Community Bible Church Manchester Michigan Podcast

1 Thessalonians 1:4-10

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We’re going to read from 1st Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 4 through 10. Words are on the screen, and you can follow along as I read what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica. Paul wrote, for we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.

You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so, you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

The Lord’s message rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell us how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath.

All right, we’re going to start the book of 1st Thessalonians this morning. And it was about three weeks ago that we kind of gave an introductory message, and then we had a graduation Sunday, and we had a Father’s Day Sunday.

But we’re going to jump into 1st Thessalonians. And the theme of 1st Thessalonians is to be ready to live in light of Christ’s return. And it’s interesting, as you read through Paul’s letter to this church that he helped establish, and now he’s writing back to them to encourage them, at the end of every chapter, there’s five chapters, there’s a reference to the coming of Christ, a reference to the second coming of Christ in the end of every chapter.

And so, 1st Thessalonians has a lot to do with the fact that Christ is coming again someday, and that we need to be ready for that. This morning we’re going to look at three characteristics of that first century church in Thessalonica, from chapter 1. And they’re characteristics that describe that group of people, those believers 2,000 years ago. But I also want to suggest these same three characteristics need to describe your life, my life, and our church.

And so, we’re going to just jump into this, and let’s look at the first one here, that the church at Thessalonica was composed of an elect people, an elect people. Let me read the first three verses, or four verses of 1st Thessalonians, we read four through ten. Let me read the introductory verses here from chapter 1. Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church of Thessalonians, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, here’s Paul’s normal greeting, grace and peace to you.

We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, for we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that he has chosen you. God has chosen you.

Now, here’s the $64,000 question, and it’s been debated all through church history. Did God choose us, or did we choose him? And that’s been debated all through church history, and we’re not going to solve that equation this morning, but the doctrine of election is all through Scripture. In the Old Testament, God had, what, the chosen people.

He chose Abraham to be the father of, what, the Jewish nation, and the nation of Israel became God’s chosen people. Why did God choose Israel? Why didn’t he choose some other nation? We don’t know. That was in the heart of God.

In fact, Deuteronomy chapter 7 talks about this choosing, that God chose the nation of Israel, and here’s what Deuteronomy 7, beginning in verse 6, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God, the Lord your God has chosen you, the Israelites, out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people and his treasured possession. And so, God chose the nation of Israel to be his chosen people. Verse 7, the Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples.

It wasn’t that Israel was some great nation. No, you were the fewest of all peoples, but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, and he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from slavery. So, in the Old Testament, God chose the Israelites as God’s chosen people.

And when we come to the New Testament and this doctrine of election that God has chosen some to be part of God’s family, our immediate reaction might be, well, that doesn’t seem fair. One of the strongest verses on election in the New Testament is Acts chapter 13, verse 48. Pauls on a missionary journey.

He’s in Antioch, and here’s Acts 13:48, when the Gentiles heard this, the gospel, referring to the gospel, they were glad and honored the Lord, and all who were appointed to eternal life believed. When they heard the gospel, they were glad, and all who were appointed to eternal life believed. We read Paul’s epistles and Peter’s writings in Ephesians chapter 1, praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he’s blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing, for he chose us in him when before the creation of the world, the foundation of the world.

We go to 1st Peter chapter 1, and Peter writes to those believers who were scattered across Asia because of persecution to God’s elect who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God. And so, this doctrine is all through Scripture, and yet we read other verses, Romans 10:13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, John 3:16, for God so loved the world that whosoever believes in him will have eternal life. It seems like an oxymoron when you put those two together, but the Bible teaches that God has chosen an election, and yet the offer of salvation is to everyone.

Here’s what Dr. Warren Wiersbe writes, we will never fully understand the total concept of election this side of heaven. Dr. Wiersbe is in heaven now, you’re familiar with Dr. Wiersbe, he wrote all those commentaries of the Bible, the B-series, and each book of the Bible is entitled B-something, be ready, be faithful, and he wrote one on every book of the Bible, and Dr. Wiersbe passed away about four or five years ago. So, this doctrine of election and the fact that the Bible offers salvation to all is hard for us to comprehend.

About a month ago, maybe five weeks ago, this was the topic of study in our adult Sunday school class, and we were trying to talk about this and kind of work through it, and April you gave an illustration that I’ve given many times, it just has helped me that when you get to heaven’s gates, and this just helps me put these two together, on the outside of the gate is for whosoever will may come, and on the inside of that gate of heaven is chosen in him before the foundation of the world. Well, Paul’s writing to these Thessalonian believers, he says, God has chosen you, you are part of God’s people by choice. This also brings up another question, well if God has chosen those to be saved, why should we witness? Why should we support missionaries? Why should we have a mission program? Because God’s already chosen.

Here’s the answer to that, the same God who ordains the end has also ordained the means. In other words, the same God who ordained salvation has also ordained the means by which people will hear the gospel, and that falls on our responsibility. We are ambassadors for Christ.

He who knew no sin became sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God, and Paul says, we’re to be Christ’s ambassadors, we’re to be faithful in sharing the gospel. So, it was a week ago, Wednesday, and I’m so grateful for our Beyond Awana program, and I talked to Danielle Riethmiller, and said, you know, I always like to share one Wednesday a gospel message with the kids. And so, a week ago, Wednesday, we kind of carved out some time out of our closing, and the kids sang one song, and this entire side of the auditorium was filled with kids.

And I gave a very short gospel presentation. I said, sin has to be paid for, and either you’re going to pay for your sin, or Jesus already paid for your sin. And I kept that very short because there’s a wide age range of kids, so you got to keep it short and to the point, so five or six minutes long, and I’ve done this a few times in the past, I said, you know what, now we’re going to sing a song, and I’m going to go stand in the back by those double doors, and if anybody here has a question about salvation, or maybe you felt a little prompting in your heart as I was sharing that, while they sing, I want you to get up and come to the back and meet me.

I call it going backwards rather than going forward. And the song was sung, and I stood in the back there, and I’ll tell you what happened. And as soon as we were done, I was back in my office, my two oldest grandsons, Shane and Luke, that were here that night, they come dashing back to me, they said, Grandpa, Grandpa, did anybody come forward or come backward? They wanted to know.

I said, you know what, Shane and Luke, no one did this time, but that’s okay, because what’s our job? Our job is what? To be faithful in proclaiming the good news of the gospel.

Well, Paul’s writing to a group of believers, and Paul is writing to an elect people chosen by God. Secondly, he’s writing to an exemplary people, an exemplary people.

We already read verses two and three, but Paul’s like, hey, I’m so thankful for you, and I’m praying for you, and I remember before God, here’s the three phrases. They were, first of all, an example of hard work. Your work, produced by faith, your labor, prompted by love, your endurance, inspired by hope in Christ.

These are people who were busy working for the Lord, and their relationship with God wasn’t just to kind of sit and listen, but they were excited about the gospel, and they worked, and they were an example of hard work in doing the work of the ministry, the work of prayer, the work of sharing the gospel, the work of making disciples. They were an example of hard work, and notice they were an example of the three great virtues of the Christian faith. Paul writes, 1st Corinthians 13, now abide faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

And here we are in verse two, or verse three rather, work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope. Faith, hope. What motivated Paul in his missionary work? He writes about it in 2nd Corinthians 5, the love of Christ constrains me, the love of Christ constrains me to share and minister the truth and the gospel.

So, they were an example, the church at Thessalonica, they were an example of hard work, they were an example of the three great virtues, faith, hope, and love. They were an example of following godly leadership. Look at verse five, I’ll go back to verse four, for we know brothers and sisters loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words but with power, with the Holy Spirit, deep conviction, you know how we lived among you for your sake, you became imitators of us and the Lord.

So, Paul says you believers came to faith in Christ and then you became a follower of the apostle Paul and of Christ. This is all through Paul’s writings, he encourages people, follow me as I follow Christ. He writes to the Philippians, the things that you have learned and heard and received and seen in me, this is what I want you to do.

And so, these believers became followers of godly leadership, of spiritual leadership. That’s found in Hebrews 13:17, the author of Hebrews says have confidence in your leadership and your leaders and submit to their authority because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden.

And so, these Thessalonian believers were following godly leadership and leadership of the apostle Paul. And so, verse seven goes on to say, so you became a model to all the believers as they followed Paul, as they followed the Lord, they became a model. The word here in the Greek is charagma, it’s the mark or imprint left by a die that strikes metal to make a coin or a seal that leaves an imprint on wax.

Those new believers became a model for other churches and other believers around them as they followed Christ. Goes on to say verse eight, the Lord’s message rang out from you, the word there literally is like trumpeted out, the gospel rang out from you, these new believers as they shared the gospel, it rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, your faith in God has become known everywhere, therefore we do not need to say anything about it for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave. The Thessalonian church was sharing the gospel and it was echoing out to the surrounding areas and so that everybody became aware of this wonderful church in Thessalonica that worked hard, faith, hope, and love and shared God’s truth.

And the church at Thessalonica became the talk of the town. Everybody heard about it. About six or seven years ago, just a little personal antidote, our oldest grandson, Shane, was sliding down some carpeted basement steps and there was a nail about that long that was kind of somehow was sticking out the reverse way and it had a small head on it and as he slid down those steps with his bare feet, that nail like pierced his foot and went all the way into his foot except for that little round head there.

And so, they took his shoe off but they didn’t want to take, mom and dad did, they didn’t want to take the sock off because it was literally nailed to his foot. So, they take him to University of Michigan Hospital and he’s in the ER there and they got him all fixed up but Shane’s rather stoic when it comes to injuries. His brother is just the opposite and he didn’t cry.

He was like six years old and he just like, they took that nail out and the doctors and nurses were kind of amazed. And so, when he got back from that experience, he told me, he says, yeah, grandpa, he says, that was the talk of the town. He says, everybody was talking about me.

How brave I was. Well, that’s what the Thessalonians were. Not for being brave in an injury but because of their faith in Christ and because of their faithful sharing of the good news of the gospel.

So, the Church of Thessalonica was composed of an elect people and they were an example of hard work, of perseverance, of following leaders, of sharing the gospel. But here’s our third and last point we’ll camp on for a little bit. They were an expectant people.

They were an expectant people. So, I mentioned every chapter in Thessalonians finishes with a reference to what? The second coming, the return of Christ. And here it is in verse nine of chapter one.

Let me read it. For the surrounding areas, they tell how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. So, here’s the order of this.

We’ll look at verse 10 in just a little bit. But what happened in the lives of these Thessalonians? They were serving idols and the transforming power of the gospel totally changed their lives and now they’re serving what? They’re serving the living and true God. Their lives have been totally changed.

You remember Paul in Acts chapter 17, Paul’s in Athens and he says he’s walking around the city and he’s grieved because everywhere he looks there are idols all around. He goes up to Mars Hill and he’s talking to the intellectual elite in Athens and he says, I see you have altars to all these idols. I want to tell you about the unknown God.

And he uses that opportunity to share the truth of God and the truth of salvation. These Thessalonian believers have had a life transformation. They used to serve idols.

Now they serve the living and true God. A pastor by the name of Brad Bigney has written a book entitled Gospel Treason. And in it he quotes 1st John 5:21. This is how the book of 1st John closes.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. You might think, well, I don’t have any idols in my house. I don’t have any wooden statues that I bow down to.

But just as we camp on this concept of idols, here’s the definition of an idol. An idol is anything or anyone that captures our hearts, minds, and affections more than God. Anything or anyone that takes first place in our life before God is an idol.

Exodus 23, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Matthew 22:37, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. So, as John Calvin said, the human heart is a perpetual idol factory.

The human heart is a perpetual idol factory. I’m going to just quote a little bit here from Brad Bigney. He says, how do you recognize the idols of our heart? He says, follow the trail of your time, your money, and your affections.

He goes on to say, idolatry is false worship, misplaced, misdirected worship. We’re made to relate to God, but when we don’t give him the ultimate priority in our lives, we inflate things in this world to religious proportions to fill the vacuum left by God’s exclusion. You can’t exclude God from your thinking and priorities and do well.

You’ll need the alcohol industry, or the pharmaceutical industry, or the sporting industry, or the entertainment industry, or some other industry to sustain you once you’ve abandoned God as your first love. Why? Because you need something in your life to compensate for the absence of God and the absence of a robust love for your Savior. And the alcohol, the drugs, the entertainment, the sports can never do it.

They always fall short and leave you wanting more. Whether you cross a church doorway or not, you worship before an altar. Maybe your neighbors don’t go to church, but they worship in front of the television, or at the grill, or out on the lake.

They’re just not worshiping the God of the Bible. So, we need to be very, very careful. It’s very easy to make things that are good in our lives, that God created for our good and our enjoyment, and to raise them to a level where they’re ahead of the priority of God.

I grew up loving sports as a young person. And I’ll have to admit, at one point in my life, sports was probably an idol above God.

