What are you standing on?

is 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. I'll say it again. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. If we are not careful, history can repeat itself. Personally, I can't think of a single time that that phrase is used. to describe something good. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses one through 11, Paul warns the Corinthian church not to be ignorant of what happened to Israel in time's past. They walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. They were provided with food and water, which flowed from a rock that followed them, which Paul said in verse four was Christ. Despite this unmatched favor from God, they still went after idols and immoral practices, suffering the consequences of God's righteous anger. In verses 11 and 12, Paul writes, now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. Israel grew complacent. They did not love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and might. His words were far from their hearts. They were standing on the wrong thing. The Corinthians, much like Israel, were standing on the wrong thing. This was evident because of divisions in the church, placing more values on teachers instead of Christ, spiritual pride, sexual immorality, and lawsuits in the body, just to name a few. Their actions tell us that they took the cross, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for granted. They were standing on the wrong thing. So what does standing on the wrong thing look like? If there's a wrong thing, then what's the right thing, and how does that apply to us? There are two main ways we can stand on the wrong thing. First, we can grow complacent in our faith, and second, we can take God's grace for granted. And by complacent, I mean placing confidence in ourselves. Proverbs 16, 18 says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Because we are sinners, we are so quick to steal from God. We are so quick to forget that Jesus is the only source of our salvation and sanctification. If we are not careful, we can move from reliance on God to reliance on ourselves. One example of this reliance shift in my own life is in my own devotional time, a seemingly good thing, right? It's good if I'm in a place, I mean it's not good if I'm in a place of relying on myself instead of the Holy Spirit to interpret the truth of God's Word. I took a good thing, the Bible, and stole God's glory by placing confidence in myself. I used scripture reading as an example, but I am guilty of doing this with worship, with church, with prayer, with serving, my job, and my marriage, and the list goes on. Now, this wasn't a part of my original outline, but the Lord put it on my heart about an hour and a half, two hours ago to add it. I have been especially guilty of this in my marriage. Husbands, when we place confidence in ourselves in marriage, we will fall disastrously short of the love Christ intends for our wives, leaving them nothing but a sinful shell of a man that can't love souls. So I'll ask myself and everyone here What are we standing on? Confidence in ourselves or confidence in our Lord Jesus Christ? If we're standing on confidence in ourselves, then we stand on nothing because apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Confidence in ourselves undermines the truth of God, leaving us wide open to the dangers of idolatry, which will always in some way lead to some type of immorality. A byproduct of confidence in ourselves is taking God's grace for granted. The prevalent sin in Israel and the Corinthian church shows us that they were taking God's grace for granted. And when there is prevalent sin in our lives, we too are taking God's grace for granted. We forget that what happened to Israel in the examples that Paul showed was God's grace. I mean, they all could have been wiped out. And we forget the reality of what our sin really deserves, which is you know, death and eternal punishment in hell forever. Paul, I am guilty of this too. Sometimes I forget the miracle that took place in my own life. By his grace, he saved me, a drug-addicted sinner who rightfully deserved the full penalty of God's wrath, and now I stand here, a new creation in Christ. Paul writes in Romans 5, verses one and two. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We must remember that if we take God's grace for granted, we stand on nothing because it is by God's grace alone that we are able to stand. If the temptation to place confidence in ourselves and to take God's grace for granted can take on so many forms, then how do we fight it? What do we do? Well, I believe Paul gives us the answer in the following verses after verse 12, verses 13 and 14. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. God will provide a way of escape, and the way of escape is Jesus Christ. Jesus says in John 15, 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. And apart from me, you can do nothing. We must at all times be connected to our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in him that we must place our full confidence. If we do this, we will be much less likely to take God's grace for granted and slip into idolatry. We will be much less likely to repeat the history of Israel and the Corinthian church.