can’t help people swimming in the chaotic waters if you don’t have a mountain under your feet.

God is the only mountain. But more than just a mountain.

Psalm 46:1-5 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.” (Psalm 46:1–5, ESV)

He is the only mountain that can’t be moved. That makes a city that can’t be moved, that makes people who can’t be moved. He is what everything of substance is built upon.

He is faithfulness. The perfect symbol of it.

Here comes the point. You can’t be a mountain to someone unless you have a mountain under you.

The man we rescued in the water wasn’t rescued because I held him up but because I gave Him what was holding me up.

Psalm 125:1 says, “Those who trust in the Lord are like mountain Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.”

So when we trust the Lord, we become a mountain because we abide upon the Mountain.

This word abide shows up in something Jesus says: I am the vine, and you are the branches; unless you abide in me, you can’t bear any fruit.

To abide means to connect to.

I was on the surfboard, doing fine because I abided in something that could keep me above the waters. The big guy in the waters tried to abide in me and I said, no, you must abide in something that can hold you up, here is my board. My strength was found in the board.

When Jesus says in Him we bear fruit He means that if we build on life on Him, He grows in us what is in Him.

Some of you are Christians, but no one can count on you. Why? What are you doing wrong?

You aren’t keeping in step with the Spirit.

Paul says, Walk with the Spirit and Keep in Step with the Spirit.

Walking is about a habit, and keeping in step is to be disciplined in that habit.

What’s the habit. Depending on the Spirit to animate the life of Christ in you.

Animate means give life or breath to. The Spirit is wind and breath so the Spirit animates the life of Christ’s faithfulness in you as you build your life on Him.

So faith sets you upon the rock of Christ. And dependance on the Spirit animates you into a mountain like Christ.

Want your life to have the stamp of Amen at the end of it? Depend on the Spirit.

Paul says in 2 Cor. 1:20 that all the promises of God find their Yes in Him, in Christ. That is why we utter our Amen through Him.

He is the Amen, the trustworthy mountain we build our life on, and because of it, our lives become an Amen that others build their life on.

You can try and be the mountain on your own for those you love by your own self-dependance, by abiding in yourself. Paul has a name for that. The flesh. He calls the flesh self-reliance, self-effort. He also calls the flesh a type of dark, monstrous figure in us all, with works of the flesh that bite, devour, and consume others.

So if you rely on yourself, you become a monster with good intentions that can’t hold people up and when you try with all your might, they start pulling you under, so you have to bite them to get them to let go.

Without Christ, at our best, we are all drowning men trying to save drowning men.

In Christ we become mountains drowning men can rely on.

Give up on the desire to be like God. Give up on being the mountain. And stand upon the mountain of Christ and you will become the mountain. Strong, steady, reliable, trustworthy, because you are standing upon solid ground.

Then when the unexpected things of life hit, you can be a mountain to those you love.

Robertson McQuilkin was the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary for twenty-two years. Under him the school doubled and started two radio stations. He was at the top. And in the middle of all of it his wife Muriel, the girl he had fallen for as a student, started to forget things. Alzheimer’s took her slowly. By 1990, she could not be left alone, and she was content when he was in the room and frightened when he was not. Friends told him, kindly, to put her somewhere with professionals. He was a seminary president; he had a calling. So he stood up in front of the school and resigned, eight years short of retirement. He said, “I promised, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. And I’m a man of my word.” And then he said the line people still quote: “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.” He cared for her for thirteen years, until she died in 2003. And when he died in 2016, with all those accomplishments, not one of them made the first line of his obituary. Every remembrance began with Muriel. He was her mountain. And the amen on his life was his faithfulness to her.

Some of you are not holding anyone up yet because you are swimming on your own. Most people, when they are adults, don’t become Christians until they realize they are about to drown. If you are drowning, it’s time to but your faith in Christ the only mountain.

Some of you have built your life on Christ, but you haven’t mastered the art of keeping in step with the Spirit, so you remain weak, lacking courage of your convictions. You are a small mountain and no one can fit on you. Or maybe at best one person can, and that’s great, but…It’s time to learn to depend on the Spirit so you will become a greater mountain, with more room for others to depend on.

The church is a group of people who are learning to depend, not on me, but on each other, because we have all built our lives on Christ first.

I’ll be honest, most of us look like people swimming and struggling, trusting ourselves and perhaps learning to trust God, but some of you need the help of others.

Now, others of you, need to bear your burdens but you can’t because you haven’t met Christ or don’t know how to depend on the Spirit to animate the strength of Christ in you.

Who is leaning on you right now? Your spouse, your kids, parents, the people who work for you, the people you work for, your discipleship group? Are you holding them or drowning them? and who are you standing on that you can thank for their faithfulness?

This is about everyday ordinary days of quiet faithfulness, abiding in Christ. Not because you have to but because you want to.

And when someone climbs on you, you bear their burdens. You do that by taking them off of them and putting them on your shoulders, and then depending on the Spirit to take them off your shoulders and put them on the shoulders of the mountain, who is Christ.

Upon Him can rest all the burdens of the world.

And soon those whose burdens you carry will learn from you how to depend on the Spirit to animate the faithfulness of Christ, and they will become a mountain that maybe you need to depend on one day.

We are all drowning, but there is one who comes out and walks upon those waters.

He is the Prince of Eden, the garden maker, the one who makes even mountains quake in His presence. He is the mountain of all mountains. The King Mountain.

And He came into our world. And He spoke the truest of all words, because He was the true word.

Often, before Jesus spoke to crowds He would say truly truly I say to you. That means Amen, Amen I say to you. A double amen not after the sermon but before.

He is making a claim before he even speaks. My words are faithful and true. They are mountains you can build you life on, because I am the Mountain to build your life on, no matter what chaotic waters surround you.

It the middle of a storm, when the disciples were in a boat terrified. Jesus walked out upon the waters to them.

And He asked Peter to step off the boat, to step off of what he was building his life upon and trust Him more than the false mountain.

And He stood, but then feared and sank, and Jesus reached out His hand.

Take the risk of faith in Him. If you already believe, risk more. He was reach His hand when you stumble in faith.

2 Timothy 2:13 “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”

Don’t base your life on the quality of your faith, but the quality of the one you have faith in.

The One who commands the sea came into our world, and entered the chaotic waters we ran into.

He went to the chaos of the cross and was thrown to the bottom of the chaotic sea of death.

And in death, He became our rock that rose like a mountain from the watery grave.

Death couldn’t have Him, and through faith in Him, death can’t have us.

Yes there is still pain, suffering, and loss. But they have no power over us. They are only something we pass through as we rise up above them on the mountain garden who is Christ.

Let your life be faithful and true. An amen kind of life that echoes His life, the one you built yours upon.

Go be faithful to others, a mountain they can build their life on, because you have built and are building your life on Him.