Our looks can be an idol. Our family can be an idol. God demands first place in our life.

And so here are these Thessalonians, and they turned from idol worshiper. Now they’re serving a living God. Well, we need to inspect our lives, don’t we? Make sure that God has first place in our life and in our worship, that we’re worshiping Him and Him alone.

Well, the text goes on to say that they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. What else were they doing? Here’s the second coming. And to wait for His Son, Jesus from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath.

So, you’ve turned to God from idols, and you’re serving Him. You’re sharing the gospel. And what else are you doing? You’re waiting.

And it’s an act of waiting. Not like the Millerites, if you’re familiar with the Millerites in history. They knew about the second coming of Christ, and there was a group called the Millerites.

And they said, okay, Christ is coming again, so we’re going to sell all our possessions. We think He’s coming soon. And they went up on a mountain, and they were waiting for Christ’s return.

That’s not what this verse means. But they were living expectant lives. Remember the promise in Acts 1? The ascension, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, or 40 days.

Men of Galilee, the angel said to the disciples that were standing on that mount, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you’ve seen Him go into heaven. What did they say? Jesus is coming again. Just as you’ve seen Him levitate up to heaven, someday He is coming back.

I said, well, why hasn’t He come back yet? It’s been 2,000 years. I think 2nd Peter gives us a little bit of a hint in 2nd Peter chapter 3. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise. He promised to come back, and He will.

Instead, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. And so maybe the reason that Jesus hasn’t come back yet is He’s long-suffering. He’s waiting for people to come to Him and receive Him as personal Savior.

And so, these Thessalonian believers were an elect group chosen by God. They were an example to other believers and to other churches. But they lived their lives with an expectant heart.

They were an expectant people, living in light of God’s return. And so very quickly as we close, and then we’re going to listen to a song about the second coming, a couple application questions to be ready for Christ’s return.

And so, here’s the first question, are you ready? Are you ready? By that I mean, have you been born again? There are many people that sit in churches Sunday after Sunday and they’re trusting in religion, they’re trusting in good deeds, they’re trusting in good works to get them to heaven. We know that Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we’re not saved by works, but we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

And so, Paul writes to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter 13, the end of the book, verse 5, and he says this, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Examine your life, because if there’s one question you don’t want to be wrong on, it’s the question of where you are going to spend your eternal destiny. So, you need to examine yourself to see whether you’re in the faith.

Last Thursday, I actually attended two funerals. I wasn’t physically present at the first one, but my dad’s youngest brother’s wife, Nedra, and thank you, some of you prayed for her, went through a surgery and spent 135 days in the hospital until God called her home. And so, they had her memorial service Thursday at 10:30am Charlotte, North Carolina.

My younger brother drove down from Northern Ohio to attend the funeral and it was live streamed Thursday at 10:30. I’d just finished teaching a Bible lesson at Maranatha, got in my car, and there was an 11 o’clock funeral for a good friend of mine who passed away a week ago, and I wanted to be at his funeral service. So, I sat in the parking lot of Sistema Funeral Home in Muskegon and watched the first 30 minutes of my aunt’s funeral, watched the rest of its last night.

It was a very touching service. She loved God with all of her heart. And then after I watched the first 20 minutes, I went in and was at a funeral service for my good friend Richard Stone, and Barb, you know, you’ve known the Stones for a long, long time.

They lived in Jackson area, Brooklyn for many years. They owned a place on Maranatha’s property. One of the things that my cousin’s husband, and he’s a chaplain with Motor Racing Sports, travels all over with NASCAR and runs chapel services.

He works for Hendricks Motorsports in Charlotte, North Carolina. Every Wednesday they have a luncheon for all their employees, and my cousin’s husband gets up and shares. They have a lunch, and then they have like a church service at Hendricks Motorsports.

He says, I don’t know why death surprises us. Why are we surprised? My wife says, someday we’re all going to die. The most important thing is to be ready.

Are you ready? Have you been born again? Are you concerned about your family members, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers? Do they know the gospel? Secondly, is your life worthy of being a role model? We’re all role models in one sense, but are you comfortable saying in your Christian Walk, would you follow me as I follow Christ? Well, not that anybody’s perfect, but let’s journey together. Are we a role model in how we love one another? Are we a role model in helping meet the needs of others? Are we a role model in studying God’s word and having a hunger for God’s word? Getting the gospel out is our life and collectively is our church worthy of imitating. Probably about three months ago, I had Diane order 50 tracts of steps to peace with God.

She orders it on Amazon. I’ve never ordered anything in my life on Amazon, so I don’t even know how to do it, but my wife does more often than I would care to. I say, hey, let’s order 50 tracts of steps to peace with God.

And here’s what I’ve noticed, because I put them out there on that ministry table, about four or five at a time. I’m always encouraged when I come in and say, hey man, there’s only one left. It happens frequently.

I’m down to my last two or three, we’re going to order some more. That tells me that I don’t know who, but somebody is picking those up and reading it, and it’s just a simple gospel presentation. Is our life and our church worthy of imitating? Here’s the last one.

Am I living in eager expectation of the any moment return of Christ? The book of Titus calls it the blessed hope. And this is what Thessalonians is all about, that Jesus is coming again someday, and we need to live our lives in expectancy of his return. Now, we don’t know when it’s going to be, but we know that he’s coming back, and we know that it could be soon.

So, here’s what Corrie ten Boom said, if you look at the world, you will be distressed. We could all say amen to that. If you look within, if you just keep looking at yourself, you will be depressed.

She says, if you look at God, turn your eyes on him, you will be at rest. So, here’s what Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, and he’s talking about the fact that there’s going to be some signs that will precede the return of Christ. And Jesus said in Luke 21:28, when these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Don’t focus on looking at yourself within, don’t put your focus on what’s going on in the world, and Jesus says, I want you to keep your eyes fixed on the prize and on my promise, because our redemption is drawing near.

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Let’s dive right into our Father’s Day message here, and it’s entitled Healing the Father Wound. I hope and pray this is helpful for some of you, and perhaps all of you. And I’m not just talking to dads this morning, I’m going to apply this to all of us.

Isn’t it interesting that if you have a physical injury, if you come in here with a cast on your arm, or maybe on crutches, or with a walking boot like Ryan Kovach has on this morning. He just got back from two weeks in Missouri on National Guard duty. And you’re going to get a lot of attention, or you should, from the body of Christ.

Hopefully we care about each other enough to say, hey, how are you doing? What happened? How can I pray for you? Physical injuries get a lot of attention. But the reality is that sometimes pain on the inside doesn’t get much attention. And those internal hurts in our lives, whether it’s emotional pain, or whatever kind of pain from our past, we don’t go around talking about it.

And so, this morning we’re going to talk about healing the father wound. And we’ll explain what that is. And this is going to be one of these messages where it’s going to take 15 or 20 minutes to kind of set the table, define the problem.

And then we’re going to get to what I believe is the solution, which is the scripture. So, some of you that are like, why isn’t he opening his Bible yet? This will take just a little bit of time to develop this whole concept of a father wound. Have you ever noticed that you’re watching sports, and I’m a big sports fan, and you’re watching that big football game, and someone’s made a great play, a touchdown, or a pick six, and they’re on the bench, and the TV camera focuses in a closeup of that football player, and he waves his hand, and what does he say? Hi mom, Hi mom. I’ve never seen a football player or athlete in that occasion say, hi dad. It’s hi mom.

Isn’t it interesting, and I researched this, according to the card companies, there are 45 million fewer Father’s Day cards purchased than Mother’s Day. 45 million fewer Father’s Day cards than Mother’s Day. That speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Something’s going on.

And so, this morning, we want to really ask three questions. What is the father wound? Why do we have a father wound? And then most importantly, and we’ll get there, how do we heal the father wound? So, this might be one of these messages that might stir up a few emotions in some of us. Maybe you were one that looked at that video and all those characteristics of a good father, and maybe if you’re transparent and honest, like, well, that’s nice, but that wasn’t my experience.

That’s life in a fallen world, isn’t it? So, what is the father’s wound? And I’m just going to have to do some quick reading here. The father wound is an unresolved trauma between father and child that occurs when a person’s father is absent or abusive. It is important to recognize that both a physical or emotional absence can cause a father wound.

Likewise, if your father was abusive, manipulative, or emotionally unavailable, that can also lead to a father wound. So you may have a father wound if your father was overprotective, controlling, highly critical of you, you can never please your father, verbally, physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive, abandoned by leaving you when you were a child, one who neglected your physical or emotional needs, 60, 70 years ago, a good dad was like, hey, I put a roof over your head and gave you three square meals a day, what else do you want? A lot more, there’s a lot more to fathering than that. Suffered, your father suffered from substance abuse, your father left the family as a result of a divorce or separation, he passed away when you were a child, all these things lead to a father wound.

And so, in the book by John Eldredge, Wild at Heart, John says, I’ve never met a man, or probably a woman, he’s wrote this book, Geared Toward Men, that does not have some sort of father wound. Some are much deeper than others, so why do we have a father wound? You may have had the best father in the world, but there’s one characteristic, there’s no perfect human fathers. I had a great father, dad was a pastor, did ministry for 60 years, and I’ll ask this question, and ask if anybody else has had this experience, and I’ve told this story many times.

25 years ago, Moody Pastors Conference, my dad and I are attending it on the campus of Moody Bible Institute, and it was four days where 1,500 pastors come from all over and experience great preaching, and fellowship, and encouragement. And so, one day we’re there, and my dad wants to take me out to lunch, we go out to lunch, we’re having lunch in downtown Chicago, and lunch is about winding up, and he stops, he says, hey, I’ve got a question I want to ask you, like, oh, okay. Is, how do you think I did as your father? I want you to give me some feedback on whether or not I was a good father, or some things that I didn’t do very well.

And I have to tell you, I was like, kind of blindsided and blown away, like, my dad is asking me to give him a grade on fathering? And so, I spoke some words of appreciation and affirmation, and then I honestly gave him a couple of things that I thought maybe could’ve been handled a little better. Can I just ask a question? Has anybody else ever had that experience? Yeah, highly, I had a great father, but there’s no perfect fathers. Let me read the quote from John Eldredge.

Every man, woman, carries a wound. I’ve never met a man without one. No matter how good your life may have seemed to you, you live in a broken world full of broken people.

Your mother and father, no matter how wonderful, couldn’t have been perfect. She is the daughter of Eve; he is the son of Adam. There is no journey through this life without the wound.

And then John talks about his wound. Growing up in a family with an alcoholic dad. He says, the message delivered in my wound was simply this.

You’re on your own, John. There was no one in your corner, no one to show you the way, and above all, no one to tell you if you are or are not a man. He goes on to say, even after God’s dramatic rescue of me at the age of 19, when I became a Christian, the wound remained.

As my good friend Brent said, becoming a Christian doesn’t necessarily fix things. My arrows were still lodged deep and refused to allow some angry wounds to heal inside. And so, John Eldredge wrote the book Wild at Heart to help men and perhaps women would benefit from reading the book to heal from what is called the father wound.

John goes on to say there’s two basic options with the woundedness that many men live with. Number one, men either overcompensate for their wound and become very driven, hard charging, fiercely independent, and sometimes very angry underneath the surface, or they shrink back and become very passive. And so, this morning, we want to just spend about 15 minutes and think about, well, what do we do with that?

And so, we’re going to look to Scripture and think about how do we heal the father wound? Obviously, Scripture addresses this, Psalm 27:10. The psalmist writes, though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will rescue me. We heard it this morning, didn’t we? It was a kid saying up there, he is a good, good father. And some of us that maybe did not grow up with a good father have a hard time relating to that.

The goodness of God and the love of God in our life. Psalm 68, five and six, a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families.

And so, the generic answer is that God can become our father. In fact, he is the only perfect father. Matthew 5:48, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

And so, there is a perfect father who exists. So how do we heal this father wound? And I’m just going to walk us through a few steps here and hopefully backed by Scripture that will help encourage us this morning. And this is a process and maybe you’re just going to take step one this morning or step one and two and continue to work through this in your life.

But let’s think about the first point here. It’s going to be A, B, C, D, E, five points. Number one, acknowledge the wound.

Acknowledge, acknowledge the wound that we all grew up in an imperfect world. I was on a website and thinking about the father wound and it listed 17 symptoms of the father wound. Not going to reach all 17, but what does this look like? You feel all alone in the world.

Kind of feel like an orphan. You feel underappreciated, you work, work, work, but it feels like nobody notices your efforts and nobody cares about what you do. You need constant affirmation.

You feel rejected like you really don’t belong anywhere. You feel distant from God. You feel like you have to work for or earn love and acceptance.

You spend a lot of time in introspection, looking inside, rather than focusing on God. Well, there’s no perfect fathers and the first thing we need to acknowledge that and that some of us might carry a wound or some baggage from our physical or father. Secondly, here’s what we need to do and this is a natural step.

Become part of God’s forever family. So that’s the first step of understanding who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, and then how to receive the gospel. That’s what we’re going to talk to some of your kids and grandkids about on Wednesday.

I found that many people know the gospel, they understand the gospel, they just need someone to lead them to know how to receive the gospel. And so, it’s becoming part of God’s forever family. Galatians chapter four, verses four through seven.

Paul writes, but when the time set had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. So, you are no longer a slave, but God’s child.

And since you are his child, God has made you an heir. And so, it’s the gospel, becoming an adopted child of God into God’s family, so that we can approach the throne of God, and we can call him, Abba, you’re my father. I can call you Daddy.

2nd Corinthians 5:21, he who knew no sin became sin for us, so that in him we might become, what? The righteousness of God. The gift of salvation is a wonderful gift that Jesus paid it all, and we simply need to repent of our sin and put our trust in him and him alone. So, Brendan Manning says, the deepest desire of our hearts is for a union with God.

God has created us for a relationship with him. Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes; God has put eternity in our hearts. C.S. Lewis says, as a car is made to run on gasoline, God designed us to run on himself.

He is the fuel our souls were designed to burn, the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. And so, when you receive Jesus as your savior, when you’re trusting in him and him alone for forgiveness of sin, you are adopted into God’s family.

We sing that little chorus, I’m so glad I’m part of the family of God. And it’s a universal worldwide family, but also a local church family where we can encourage one another and meet each other’s needs and pray for one another. So, Matthew 7, Jesus talking about the Sermon on the Mount, here’s what he says, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened unto you.

Verse nine, which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So, we have this good father, James 1:17, every good and perfect gift comes from the father above. And so, acknowledge the wound, become part of God’s forever family through grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

Here’s a third step, letter C, A-B-C, choose to forgive, choose to forgive. And this is where it gets a little difficult. Someone has said everybody believes in forgiveness, thinks it’s a great idea until you have to forgive someone. Especially someone that may have hurt you deeply.

But it’s choosing to forgive. One of the first verses I remember memorizing as a young boy growing up in the church is Ephesians chapter four, verse 31, 32. And you’re saying, if you memorized it, why are you turning to it? Because that was a long time ago.

Ephesians 4:32, be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you. Be kind to one another, be compassionate to one another, and forgive one another just as God has forgiven you.

Now I’ve struggled with this for years, this matter of forgiveness and looking at scripture and like, am I just supposed to like, blanket forgive everyone? Even if they don’t ask for an apology. And so, there’s two sides and you can read Christian books and they’ll say, yes, you just need to forgive everybody. As I look at Ephesians 4:32, it says, forgive one another just as God in Christ’s sake has forgiven you.

How does God forgive you? You have to ask him. The only way to salvation is that we come and we have to ask God for forgiveness of our sins. And then God forgives us.

And so, I believe that forgiveness is a godly response to an apology. Now that raises the question, well, what happens if the person that hurt me is gone or has died or, as Dr. Chapman says, there’s a group of people who will never ask forgiveness, category of people. They’ve done studies.

90% of them are men, by the way. Never ask for forgiveness. So, what do you do if someone never asks for forgiveness? Well, I like to use the term release.

That you turn them over, release them to God. And it’s kind of a form of forgiveness and it’ll just help us, I think, as we make our way through life. And I want to turn to 2nd Timothy chapter four.

Here’s the Apostle Paul, says, Alexander the metal worker did me a great deal of harm. So, he’s calling out this guy. He’s like, this guy hurt me.

This guy really did me wrong. What does he say? The Lord will repay him for what he’s done. I’m going to turn him over to God.

God will repay him. And then he gives a warning. You should be on your guard against him because he strongly opposed our message.

But we have to choose to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. An act of the will.

Dr. Neil Anderson says, don’t wait until you feel like forgiving. You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal, usually after the choice to forgive is made.

Sometimes forgiveness is a process. It takes some time, but we need to choose to forgive. Number four, ABCD, delight in God’s overwhelming love.

So now you’re part of God’s forever family and you need to get to know this perfect, good, good father that the Bible talks about. And we need to embrace that love, understand that love and delight in that love. So let me read Zephaniah 3:17. I’m glad I found that because earlier it took me about five minutes to find Zephaniah.

I found it right off the bat this time. Here’s what Zephaniah says. The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you. In his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but he will rejoice over you with singing. God the good, good father who loves us immeasurably more than we can ask or think delights in you.

He rejoices over you with singing like a mother who’s singing a lullaby to her precious child. God wants to sing over you. We need to delight in God’s overwhelming love.

And so, Cory Asbury wrote the song Reckless Love. Let me read some of the lyrics here. Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me.

You have been so, so good to me. Before I took a breath, you breathed your life in me. You have been so, so good to me.

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God. It chases me down, fights till I’m found, leaves the 99. I couldn’t earn it; I don’t deserve it.

Still, you give yourself away. Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God. Have you experienced that? Have you just delighted in how much God loves you? And that was Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians.

He says, I want you to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. I want you to know the greatness of his love, how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And what’s Romans 8 say? That mountaintop chapter in the New Testament.

What shall separate us from the love of God? Paul asked that question. And then he goes on to write these great words. Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Knowing all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, angels, demons, present, future, any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. And so, all scripture, especially in the New Testament, reminds us how much God loves us. And if we’re going to overcome the pain inside and especially from that father wound, we’re going to have to get to know our father, God the Father, really, really well.

We’re going to get to just understand his love for us. Dr. David Jeremiah’s book, God Loves You, says God’s love is uncaused, it’s unending, it’s unlimited, it’s unchanging, it’s unconditional. Unconditional love.

All right, here’s the E, healing the father wound, acknowledge the wound, become part of God’s forever family, choose to forgive, delight in understanding God’s overwhelming love, and then E is to encourage one another. Maybe that’s not quite the right word, but I had to go with the E in the alphabet. Encourage one another.

That’s what 1st Thessalonians 4:18 tells us to do. Encourage one another. I don’t know if you’ve ever studied the one another phrases that are in the New Testament, there’s 12 of them.

Lays out our responsibility as part of the body of Christ. We’re to encourage one another, we’re to pray for one another, we’re to love one another, we’re to bear each other’s burdens, on and on it goes. Eight, there’s 12 of them, and one of the things that God wants us to do is to encourage one another.

And so, part of the healing of the father’s wound is to get with a group of, I’ll just use the phrase band of brothers, or band of sisters, you can be together with, maybe someone that’s a little further along in your spiritual walk, this is mentoring, this is discipleship, get involved in a group of others, and encourage one another in our walk, in our healing, and in our daily lives. David Smith, 1983, wrote a book entitled The Friendless American Male. Ladies, you’re pretty good at developing friendships and relationships, guys, we’re not that good at it.

When was the last time another guy called you up and said, hey, let’s go out for a cup of coffee? Doesn’t happen very often. They say women’s relationships are face-to-face, men build relationships shoulder-to-shoulder. We work on projects together, and that’s kind of how you get to know one another sometimes.

And so, healing the father wound, Eldridge says, our sin is that stubborn part inside that wants, above all else, to be independent. There’s a part of us fiercely committed to live in a way where we do not have to depend on anyone. And culture comes along with figures like John Wayne and James Bond, and the one thing they have in common is that they are loners, they don’t need anyone.

So, we come to believe deep in our hearts that needing anyone is some sort of weakness when the Bible says just the opposite. We desperately need one another, especially in the culture in which we. So, what do we do with all this? What are some action steps? Like I said, this is a process.

Number one, maybe this is the first step, maybe you’ve never thought about this father wound, but acknowledge the wound, that we’re all raised by an imperfect parent. Number two, become part of God’s forever family. If there’s somebody here that’s never received the gift of eternal life, that needs to be your first step.

Adopt it into God’s family. And would love to share with you the easy steps of how that can happen, become part of God’s family. Maybe some of us later today or later this week need to just think about choosing to forgive and writing down those hurts and offenses and then giving it to God, making that choice to forgive or to release.

Maybe some of us need to read some scripture and verses and be reminded of how much God loves us. And if there’s any doubt about how much God loves us, we simply need to look at the cross, don’t we? He gave his most precious possession to take our place and to die for our sins. Then maybe some of us need to find a band of brothers or a band of sisters, just a small group where we can pray for one another, encourage one another and journey through life together.

And so probably in the next month or so, we’re going to offer, at least for men, an opportunity to do that, trying to figure that out when a good meeting time might be. But we’re going to share that and that might be a great step for some of us. Healing the father’s wound.

God’s the perfect father and he loves us immeasurably more than we can ask or even imagine.

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1 Timothy 4:7-12

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We’re going to read some scripture. This is 1st Timothy 4, 7 through 12. Paul writing to his son in the faith, Timothy, and let me read verses 7 through 12.

I have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales. Rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. This is why we labor and strive, because we put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things.

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in conduct, in speech, in love, in faith, in purity.

Well, last week we gave an introductory message to the book of 1st Thessalonians, and we’re going to put that on pause for a couple weeks because I wanted to give a message focused on the graduates today, but really, it’s a message that’s focused for all of us from 1st Timothy 4, verses 7 through 16.

I’ve sat through three commencement exercises. 1973, when I graduated from high school at Orange Christian Academy in Cleveland, Ohio. 1977, sat through a commencement exercise at Cedarville University.

1981, sat through a commencement ceremony in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Grand Rapids Seminary. I have to admit this morning, and maybe you can relate to this, I do not remember the name of the commencement speaker, nor do I remember anything they said. So, commencement speeches, the shorter the better.

I’m always fascinated by who is chosen to speak at a commencement. Usually, it’s the elite and the rich. University of Michigan this last year, I looked it up, their commencement speaker was Derek Jeter.

Derek Jeter grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Hall of Fame shortstop for the New York Yankees, and he was the graduation speaker at the University of Michigan. There was one graduation speaker that caught my attention this year, and I don’t know if anybody knows who this might be, but does anybody know who was the graduation speaker this past year at the University of Maryland? Anybody follow this story? Who is it? Kermit the Frog, you’re right. Kermit the Frog was the graduation speaker at the University of Maryland.

I almost showed a clip of his graduation speech; you can look it up on YouTube. Jim Henson, the man who invented the Muppets, graduated from the University of Maryland, so that’s a little bit of a connection there, and Kermit said that Jim had a hand in everything he did. I’m glad I got some laughter on that one.

But I thought this morning, what if we invited the Apostle Paul to give a commencement speech to graduating seniors, and what would the Apostle Paul say? As I thought about that, I landed on 1st Timothy chapter 4, and we’re going to very quickly go through six truths that I think the Apostle Paul would share with graduates on 2025, but also with all of us. So, this is from 1st Timothy chapter 4, and we’re going to jump into this and run through this rather quickly, but here are six truths if the Apostle Paul was sharing a commencement speech.

Here’s truth number one that Paul would share with 2025 graduates. Train yourself to be godly. That’s right out of verse 7. We read it in a scripture reading, and so let me paraphrase verse 7 quickly here, if you’ll give me some lead way here for 2025. Paul writes, have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales, have nothing to do with TikTok or Snapchat or whatever that’s called, but train yourself to be godly.

Train yourself to be godly. The word there, train, is the Greek word gymnós, from which we get the word gymnasium, and so the Apostle Paul is telling us that we need to focus on spiritual training. We hear a lot about physical workout plans, but we need to have a spiritual workout plan.

Paul writes about this all through the New Testament, Philippians 2:12, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, not work for your salvation, that’s a gift from God, work it out. He’s talking about sanctification, talk about growing in your walk with Christ, and so how do you do that? How do you train yourself to be godly? Well, this is a good start, being here with other believers and hearing God’s Word and encouraging one another, but certainly a good way to do that is to be in God’s Word daily, to be in God’s Word daily. You know, it’s been said, this book, the Bible, will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book.

It’s a little bit of a simplistic saying, but it’s true, that we need the Bible as the light for our life, the lamp for our feet, to guide us and to direct us through all of life. So, I brought a little prop this morning, and it’s a Bible, and this Bible is 52 years old. This is the Bible that I got as a graduation gift when I graduated from high school in 1973 in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was for my brother and sister-in-law, June 5th, 1973, congratulations on your graduation.

We hope this will be of good use to you, especially while you’re at Cedarville. May the Lord bless you abundantly. And so, I still have that Bible, and I don’t really use it because it has fallen apart.

But what do they say about a Bible that’s fallen apart? A person who has a Bible that’s fallen apart, their life isn’t falling apart, because they’re in God’s Word. So, I’d say train yourself to be godly. Probably don’t have time for this, but I’m going to squeeze it in.

I’m a big news junkie, and so, I taped the show Meet the Press, and I like to, Diane and I like to watch Meet the Press and kind of see that there’s a little bit of a bias there, and we kind of laugh at the bias or cry at the bias that’s in some of the news media. But two weeks ago, and I’ve watched it twice now, Meet the Press did an entire one hour. It was entitled Lost and Lonely, Lost and Lonely, and the entire show was about America’s mental health crisis, and they said that loneliness is a huge factor in our world today.

I scribbled all these notes just from watching it a second time. So, one of the primary individuals that they interviewed was Vivek Murthy. He was the 19th Surgeon General.

He’s now a former Surgeon General in the United States, and he wrote a book entitled Together, The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes-Lonely World, and as I watched that show, and they interviewed Patrick Kennedy, relative of the Kennedy family, former congressman, and some other experts in this whole area, and as I took notes, I thought, everything they are saying is from the Bible. They don’t know it. All truth is God’s truth.

And so, they started to lay out for us, here’s the issues today. 67% of Gen Z report feelings of loneliness, 50% feelings of anxiety and depression, 55 million adults experience feelings of loneliness from 2011 to 2019, teenage depression rates doubled. They said there is an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, especially in young people, and when you have that, it raises your risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide.

It also has physical impact. 29% higher percentage of heart issues, 31% higher chance of stroke, 50% chance of developing dementia as you get older. Vivek Murthy said that this loneliness and depression is comparable to a mortality rate of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, is the physical impact of this.

And so, they came up with some solutions. What do we do here? He said, we need to participate in faith groups. He’s basically saying, go to church.

Basically saying, go to church. They talked about delaying the use of social media. They suggested 16, the earliest, because social media contributes to all this self-comparison and a lot of other stuff that’s going on in social media.

They said, choose community. What is community? Where we know each other, where we help each other. And then they said, what you need is a purpose for living.

Why am I here? And they went on and on, and I said, they’re like preaching a sermon, they don’t know it. And so, train yourself to be godly. That’s Paul’s recommendation.

And he actually tells us why, verse 8, for physical training is of some value. It’s good to have a physical workout. It’s good to be on the treadmill.

But godliness has value for all things, holding promise for the present life, it’s going to help you here, and also the life to come.

Well, there’s a second thought here that Paul would give to the graduates, and we’re going to zip through the rest of these rather quickly. Put your hope in the living God, verse 10. It says, this is why we labor and strive, because we put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. What’s Paul telling Timothy and us? Put your hope in God. Typical hope is the absolute assurance of something based on the promise of God.

And the scriptures tell us where not to put our hope. Psalm 20, verse 7, don’t put your hope in military strength. Don’t put your hope in the size of the United States defense budget, which is like 10 times larger than any other nation in the world.

Don’t put your hope in princes and leaders or in mankind. That’s Psalm 146:3. Don’t put your hope in money. That’s 1st Timothy 6:17. Yes, you need money to live, but that’s not where we put our hope.

We need to put our hope in the living God. God will never let us down. His promises are sure.

He’ll walk with us our whole life. And so, put your hope and trust in God.

Here’s a third thing that the Apostle Paul, I believe, would say if he was given a commencement address. Don’t let anybody look down on you because you’re young, verse 12. Don’t let anyone look down on you because you’re young, but set an example. So, Paul is addressing Timothy.

Timothy is a young pastor in Ephesus. And sometimes when a church has a young pastor and there’s an older congregation, your kind of like, well, what does this guy know? He’s young. But your age, your chronological age and spiritual maturity are not necessarily connected.

And there’s some people that are way, way further down in life and they’re not spiritually mature. And there’s some that are very young and they are spiritually mature. By the way, I had a friend who was called to be the pastor of a church.

It’s the church that he grew up in. And so, his first Sunday there, one of the ladies came up to him and said, oh, and by the way, pastor, I used to change your diapers in the nursery. And I don’t know, that’s probably pretty humbling for that new pastor.

But what’s Paul saying? Paul’s saying, don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young. I just went through a Bible and I began to jot some names down of young people that God used in a dramatic way. King Josiah, look it up, 2nd Chronicles chapter 34.

We don’t have time to look at it. King Josiah was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. He became king when he was eight years old.

An eight-year-old king, yep. Now, he had some advisors, but what happened is you read King Josiah’s story that when he was 16 years of age, God started to work in his life and he started some reforms that brought a spiritual revival to the southern kingdom of Israel at the age of 16. About David, when he killed Goliath, whole Israel army was, no one was going to meet this great giant.

And David comes along bringing a lunch for his brothers and he’s just a teenager. He takes on Goliath and it’s a turning point in Israel’s history in that battle with the Philistines. Think about Daniel and his three friends, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego taken a thousand miles from home and brought into the Babylonian culture and they took a stand for their belief, didn’t they? And they were teenagers.

Think about the mother Jesus, Mary, probably 15 years old when she was conceived with Jesus of the Holy Spirit. She was just a young teenager and the angel appeared to her and she submitted to God’s plan for her life, even though she suffered ridicule from many others when she showed up in her hometown. Think about the feeding of the 5,000 and really 25,000 if you kind of include the whole picture there.

How did that happen? That’s because a young boy brought everything that he had, a lunch that his mom packed and gave it to Jesus and guess what happened? Great things happened. And so don’t let anyone look down upon you. If you’re young.

As I was working on this, coming to point number three, I remembered that somebody had given me an envelope last Sunday and took a pause from working on this sermon like, I haven’t read that envelope yet, and I opened it up and inside the envelope was a laid-out plan to develop a youth praise team here at Community Bible Church. A couple of people would say, you know what, we’ve got some young kids, we’ve got some young people, and wouldn’t it be great if we developed those talents so that our young people occasionally could be up here and some of your sons and daughters and leading us in worship? What a great thing that’d be, and we’re going to jump on that and develop that as God leads. Don’t let anybody look down on you because you are young.

Here’s number four. Number four, don’t let anyone look down on you because you’re young, but be an example. Oh, here’s the challenge for young people.

You need to be a role model. You need to be an example. Paul lists five areas in your speech, what you say, in your conduct, how you live, in love, faith, and purity.

Boy, that’s a challenge today, not only for our young people, but for all of us. Be an example. Be a role model.

And no matter what the age of our kids are, they need to realize there’s somebody’s looking up at them. There’s somebody who is younger who is looking at another individual who’s just a little bit older, and so the elementary school kids look up to the middle school kids, and the middle school kids should be an example. And the middle school kids look up to the high school kids, and the high school kids should be looking at the college kids as an example.

And certainly, we as parents and grandparents, whether we like it or not, are role models for our kids and our grandkids. And what we desperately need today are godly role models. The apostle Paul writes, and he says, follow me as I follow Christ.

He writes to the Philippians, the things that you have learned and heard and received and seen in me, this is what I want you to do. And that’s the challenge of parenting. That’s the challenge of grandparenting.

That’s the challenge of pastoring. No one’s going to do it perfectly, but we want to live a life of integrity that our kids and our grandkids can look up to. And to be honest with you, they’re looking at our behavior more than what we say.

We can say all that we want, but the loudest message is going to be our lives and how we live our lives. And so, Paul says to the young people to be a role model. Two more to go, and then we’re done.

Here’s number five. It’s found in verses 13 and 14. Paul writing to Timothy, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.

Timothy’s a pastor. Here it is. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

So, here’s admonition number five to graduates and to all of us. Don’t neglect your spiritual gift. So, if you know Jesus as your Savior, the Bible says He gives all of us at least one spiritual gift.

They’re laid out in Ephesians chapter 4, many passages, 1st Corinthians 12, 1st Peter 4, Romans chapter 12. There’s at least a list of maybe 15 or 16 spiritual gifts, and you have at least one of them. And so, the challenge is for us as followers of Jesus is to discover, to develop, and to use that giftedness.

How has God gifted me? And we’ve all been gifted in different ways. And you can begin to tell that giftedness early on. I’ll embarrass one of our graduates this morning, but I’ll tell you, Andrew Hoeft has the gift of helps.

That’s one of the gifts. How do I know that? Because Andrew’s always asking me, do you need any help? Can I do this? Can I move this? Can I help you with this? That’s a spiritual giftedness. Someone who is looking on the radar and they’re looking for areas to help.

There’s the gift of giving. There’s the gift of hospitality. There’s the gift of pastor, teacher.

There’s a multitude of gifts. One of the things that I believe that is we have to stand someday before the Bema Seat judgment, not to be judged for whether we’re going to heaven or hell, but for what we’ve done with what God’s gifted us, one of the questions He’s going to ask us, I think, is, how have you used your giftedness? What did you do with the gift that I gave you? And so as young people and as adults, we need to use our giftedness. I was going to seminary in Grand Rapids and Diane and I went to a small church called East Leonard Baptist Church.

And I’m going to seminary and probably my second year of seminary and I’m thinking, I guess if I’m going to go in the ministry, I better not just sit in a pew. I better volunteer to do something. So, I went to the pastor and I said, hey, I’m a seminary student, but I would be willing to try to teach a class.

He says, okay. He says, would you mind teaching an adult class? I said, no. And so, I started teaching back in my seminary days an adult Sunday school class.

Those people, it was horrible. It was horrible. But like anything else, the more you do it, you know, you begin to get the rhythm and you begin to develop.

I preached my first sermon in that church. I still remember it. It was from Exodus chapter 17.

And I had notes written out and I went through all my notes in 15 minutes. Now some of you are wishing I would do that today. And I’m like, oh man, we can’t end this early.

And so, I kind of went through it again and try to lengthen it a little bit. But don’t neglect your spiritual giftedness. You know, when you see someone using the gift in the church, we need to encourage them.

We need to encourage the Macomber girls that played that piano solo. Find them after the church and encourage them. Last week, Ann Walton played a special number for us.

And I’m not just saying this, I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, but on Tuesday, I texted her and said, hey, thanks for sharing that number. Now that was really a blessing. And that’s what we need to do when we see someone serving God and using their giftedness.

Here’s the last one. Last one, number six. The Apostle Paul, watch your life and doctrine closely.

Verse 15 and 16, be diligent in these matters. Give yourself wholly to them so that everyone may see your progress. Verse 16, watch your life and your doctrine closely.

Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourselves and your hearers. So, here’s Paul. He’s giving some advice to Timothy and he says, watch your life and also watch your doctrine.

So, you need to know what you believe. You need to know the five fundamentals of the faith and you need to be committed to that so that you’re not carried away with every new wind and doctrine that Paul writes about in Ephesians chapter four. But he also says to watch your life.

I think Paul means we need to take care of ourselves, don’t we? I mean, you hear a lot about self-care today and self-care can be taken to the extreme where life’s just all about us and taking care of ourselves. That’s not biblical. But we also need to take care of ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally.

We need to take care of ourselves. It’s like the speech that the stewardess is going to give when you’re on the plane and if you lose cabin pressure, what do they say? If you got young kids with you or other people with you, put the mask on who first? Yourself. And so, we need to take care of ourselves.

We need to take care of our bodies, which are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We need to take care of ourselves physically and emotionally and spiritually. A couple things that have contributed, I believe, in longevity in ministry, and if you know the statistics today, pastors, very few pastors, or I don’t know what the percentage is, but a lot of them burn out, don’t finish well. So, pastors need to take care of themselves. So, for 15 years at the end of the month of May, I went to the Moody Pastors Conference in Chicago.

Students graduate, they brought in 1,500 pastors from all over the United States, and for three or four days they fed us well. We got to sit under sermons and preaching and great music and great fellowship, and it was a spiritual recharge. I remember the one year I went, Dr. Joe Stowell was president of Moody Bible Institute, and there was this big banner across Torrey Gray Auditorium.

It seats about 2,000 people, and they put it up for the pastor’s conference, and they said, relax, you’re not in charge. I mean, I don’t have to do anything? Quite frankly, the church’s graciousness in allowing us to go to the other side of the state, and yes, crisscross, like come crisscross back and forth, but when does a pastor get preached at? Who’s a pastor to a pastor? And so, when we’re over at Maranatha for that period of time, basically July and August in the summer, I’m hearing a lot of sermons. And yes, I have a responsibility as campus pastor and teaching the class, but I’m getting fed.

I remember years ago, and this is back when we had an evening service here, and so I would leave here after our evening service, drive over to Maranatha, get over there at about 11 o’clock at night, and then be busy all week, and then turn around, come back for the weekend, and be here, and catch up on a week’s mail, try to make some visits, and preach. And I remember I came back and one of the ladies said at the end of summer, how was your vacation? Like, my vacation? I mean, driving back across the state eight times and having like four days off the whole summer. Like, yeah, it was great.

Thank you for asking. But just to say that those weeks help recharge both of us. Watch your life and watch your doctrine closely.

There’s all sorts of warnings about false teachers in the New Testament. Acts chapter 20, Paul warns the Ephesian elders about false teachers that are going to come in. Philippians chapter 3, there’s a warning about Judaizers who are trying to say, you need to keep the law first.

You need to go back to the law in order to be saved. No. And so Paul writes the book of Galatians and saying, hey, if anybody preaches any other gospel, then you’re saved by faith in Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone.

Let them be accursed. And so, watch your life and doctrine closely. Well, six truths that I think Paul might share if he was sharing a commencement ceremony.

Train yourself to be godly. Put your hope in the living God. Don’t let anybody look down on you just because of your age.

Be a role model. Don’t neglect your gift. And watch your life and doctrine closely.

If you do that, you’ll get to the end of life. God will say to you, well done, good and faithful servant.

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Matthew 24:36-42

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Matthew chapter 24, these are the words of Jesus, and this is verses 36 through 41, and let’s read that this morning. Here’s what Jesus said, but about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be in the field and one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill, one will be taken and the other one left. We’re going to dive into the second coming of Christ this morning.

We finished the book of Philippians a couple weeks ago and we’re going to jump into another book study. I’m going to be doing some topical messages here in the days coming, graduation Sunday next week, Father’s Day the following week, but I’m most comfortable in a book of the Bible. And so, I’m going to give an introductory message this morning on the book of 1st Thessalonians.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dr. Warren Wiersbe. Dr. Warren Wiersbe was a wonderful pastor. He died about three or four years ago at the age of 89.

He authored over 150 books and he was the voice of Back to the Bible Hour, a broadcast out of Lincoln, Nebraska. And part of Dr. Wiersbe’s prolific writing was that he wrote a commentary on every book in the Bible. And it’s called the B Series because every title is a two-word title of the books and it starts with the letter, the word B. And so, he wrote over 50 of these and some of the books he’s combined.

I’ve got a number of them in my library just to kind of illustrate this. Here’s his commentary on Daniel, it’s called Be Resolute. His commentary on Joshua, it’s entitled Be Strong.

First and Second Timothy and Titus, Be Faithful. But here’s his commentary on the book we’re going to look at, 1st Thessalonians, and he entitled it Be Ready. And what he’s telling us is that we need to be ready for what? The second coming of Christ.

And that’s all through the book of 1st Thessalonians. Now Dr. Wiersbe had a prolific library. I read his biography and it said that later in life when they were moving, his wife Betty said they were looking for a library with a house attached to it.

That’s how many books he had. When he passed away, he gave his library to my alma mater, Cedarville University and he had 13,000 books. Last time I was there I was going through one of their new buildings and there’s this whole little section and it’s the Warren Wiersbe Library and there he gave to Cedarville University his entire library to advance the studies of those that are on the campus.

We’re going to think about this book and think about being ready for the second coming of Christ. So just an introductory message this morning, when I start a book, I like to ask five questions like a good investigative reporter. They all start with the letter W. Who wrote the book? When was it written? To whom is it written? Why did he write the book? Why is the letter written? And then what are some of the main themes that are in the book of 1st Thessalonians? So that’s what we’re going to just look at this morning in just an overview of 1st Thessalonians and then in a few weeks we’ll get into the text for sure.

So, who wrote the letter or who wrote the book? And the answer to that is in the very first words of 1st Thessalonians chapter 1. Now when we write letters, we put our name at the end. In the Bible they did it at the beginning. And so, here’s 1st Thessalonians 1:1 Paul, Silas and Timothy.

So, this was written by the Apostle Paul. He includes his traveling companions in this greeting, but most commentators agree that this was written by the Apostle Paul. In fact, when we look at 1st Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 18, we read, for we wanted to come to you, certainly I, Paul, did again and again.

So, Paul identifies himself as the author of this letter. One of 13 books that he authored in the New Testament. Perhaps he wrote the book of Hebrews.

I’ll defer to those in the Hebrews Bible study. Some think he did. Some think it was authored by somebody else.

And so, by number of books, the Apostle Paul is by far the most prolific author in the New Testament. But did you know when you begin to look at the content and then the volume of who wrote most of the New Testament, Dr. Luke wrote more than Paul did, if you count the volume and the words. Because the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are really long books.

And so, by volume, Dr. Luke is the most prolific author in the New Testament. So, this is written by Paul, the Apostle Paul. When was the letter written? It’s one of the earliest books.

Perhaps there might be two other books in the New Testament with earlier dates, maybe Galatians and James, but this is certainly one of the earliest books written in the entire New Testament. Most believe it was written in 51 A.D., shortly after Paul’s second missionary journey to Thessalonica. And so, this is written 18 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

So, it’s one of the earliest books that is found in our New Testament. And again, to whom was it written? So, reading the rest of verse 1, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church of Thessalonica in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So, this was written to a church that was established in Thessalonica.

And I think you have in your bulletin a little insert, a little map that kind of traces Paul’s second missionary journey. And this is recorded, his missionary journey is recorded in Acts chapter 17. And so, let’s just go to Acts 17 just to get a little bit of background to the book of 1st Thessalonians and think about the place and the people, Acts chapter 17.

And we’re going to read some of the verses there that gives us some context here. But Thessalonica was in a strategic location situated at the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea. It was the capital of the Roman Providence, Macedonia.

The city was at a crucial crossroads of land and sea trade. The most important Roman road, the east-west highway called the Ignatian Way, went right through Thessalonica. It was also a sea trade port so that trade and ships often came and were at the dock there in Thessalonica.

Its population back in the first century was about 200,000. Think of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I looked up the population of Grand Rapids, Michigan census 2024, 196,000 people.

This is a rather large metropolitan city and Paul ministered there in answering the call to Macedonia. He had a vision and it was a man saying, we need some help. And so, he made his way to Macedonia and then eventually to Thessalonica.

And here’s the record that Dr. Luke writes about Paul’s visit there. This is Acts 17 verse 1, when Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures.

So, this was always Paul’s mode of ministry. He would always go to the Jewish synagogue. Now in order to have a synagogue in a city, you had to have at least ten Jewish families to form a synagogue.

So obviously there was a large Jewish, larger Jewish population in Thessalonica. And so, Paul’s there and he’s teaching and preaching in the synagogue for three Sabbaths. He’s explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.

This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah, he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women. And so, Paul’s preaching in the synagogue.

He’s preaching about the Messiah. He’s preaching from the Old Testament and saying that Isaiah 53, that the Messiah was to be the suffering, Savior. He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquity. And so, he preaches the gospel from the Old Testament and a large number of people come to faith in Christ. Now there’s a certain principle in scripture and I think it’s true today that when God begins to work, so does somebody else.

If Paul were to have a motto in his ministry and his missionary journeys, it might be expect opposition. And wherever he went, there was opposition. And so, Paul runs into some opposition here in Thessalonica, and let’s continue to read through the text here, beginning in verse 5, but other Jews were jealous.

So, they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials shouting, these men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here.

And Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decree, saying there is another king, one called Jesus. When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil.

Then they made Jason and the others postpone and let them go. And verse 10 says, as soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. And so, the gospel made inroads there, but there was extreme opposition and they were looking for Paul and Silas.

And so, for their own safety, they made a nighttime escape to Berea for their own safety’s sake. And they had to leave Thessalonica very quickly under cover of night. So, Paul writes this letter then, a little bit later on, and now he’s in Corinth and he’s writing this letter back to the Thessalonians to encourage them, this new church there, these new believers, Paul wants to encourage them by writing this letter.

So, why was the letter written? That’s question number four. Why was the letter written? And here’s what Paul did, he wasn’t able to go back and visit, but he sends Timothy back to Thessalonica to visit and to encourage those believers. And Timothy comes back and he gives a report to the Apostle Paul about how the church is doing and perhaps some questions that they have.

And so, 1st Thessalonians 3 verse 6, Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought us good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us just as we also long to see you. So, Paul couldn’t go back, maybe he felt like he was still in danger, but he sends his right-hand man Timothy and Timothy visits and he encourages the church.

And now he brings a report back to Paul and now Paul wants to write this letter to encourage those Thessalonian believers. And the Thessalonian believers had some questions for Paul. I mean, Paul had to leave quickly.

Paul had to leave under cover at night. And some of the questions Paul answers and some of the questions that those believers had at that church in Thessalonica is like, well, if Jesus is coming back, what happens because my grandfather died a year or two ago? And is he going to miss the second coming of Jesus? You see, they didn’t have the New Testament like we did, like we do rather. They have all these questions and so Paul’s writing to answer those questions and to encourage the church.

Now, let’s look at our last question this morning. We’ll spend a little bit longer on this one. So, what are some of the major themes that are found in this letter we call First Thessalonians? What you find interesting is that every chapter in these five chapters in First Thessalonians ends with talking about and referring to the second coming of Jesus.

It’s like Paul wants to keep that at the forefront of our minds. Let me just read these verses that are all at the end of every chapter. First Thessalonians 1:10, let me start in the second part of verse 9, they tell how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath.

Chapter 2, verse 19, for what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes? Jesus is coming again. Chapter 3, verse 13, may he strengthen your heart so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. Jesus is coming again.

Chapter 4, verse 16, for what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes? Jesus is coming again. Chapter 5, verse 23, for what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes? Jesus is coming again. Chapter 5, verse 23, as Paul closes the book, may God himself the God of peace sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reference number 5. And so, every chapter, as Paul closes the chapters, and of course those chapters were man-made, but in the flow of our text, he refers to the second coming of Jesus. So, there’s lots about the second coming in 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 through 5.

Well, what are some other main themes? It’s not only the second coming of Christ, but the apostle Paul writes this to the Thessalonian believers and to us so that we can be ready for the second coming.

And there’s many sections here. It’s just practical Christian living of what we need to be doing until Jesus comes. The late Dr. Francis Schaeffer wrote the book entitled How Should We Then Live? What should we be doing? And when we come to faith in Christ, Jesus doesn’t just take us straight to heaven.

Oh, he could do that, but he leaves us here for a purpose, and we need to be ready for the second coming of Jesus. And Paul helps us with that subject in the letter. There’s a third main theme, and there’s several others, but we’ll just mention one other.

It’s not only the second coming, it’s not only being ready, but the apostle Paul talks a lot about the wrath of God. The wrath of God. We read 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 10 that those believers in Thessalonica are to be warned waiting for the Son from heaven, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath, the coming wrath of God.

1st Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 16, he’s talking about those who are opposed to the gospel, and then Paul says the wrath of God has come upon them. We talk a lot about God’s love, but God is also holy. God is a God who will judge sin someday.

So, Paul’s talking about the wrath of God. 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 9, for God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, Paul’s reminding us we need to be thankful for our salvation.

Why? Because who took the wrath of God in our place? Jesus did. God, when Jesus was on the cross, poured his wrath on the Son of God. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 says, he who knew no sin became sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, the sons of God.

When we sing these songs of worship and praise, we need to sing them eternally grateful from our heart because Jesus took the wrath of God, he took the hit, he took the punishment in our place. Paul’s reminding people and he’s reminding those in the Thessalonican church that there is a day coming when God’s wrath will be poured out on planet earth. We like to sing occasionally the song In Christ Alone.

It’s a great song. Here’s the second stanza. In Christ alone who took on flesh, fullness of God and helpless babe, this gift of love and righteousness scorned by the ones he came to save.

Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. That’s the theological term, propitiation. In 1st John it says Jesus became the propitiation for our sins.

That means that he suffered God’s wrath in our place and God was fully satisfied with that sacrifice. The rest of the stanza goes, for every sin on him was laid here in the death of Christ I, well, Jesus took our place on the cross. But there’s a day coming when his wrath is going to be poured out on planet earth.

Read the book of Revelation if you haven’t read it recently. It’s the one book where there’s a promise in Revelation 1:3 of blessing to everybody who reads these words. You’ll discover in the outline of the book; chapters 4 through 22 is all future.

It’s all about the wrath of God. And this is the age of grace, but there’s a day coming when God will judge the planet. And so, in the book of Revelation, there’s seven seal judgments that the apostle John writes about.

And then there’s seven trumpet judgments that God is going to pour out on the earth. And then there’s seven bowl judgments, and each series of judgments gets progressively worse. So, we read in Revelation chapter 16:1, the beginning of the bowl judgments, the apostle John writes, then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.

That’s going to be a horrific time. And so that’s why it’s all the more important and why Paul emphasizes this, that we need to be ready. How are you ready? Well, first of all, you need to know that you’re saved, that you’ve put your trust in Jesus and Jesus alone, that we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and then you won’t have to suffer God’s wrath.

We also need to be proactive in sharing the gospel of Christ with others. Because we don’t want our friends and we don’t want our loved ones and we don’t want our neighbors experiencing the wrath of God, we want them to know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Paul’s main theme is that Jesus is coming again.

It’s called the blessed hope in Titus chapter 2 verse 13. And let me close with just reading some verses from Revelation chapter 22 and then we’re going to listen to a song that basically says, come Jesus, come. Because the return of Christ, we believe, is imminent, means it can happen at any moment, any time.

And Revelation chapter 22, four verses say, Jesus come. Revelation 22:7, look, I’m coming soon. Revelation 22:12, look, I’m coming soon.

It literally means quickly, he will come quickly. Revelation chapter 22, verse 17, the first part, the spirit and the bride say, come and let the one who hears say, come. Verse 20, who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming soon.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus. So, the Bible closes with this invitation and this desire, Lord, would you come soon? And he is coming soon.

If you know Jesus as your Savior, I want to remind you this morning, the best is yet to come.

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I Chronicles 16:12, Nehemiah 4:14, Psalm 89:47a-48, Acts 20:35, I Peter 1:18-21

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No video recording was made because this was an outdoor service

All right, so we’re going to think about five reminders on this Memorial Day, and there are certain events that happen in our lives, at least in my life, that they’re so dramatic or traumatic that you remember where you were when that event happened. I don’t know if you can recall some of those things in your life. Let me just mention a couple of them.

November 22nd, 1963. Anybody know what happened on that date? What was that? Yeah, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. I remember where I was when that happened.

I was in elementary school. I remember my dad picking me up from school and telling me the news that the President of the United States had been shot. Of course, later on he died.

I remember where I was when that happened. How about this one? January 28th, 1986. Anybody remember that? I heard somebody say something.

The Challenger explosion. It was January 28th, 1986. I remember I was in my church office, and I remember one of our church members, Joyce Hall, called me up and said, hey, have you heard what happened to the Challenger shuttle? Seven people died, including the first teacher in space, Krista McAuliffe, in that tragic accident.

Of course, this one, September 11th, 2001. It was a Tuesday morning, wasn’t it? We all remember where we were, if you were alive during that time, when that happened. And so, we remember these things.

Now, in the Bible, memorials are all through Scripture, because God knows our tendency to forget, and so he wants us to remember some things. Crossing near the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and God made that way happen, but he said, hey, take 12 stones out of the middle of the Jordan River and set them up as a memorial so you can remember what God has done on this day. Think of the Passover, the Passover that the Jews still celebrate today, what, as the deliverance from Egypt.

It’s their 4th of July. After 400 years of Egyptian bondage, God made a way for the Israelites to be released. Well, this morning I want to think about five reminders from Scripture, and we’ll try to go through them very quickly here, and if you have your bulletin, they should be on the insert here.

So, let’s think about five things that God wants us to remember on this Memorial Day weekend, and here’s the first one. Never forget what God has done. Never forget what God has done.

Let me read to you 1 Chronicles chapter 16, and the context of this is the Ark of the Covenant being brought back to Jerusalem. It had been captured by the Philistines, the Israelites recaptured the Ark of the Covenant, and then for a long time it was in a house, and then they transported it back to Jerusalem, and finally the Ark of the Covenant is back where it needs to be. It symbolizes the presence of the God in Jerusalem, and now they’re celebrating what God has done.

And here’s what, how they’re praising God. David, King David appointed Asaph and his associates to give praise to God in this manner. Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name, make known among nations what he has done, sing to him, sing praise to him, tell of all of his wonderful acts, glory in his holy name, let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice, look to the Lord in his strength, seek his face always, here it is, remember the wonders he has done, his miracles and the judgments he pronounced.

And so, the Scripture tells us never forget what God has done in the past. And if we’re here this morning, if God has done nothing else than rescued you and saved you through his Son Jesus, through his Son paying the sin debt on the cross for our sins, we can be and should be grateful to him. And so never ever forget what God has done.

Psalm 77 verses 11 through 13, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.

Your ways, God, are holy. What God is as great as our God. So, the first thing we want to remember is what God has done, not only in our lives, but as you read through Scripture and the Old Testament, remember his miracles and the faithfulness of God.

We need to never ever forget what God has done. There’s a second thing we need to remember, and the Bible encourages us to remember, and it’s not only what God has done, but it’s to remember who God is, to remember the character of God. And for that, we’re going to look at a verse from Nehemiah chapter 4, verse 14.

There’s Nehemiah. It’s always embarrassing when the pastor can’t find the passage, but finally found it. Nehemiah 4:14. Here’s the context.

Remember, they’re back in Jerusalem. They’re going to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and Nehemiah was the leader in that, and they’re facing some opposition. That’s a principle in Scripture that whenever you get serious about serving God or doing something for God, guess what you should expect? Opposition.

And so, they’re trying to do something for God. They’re going to rebuild these walls, and walls were so important in those days because that was their protection against the enemy. But they had some opposition.

They had some fellows that had some unusual names, Sanballat and Tobiah, and they’re giving them all sorts of problems, and they’re ridiculing them, and they’re opposing their work. And so, Nehemiah gathers the Jews that are working on rebuilding the walls. By the way, they finished it in 52 days.

Remarkable task that they finished in 52 days. And he’s trying to encourage them because they’re being opposed. So, here’s Nehemiah 4:14. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, don’t be afraid of them.

Remember the Lord. Here’s who God is. He is great and awesome.

And fight for your families, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and their homes. And so, Nehemiah, when they’re facing opposition, when they’re getting discouraged, he says, don’t look at your circumstances. I want you to remember who God is.

And that’s a good reminder for when we might be discouraged, or perhaps when we’re facing difficulties in opposition, to remember who God is. A.W. Pink wrote a book entitled The Attributes of God, and every chapter takes a different character trait of who God is. And I just went through the table of contents just to remind us to remember who God is.

God is sovereign. That means nothing happens in your life that he doesn’t permissively allow. The old saying is, nothing can happen to me today, nothing good, nothing bad, without passing through the Father’s hand.

Remember all those horrible things that happened to Job? The curtain gets drawn back in Job chapter 1, and that only happened because God allowed it to. And so, God is sovereign. He’s in control, and when our life seems to be out of control, we need to remember God knows.

And God’s in control, and we can trust Him. God’s immutable. He doesn’t change.

That’s Malachi 3, verse 16. I am the Lord God, I change not. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We sang about this one, the holiness of God. God is holy. Remember Moses, he’s there in the burning bush, and it’s God in that bush.

And the instruction to Moses is, take off your shoes because you’re standing on holy ground. And so, God is holy. God is faithful.

God is good. God is patient and long-suffering. God is full of grace.

He’s full of mercy. God is a God of love. And so don’t forget what God has done, and don’t forget the character of God, who God is.

Here’s a third reminder that we need on this Memorial Day weekend to not forget, and it’s from Psalm 89, verses 47 and 48. Never forget how fleeting life is, how quickly life passes. Never forget how fleeting life is.

This is Psalm 89, verse 47. The psalmist writes, remember how fleeting my life is. Verse 48, who can live and not see death, or who can escape the power of the grave? And the answer to that is no one.

Remember how fleeting life is. It was a week ago, Saturday, and the very patterned life that I live, and I do the same routine every morning. And one of the things I do is I try to watch at least the first 10 minutes of the Today Show news and just catch up on the news.

But sometimes on Saturday, I don’t get to watch the news. And this particular Saturday, I didn’t. Remember, it was right after we had all those tornadoes, I think on Thursday.

This was like 10 days ago. But then there was also tornadoes south of us the next day, horrific tornadoes, Pulaski County, Kentucky, the next county over. And some of you remember Doug and Stephanie Volz came here for a while, and they’re relocated down to Kentucky.

And I stay in touch with Doug and Stephanie pretty regularly. And so, Saturday morning, I look at my phone, and I get a text from Doug pretty early. And he says, just want to let you know we’re okay.

Like, oh, man, you must have had some bad tornadoes in Kentucky and turn on the news. And Doug says, the text said, we have nine people in our county that have died. And that count went up to like 20 in their county that died.

So, I called Doug and asked him, you know, how’d you guys survive? Because they’re kind of living on a camper on some property. And they went over to their neighbors and huddled down in their neighbor’s house, and thankfully they were okay. But many people didn’t survive.

Life is fleeting. Life goes by so quickly. And so, Psalm 90, the next Psalm over, Psalm 90 verse 5, Moses writes, you sweep people away in the sleep of death.

They are like the new grass of the morning. Verse 10, our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures. The Psalmist is talking about how quickly life passes.

Now that particular verse has taken on new meaning for me. Our days may come to 70 years or 80 because Diane and I were both born in 1955. So, you could do the math.

So, in August and November, it was going to be a big birthday. And it’s like, how did that happen? How did life pass so quickly? And all my friends from high school and college that were kind of the same age on social media, and I was always the youngest one in my high school class at least, so I’m the youngest one. They’re all turning 70 and I’m reading on Facebook and social media like, I can’t believe I’m 70 years old.

And it goes by so very, very quickly. And so, here’s the application of Psalm 90 verse 12, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Someone paraphrased that to say, help us to count our days so we can make our days count.

And that’s a good encouragement for all of us because life goes by so very, very quickly. So, here’s what Solomon writes in the book of Ecclesiastes. And if somebody can turn the wind down, I would appreciate it.

We’re going to wrap this up soon. Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them. So, Solomon writes, remember God while you’re young.

And then the rest of the chapter, and I’m not going to read it, but it’s a picture of aging. Read Ecclesiastes 12, the next few verses, just I’ll read a little bit of it here. Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark.

Let’s talk about our vision getting worse. Where the keepers of the house tremble, you begin to shake, the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few. You get to lose your teeth.

And he paints this picture of, remember God now while you are young and you can serve him. And so again, I came across on social media, this website, octopusminds.com. I should have never looked at it, but the title caught my attention. Permanent body changes after you turn 70.

Like, well, I’m going to read that one. Your hearing fades into the background. Your vision takes a back seat.

The elasticity of your skin wavers. Your bone strength takes a hit. Your muscle mass shrinks away.

Your hair becomes your silvery crown, if you can keep it. Your digestive system puts on the brakes. Your heart works overtime, and I’ll stop right there.

Doesn’t sound very encouraging, does it? And what’s this God tell us? Hey, remember how fleeting life is. Remember God while you’re young. I’ve shared this with a couple of people.

My dad was the oldest of four boys. He has one younger brother left. Three boys were all born, bang, bang, bang.

And then there was a long pause and youngest boy, my uncle Jerry, was born like 13 years after his brother was born. So, all three of those brothers, my dad included three years ago, died within a year of each other. Uncle Jerry lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I think he’s 78, 79. His wife, my Aunt Nedra, was facing some pretty serious heart surgery. I look back at my text.

I texted her on January 18th and said, hey, we’re going to be praying for your surgery. And I really don’t know the details of what that surgery entailed, other than I knew they were doing some repairs and there were some complications. And my Aunt Nedra, who stands about this tall and maybe weighed 95 pounds, never was able to get off the ventilator.

She was on that ventilator for a week or 10 days, and then they had to do the tracheotomy. Then they did the external ventilator. She spent 120 days fighting in the hospital, trying to get off that ventilator.

I got the text on Friday morning from my cousin, and they said, pray for us today because we’re taking her off the ventilator. They did that at one o’clock and at 11 o’clock Friday night, she went into the presence of the Lord. Her 54th anniversary was the day before, and I think maybe they waited until that occasion.

I don’t know. But life goes by quickly. We need to remember God while we’re young.

All right, number four here, and I need to check our time here. I said we’d be done in an hour. We will be.

Good. And never forget, and we mentioned this last week, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that’s the words of Jesus that the Apostle Paul quotes in Acts chapter 20, verse 35. The context of that is he’s having a reunion with the Ephesian leaders of the Ephesian church, and they meet somewhere, and they’re saying their farewells.

They’re saying their goodbye. Paul says, I know I’m never going to see these folks again, and so he gives them some instructions to help them in the future, and one of the things that he does is he quotes from the words of Jesus, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And it’s not just the gift of our treasure or finances, but it’s the gift of our time and our talent and our treasure.

I hope you’ve discovered that there’s great joy in giving, and Jesus says when you give, there’s like a boomerang effect. Guess who gets blessed the most? Years ago, I used to turn people down when they offered to help or offered to do something for me, and finally I realized that God said to me, hey, you know how good you feel when you can help somebody? Let somebody help you. Let them get the blessing of giving, and so we always need to remember that there is great, great blessing in giving.

Never forget that it is more blessed to give than to receive. All right, we’ve reached number five, and here’s the fifth one. Never forget the price that was paid for our redemption, for our salvation.

Never forget the price that was paid for our redemption. That’s 1 Peter chapter 1. Let me read beginning in verse 18. For you know it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. So, Peter’s writing to these persecuted believers is reminding them of the cost of our salvation, and what did it cost? It cost God his most precious son, and it wasn’t bought with gold or silver, but Jesus paid the ultimate price, death on the cross, and that was so important for us to remember that God instituted an ordinance.

It’s called the Lord’s Table Communion, and there in the upper room just a few days before he went to the cross, he gave new meaning to the Passover meal. He says, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. This cup represents my blood that’s going to be shed for you.

I want you to do this in remembrance of me, and so in our tradition and schedules every other month, we observe the Lord’s Table, and God told us to do this. He doesn’t tell us how often to do it. He just says, hey, I want you to never ever forget the ultimate price that was paid.

I remember years ago, my dad was pastoring in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Westwood Baptist Church, and I haven’t told this story in a long time, but my younger brother walked into a store that was being robbed, and he was he was shot, and shot three times, and the one shot that hit him in the arm, I mean if it would have been over a couple inches, he would not be around today. And I remember my dad talking about the feeling of coming this close to losing a son, and saying, I wonder, I think maybe now I understand a little bit what God the Father must have felt like when he sacrificed his son, when he had to turn his back on him actually, because the sin of the world was on him, and Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so, we need to never forget the price that was paid for our salvation. Micah chapter 7 verse 19 says, you will again have compassion on us, you will tread our sins underfoot, and hurl our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

So that’s not a literal statement, that’s a picturesque, that God has forgiven us, he’ll remember our sins no more, doesn’t mean that he forgets them, he’s omniscient, it means he won’t hold them against us anymore, and he says they’re buried in the depths of the sea. I did a little research on that, the deepest section of the ocean on the planet is called the Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, it’s the deepest oceanic trench on earth, measures 1,500 miles long in length, 43 miles wide, the maximum depth at its deepest part is 6.5 miles deep, 36,000 feet deep, the average depth of the world’s oceans is about 12,000 feet, the Mariana Trench is 36,000 feet deep, six miles deep in the ocean. And God says, I’m going to hurl your sins into the ocean, and then we need to put a sign over there that says no fishing, those are gone, they are paid for, they are forgiven, God will remember them no more.

And so, praise God for that. There’s a little chorus, and we’re going to sing it as we close here in just a second. I used to sing it as a kid growing up, the words are going to be in your bulletin, we’re going to try to do it acapella, but here’s the words, gone, gone, gone, gone, yes my sins are gone, now my soul is free and in my heart’s a song, buried in the deepest sea, yes that’s good enough for me, I shall live eternally, praise God, my sins are gone.

And so, if there’s one thing that I want you to remember, those five things that we talked about this morning, is to remember the price that was paid so that we could have the gift of eternal life. If you follow Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, and when he leads people out of financial debt, he has them on his radio show yell, I’m debt free. And when you come to know Jesus as your savior, you can stand up and shout, I’m debt free, because we’re forgiven.

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Philippians 4:10-13

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This is Philippians chapter 4, 4 verses 10 through 13, as Paul kind of begins to wrap up his letter to the Philippian church. And here’s what he writes, I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me.

Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I’m not saying this because I’m in need, for I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.

I’ve learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Well, we are going to wrap up the book of Philippians. I don’t know how long we’ve been looking at Philippians, but I’m going to guess about maybe four months. And this morning, Paul begins to bring this letter to the Philippian believers to a close, and you remember the background. It’s really a thank you note. Paul is under house arrest in Rome.

He’s awaiting trial. He doesn’t know if he’s going to live or die. And the church at Philippi, where he was the founding pastor, sent a love gift through a man by the name of Epaphroditus, traveled 800 miles, brought that gift to Paul.

Got very sick, by the way, and almost died, Paul mentioned. And now Paul’s sending this letter back to them, and it’s really a thank you letter for the gift, as well as many other truths that are in there. And the whole theme of Philippians is rejoice.

That Paul, even though he’s under house arrest, even though he’s in prison, Paul chooses joy. And the word joy, rejoicing, 16 times in these four chapters. This morning, we’re going to look at lessons learned from a prison cell, and as I began to look at the last few verses of chapter 4, began to see some lessons that Paul has for the Philippian church and for you and me.

Now there’s an interesting verse in Psalm 119, verse 67, it says, Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I obey your word. Most of the time in our human nature that we have to live and learn. Sometimes we have to go through the school of hard knocks to learn something.

But the Bible wants us, what, to learn and to live, and to avoid some of those difficulties in life. Well, Paul’s writing some lessons from a prison cell, and we actually are going to look at six of them very quickly this morning before we serve and celebrate the Lord’s table and what Christ has done for us on the cross. As I knew this sermon was coming up about 10 days ago, I was thinking about my friend Steve that I’ve talked about many times in the past, my friend Steve that I’ve been a pen pal with for 30 years, my friend Steve who’s in Jackson Prison, been there for 31 years, not just in Jackson, but he’s been moved around, now he’s back in Jackson Prison.

And Steve whose life was transformed after he was sentenced to a life sentence in prison. And when I knew, I was going to do this sermon on lessons from prison cell, I dashed off a quick note to Steve, and I said, hey, I’m going to preach a sermon on lessons learned from prison, and if you can do a quick turnaround, I’d like for you to share with me and with our church some lessons that you’ve learned in the 31 years you’ve been behind bars. So, I didn’t know if it would come in time for Sunday, but when I went out to get the mail on Thursday, here is a letter from Steve.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Steve also has six lessons in his letter. And some of them parallel what the Apostle Paul writes, what we’re going to study, so I thought I’d just take a couple minutes and share, six things from my friend Steve, this is what he’s learned in 31 years behind bars, and I’ll try to read through this quickly. So, he addresses me and he addresses the congregation.

Lessons learned. Number one, the reality of the Holy Spirit. I had been a miserable, empty man, and no amount of material goods could satisfy me While in jail, I cried out to Jesus, and a feeling of warmth began in my heart, spread through my body, the emptiness was gone, and I was at peace, which has never left me.

So, he’s describing his conversion experience, the reality of the Holy Spirit in his life. Second lesson he talks about is obedience. First Samuel 15:22, Samuel said, to obey is better than sacrifice.

Prison is full of rules. Do this, don’t do that. Most are common sense, so it is relatively easy to do time.

But there are prisoners who think they can break a rule and get away with it. I did that on a couple of occasions, thinking it was for a good cause, but I was caught and had to pay the consequences, so I’ve learned to obey. Number three, generosity.

Acts 20:35, quoting Jesus, it is more blessed to give than to receive. On more than one occasion, Jesus taught that we will be held accountable for what we do with our resources. So, I donate to, in his meager income that he gets working in the prison, Community Bible Church, I knew that because he sends us a quarterly check, but I didn’t know the rest of this, Family Life Radio, our daily bread.

He’s supporting three ministries from behind the prison walls of Jackson Prison. He says, they also give hygiene to those in the housing unit, and it seems the more I give, the more I receive. Lesson of prayer.

All through the Old and New Testament, prayers are being offered. Jesus often went into a solitary place to pray, and he encouraged prayer, and he quotes some scripture, John 14:14, you may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. And then he talks about John 17.

Number five, the lesson of praise and worship, what we’re hopefully doing this morning. Music is an important part of our relationship with God. Even in prison, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to him.

I am blessed to currently lead a praise and worship team of music here at the Cotton Facility in Jackson. It’s good for the soul to both praise and worship God. And then number six, I’ve learned to be content through surrender, Philippians 4:11, in all circumstances.

Well, there are six lessons that Steve’s learned behind bars, and this morning we’re going to look at verses 10 through 20, and Paul’s going to give us six lessons that he’s learned, and hopefully this is going to help encourage our lives as we look at these.

Lesson number one is that contentment is a learned character trait. Notice in verses 10 and 11, I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need. Here it is, for I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances.

Paul says, I’ve learned contentment. It doesn’t come to us naturally, does it? We’re taught that we need more and more and more. Jesus warned us against greed, but Paul says, I’ve learned to be content.

Is it Rockefeller when he’s asked the question, how much money does it take to satisfy someone? And Rockefeller said, just one more dollar. Well, Paul says contentment is something that I’ve learned. Ecclesiastes 5:20, Solomon writes, whoever loves money never has enough.

Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. So, the apostle Paul says, this is something that I’ve learned in my life. I’ve learned contentment.

That’s important for us as well, isn’t it? Oftentimes we say, well, I’ll be content when I finally finish school and graduate from high school or I’ll be content when I get that degree. No, I’ll be content when I get married. I’ll be content when I have a family, when I get a new job, when I get a new car, a new house.

I’ll be content, fill in the blank. I’ll be content when? Paul says, no, you need to learn contentment.

Jesus said, life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions. And I’ll tell you what, when you begin to go down the road of comparing yourselves, your situation with other people, that is a quick road to discontent. I’ve shared this story many times and I’ll bore you with it again.

At our first ministry assignment, fresh out of seminary, we were young, had one child. We were living in the upstairs of a duplex in Strongsville, Ohio, and just had one bedroom. When our second child came along, I think we put him in a cupboard drawer or something.

We didn’t have any room for him. But we were happy and we were content. We were in ministry.

And then I made the mistake of suggesting to Diane that we go to the Parade of Homes. This was in Strongsville, Ohio. Strongsville was a wealthy suburb of Cleveland.

A lot of the Cleveland Browns had homes in Strongsville, Ohio because their practice facility was in Berea, which was the next town over. And then we went to the Parade of Homes and all of a sudden, we weren’t very content anymore because we began to compare. Contentment, something that we need to learn and hold on to.

Secondly, here’s the second lesson from Paul. Contentment is not found in our circumstances, but in Christ. 12 and 13, I know what it is to be in need.

I know what it is to have plenty. I know what it is to be well fed. Paul was a Pharisee, lived a good life.

I know what it is to be hungry. Paul was in prison. Whether living in plenty or want, what’s he say? I can do all things, what? Through Christ who gives me strength.

And so don’t look for contentment in your circumstances. Don’t look for contentment in the contents of your possessions. Contentment is found in Christ.

There’s a little chorus that we’re going to hopefully learn and sing at the end of our service this morning, but it’s entitled, Christ is all I need. Here’s the words, Christ is all I need, all I need. He’s all I need.

He was crucified for me. He died on Calvary. That is why I know he loved me so.

Christ is all I need. What’s the gospel of Mark says? What does it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? And so, contentment is not found in our circumstances, but it’s found in Christ. This is what David wrote in Psalm 23 one.

The Lord is my shepherd. It’s always confused me growing up as a young child in the church and the King James version, I shall not want. I’m like, well, why don’t I want him? The word literally means lack.

If Jesus is your shepherd, you lack nothing. You have everything you need. My wife, Diane, tells me growing up, like maybe any young child as they begin to kind of look at their circumstances and where they’re living and their neighborhood and everything.

And Diane would ask her mom, mom, are we rich? Are we rich? She says, no, dear, we’re not rich, but we’re rich in blessings in Jesus. Maybe not what she wanted to hear, but that’s true. Go to Ephesians chapter one and see all that you have when you are in Christ.

Contentment is not found in our circumstances, but it’s found in Christ. Many of you are probably familiar with Fannie Crosby and her story. I’ll share it with you again this morning because it fits right in here.

Probably the most well-known hymn writer other than maybe John and Charles Wesley, Fannie Crosby wrote 8,000 hymns in her lifetime. Here’s her amazing story. Fannie Crosby was born a healthy baby girl in 1820, but six weeks after her birth, she got an infection in her eyes and a botched treatment left Fannie Crosby blind for life.

Shortly after that, her father passed away. Her mother found employment as a maid and Fannie spent most of her days with her grandmother who exposed her to great literature and poetry, but mostly read to Fannie from the Bible. By the time Fannie was 11 years old, she could quote the entire Pentateuch.

That’s the first five books in the Old Testament, the four Gospels, many of the Psalms. Having her mind so saturated with God’s Word resulted in a phenomenal perspective on her young life. And so, at the age of eight, Fannie Crosby wrote her first poem.

Here it is. Oh, what a happy soul I am. Although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t. To weep and sigh because I am blind, I cannot, nor I will. Contentment’s not found in our circumstances, but in Christ.

I’ll tell you this morning that if my friend Steve can find contentment behind bars for 31 years, Fannie Crosby can find contentment even though God allowed her to be blind for her entire life, I think whatever we’re facing, whatever our circumstances, we can choose contentment if we know Christ as our Savior.

Well, here’s the third one, third lesson found in verse 14. Paul says, it was good of you to share in my troubles. Paul writes, in other words, thank you for sharing in my difficulties and my troubles. And they sent this gift to the apostle Paul. What did Jesus tell us in John 16, 33? In this world, you will have trouble.

James says, don’t be surprised when trials come. Part of life, isn’t it? In a fallen world. But then Jesus said, take heart, I’ve overcome the world.

And so, Paul says, it was good for you to share with me in my troubles. That word share is this Greek word koinonia, it’s talking about fellowship, it’s talking about sharing things together. And when we think of fellowship, we think of a lot of times like, well, sharing a meal together with somebody, or good conversation, or some refreshments after a service, or sharing in God’s Word, and that’s all true.

But there’s another kind of fellowship that we’re called to, and it’s sharing in the troubles of other people’s lives. Paul writes; I want you to weep with those that weep. I want you to rejoice with those that rejoice.

And so, it’s entering into the lives of others. And that means spending time with people, and that means listening to them, and that means looking for opportunities, what, to encourage those that are going through difficult times. I’d be praying with someone.

I had the opportunity Thursday night over at Gary and Carla Keith’s house, spent about 90 minutes with them, and then about 8:30, and they had some family over there, and had Gary sitting down in the kitchen table chair, and we just kind of gathered around him. And we prayed for Gary. And I think that greatly encouraged him, and just letting him know, hey, you’ve got a church family that’s going to pray you through this surgery.

It might be a listening ear. It might be a meal. It might be helping hand with a work project.

It might be our benevolent fund. We get a little offering plate in the back here, and we don’t talk about this much, but we have a very rather active benevolent fund. In other words, if we find out that there’s somebody associated with our church that has a need, a legitimate need, we’re going to respond to that need.

What’s 1 John say? We’re supposed to love God, but if we see another brother and sister in need, and we just pat them on the back and say, oh, praying for you, brother, be warm and filled and don’t do anything, how does the love of God dwell in you? And so, it’s love in action. And so, Paul reminds us that being a part of God’s family means sharing in the troubles and needs of others. Three more here, and we’ll run through these rather quickly here.

Number four is this, investing our time, talent, and treasure in God’s kingdom results in eternal dividends. That when we invest our time, our talent, and our treasure in God’s kingdom, it results in eternal dividends. In other words, God’s keeping a ledger.

He’s keeping track of our stewardship of what time, talent, and treasure. And so, Paul writes in verse 15, moreover, as you know, Philippians, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out for Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you only. You were the only ones that supported me.

For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need. Not that I desire your gifts, what I desire is that more be credited to your account. Oh, there’s something called like the bank of heaven, and God’s keeping track of our generosity and how we use our time, talent, and treasure.

And so, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, don’t worry about food. Don’t worry about clothing. Don’t worry about housing.

Look at the birds. I take care of them. You’re far more valuable than they, but seek first God’s kingdom, and then all these things are going to be added to you.

Mark chapter 10, the disciples are kind of feeling sorry for themselves because they’ve left everything to follow Jesus. And Peter asks Jesus a question, or he makes a statement. He says, Jesus, we’ve left everything to follow you.

I’m like, what’s in this for us? Jesus said in Mark 10, 29, truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brother or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me in the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age, homes, brothers, sisters, mother, children, and fields, along with persecutions, he adds in, and in the age to come, eternal life. And so, he says, you know, God’s going to reward you. You’re going to…if you’ve left your family because of Jesus and they’ve kind of kicked you out, guess what? There’s God’s forever family that’s going to welcome you with open arms.

It’s going to be a hundredfold, and you’re going to have some dividends in heaven. So, investing our time, talent, and treasure, Paul’s reminding the Philippian believers, hey, I’m not looking for another gift. What I’m looking for is something that will be credited to your account when you get to heaven someday.

Number five, lesson number five, Paul tells us that investing in God’s kingdom, our time, talent, and treasure is an act of worship. And investing in God’s kingdom, our time, talent, and treasure is an act of worship. So, verse 18, I’ve received full payment.

I’m amply supplied. Now that I’ve received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, thank you for sending the gifts. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God.

Those gifts that you gave, they’re an offering to God. He says they’re a fragrant offering. It’s a reference to the incense offering that was given to Israel in the Old Testament.

We won’t take time to look at the passages, but the high priest Aaron was instructed to burn incense on the altar each morning and at twilight every day as a regular offering to the Lord. God gave the recipe for making the incense and stipulated that no other incense ever be burned on the altar. And so, in the morning, in the evening, in the Old Testament, they had the altar and they offered a sacrifice to God, an incense sacrifice.

And here’s Paul’s playing on that analogy and he says, your gift, your sacrifice of your time, talent, and treasure is like it’s an offering to God and it’s an act of worship. So, Hebrews chapter 13, the author of Hebrews writes these words in Hebrews chapter 13, verses 15 and 16, through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess His name and do not forget to do good and to share with others or with such sacrifices God is well pleased. So sometimes when we think of investing in God’s kingdom, we simply think of putting money in the offering plate, investing financially in God’s kingdom, but there’s more than that.

It’s offering praise to God, the fruit of our lips when we sing, it’s an act of worship. And it’s easy to not think about the words, and I’ll confess that myself, but if you listen to those words, in that hymn, And Can It Be, oh my word, those are tremendous words. It ends up with there’s no condemnation to those of us there in Jesus Christ, Romans 8.1. Our singing is an act of worship, our doing good and sharing with others that are in need is an act of worship.

And so sometimes we think about, you know, Sunday, and on Sundays while we’re enjoying the worship service, we have to realize that there are others that are teaching a junior church class, there are some in the nursery, and there are others that are doing some duties and missing the official worship service. But what we need to realize is that as they serve, or as you serve, whether it’s a nursery or cookies or junior church or whatever, that is an act of worship. And so sometimes if you’re in the nursery, you say, well, I missed the worship service.

Well, you might have missed the official service, but you worshiped. By the way, we have a TV down there so you can watch and listen as well. But investing in God’s kingdom is an act of worship.

Paul reminds the Philippian believers of that. Lastly, number six, and then we’re done and then have some time to sing and observe the Lord’s table. But lesson number six, Philippians 4, Paul says, as we give generously to meet the needs of others, God promises to meet our needs.

As we give generously to meet the needs of others, God promises to meet our needs. That’s Philippians 4:19. How does Paul close this letter? My God will meet all of your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus, to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. I’ve known that verse and studied Philippians for a long time. And I’ve kind of vacillated back and forth, and I’ll tell you where my vacillation is due to the fact that I’m asking myself a question, and it’s important when you study a promise in the Bible, to ask the question, is this a conditional promise? In other words, is there something I have to do for me to receive the promise that’s in Scripture? Or is this an unconditional promise? So, a conditional promise would be Philippians, let me see what the verse is, Philippians chapter 4, you should know this, we just looked at it a couple weeks ago, 6 and 7, and it’s a promise for the peace of God, but it’s conditional. And so verse 6 says, stop worrying, but by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God, so you have to do something, you have to stop worrying, realize God’s sovereign in control, and then you have to take your request to God and pray and give it to Him with thanksgiving, and then here’s the promise, the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts, that’s your emotions, your minds in Christ Jesus. Well, that’s a conditional promise.

What’s an unconditional promise? Well, Hebrews 13:5 and 6, Jesus said, never will I leave you nor forsake you. There’s nothing we can do, that Jesus will never leave us, and so my question is, is Philippians 4:19 a conditional promise or an unconditional promise? And what I want to be very clear here is that my viewpoint is that Philippians 4:19 is a conditional promise. In other words, Paul’s writing a thank you and said, as you’ve been generous, as you’ve sent to meet my needs, God’s going to meet your needs.

And so, they were giving sacrificially and God then promises to meet the needs. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. A person that maybe is a believer and goes out and spends his money foolishly and maybe is addicted to gambling and doesn’t have money and he’s going to pray and say, okay God, will you now supply all my needs? No.

But someone who honors God with their finances and is generous, God says, as you’ve been generous, I will be generous to you and meet all of your needs. Now that’s my speculation. That’s where I’ve kind of landed and I’d be open to your thoughts on that.

But as we give generously, Paul writes, God will meet all your needs. There’s one area in all the Bible where God says, test me, test me. And it’s found in the Old Testament and it’s found in Malachi chapter 3, verse 10, verse 8. Let me start in verse 8. Malachi 3:8. Will a mere mortal rob God? You rob me.

But you ask, how are we robbing you? In tithes and offerings. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will be not enough room to store it.

That was Steve’s testimony. The more I give, the more I’m blessed. And so that says, test me.

It’s all through the Old Testament and the New Testament as well. Give to God first, the first fruits principle, and what? He will pour out his blessings on you and meet your needs. Well, just a few application questions as we wrap this up.

Here’s the first one from these six lessons. Have I discovered that true contentment is not found in my circumstances or my contents, my possessions, but in Christ? Have I discovered the secret of true contentment that is found in him and all that we have in him?

Secondly, do I share in the troubles and burdens of others within God’s family? This is Philippians 4:14. Paul says, it was good for you to share in my troubles. Here’s what Romans 12 instructs us to do.

Never be lacking in zeal. Keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope.

Be patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Rejoice with those that rejoice. Mourn with those that mourn. Do I share in the troubles and burdens of others? In order to do that, that takes time.

It takes a listening ear. It takes getting involved in other people’s lives. Quite frankly, the opposite is easier. Easier just to care about yourself, but that’s not what God’s called us to do. We need to enter into the troubles and the burdens and bear one another’s burdens, as Galatians tells us.

And then lastly, am I investing my time, talent, and treasure in God’s kingdom? What’s your heavenly bank account look like? Are you making some deposits of your time, your talents and abilities, and your treasure into God’s kingdom? And someday you will be rewarded for everything you’ve done in the name of Jesus.

Well, those are six lessons that Paul’s learned. I don’t know which one you need most this morning, but they’re all applicable, and I trust that you will find contentment in him, that you’ll be involved in God’s kingdom, that you’ll be involved in meeting the needs of those that God brings across your pathway.

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Deuteronomy 6:1-9

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We’re going to read Deuteronomy chapter 6, 4 through 9 this is called the Shema in Jewish history, hear oh Israel the lord our God. The lord is one love the lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts Impress them on your children talk about them when you sit at home when you walk along the road when you lie down and when you get up tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

Well this morning we’re going to think about God’s plan for the family and there is a plan for the family and it’s found in our passage that we’re going to look at in just a little bit Deuteronomy chapter 6 But before we think about that, I want us to just think about the thought and the premise and it’s this that while God has a plan for the family and he does, so does our enemy that anything that God says this is what we need to do that in our world there’s an enemy that is opposed to God’s truths the Bible talks about three enemies that we have as Christians the world the flesh and the devil now the world by that the scripture means the world system 1st John 2:15 says do not love the world by that john means the system that is anti-god and opposed to God in his truths there’s a second enemy that we have and it’s called the flesh Even though we come to faith in Jesus and our sins are forgiven we still have a sin nature. It’s not eradicated.

And so, there’s a battle going on between the desires of the flesh and what God would have us do. Paul writes about it in Romans chapter 7 the things I want to do I don’t do. And the things I don’t want to do I end up doing and Paul says oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this situation. So, if the apostle Paul struggled with sin be encouraged that we probably do as well and that struggle will go on until we’re in heaven someday and have a glorification.

But there’s a third enemy and it’s called Satan Hal Lindsey wrote the book years ago Satan’s alive and well on planet earth. John 10:10 Jesus said these words the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy he’s referring to our enemy. And Jesus says I’ve come that you might have life that you might have it abundantly. And so, God has given us three Institutions in scripture that he’s ordained One is marriage and the family.

Second is government romans 13 says the powers that be those that are in control of government have been what ordained by God. And then the third one is the church in acts chapter 2 so this morning we want to think about God’s plan for the family. And of course, if you realize and are aware what’s going on in our culture today. There’s an attack on the family today a spiritual attack and a cultural attack.

Dr. Rob Rienow who started visionary family ministries years ago, and I’ve told Rob’s story Here many times that rob was pastoring. A youth pastor at a very large church in Indiana He had a youth group of about 200 kids and he was pouring his life into those kids. But rob also at that time he had four kids of his own now he has seven. And one day they were in the church and rob had his little three- or four-year-old boy with him.

And they’re walking down the hallway near his office. And Rob’s little boy looks up at him and asks a question he says daddy is this where you live. Because rob was so involved in church and so involved in ministering to the other kids in the church. That he felt like he was neglecting his own family.

When rob tells that story he says I can point you to the square footage of carpet where I was standing when he asked me that question. And that began a whole change in Rob’s life where he stepped away from the church and began a ministry called visionary family ministries. And Rob, and his wife has spent the last probably 20 years going around the country and teaching biblical principles of the family. But this is this is what rob writes about the family about the cultural attack on the family and what’s happening in our world today?

He says pornography has been normalized homosexuality is not only encouraged but celebrated the clear biblical distinction between men and women are being slowly erased. Children are increasingly exposed to sexual content and activity at younger and younger ages. Marriage is portrayed as something to be delayed avoided or just temporary and on and on he goes. There’s a cultural attack on marriage and the family.

I’m glad that we have a president that made it clear for us that there are two genders male and female that’s very clear from genesis chapter two. So, what do we do with this culture and spiritual attack? Well, we can’t stick our heads in the sand like an ostrich does. There’s too much at stake so we’re going to go to a passage that’s 3,400 years old.

And this truth hasn’t changed and think about what are some principles that will help us to kind of get back to the basics of what? That God designed for the family and it’s found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 so you can turn your Bibles there or we’ll just look at the outline on the screen.

But let’s think about the context of Deuteronomy the word Deuteronomy means second law. And so, the context of Deuteronomy and if you remember this that God instructed the Israelites to go into the promised land God says I’ve given this land to you. You can go in and conquer it and when Moses sent the spies in 10 came back. And said, well we can’t do this because there’s giants in the land and two came back Joshua and Caleb said.

Hey, let’s claim God ‘s promises and so the majority said don’t go two said let’s go. And Israel ended up not in faith believing God and they didn’t obey him. And so, there was a punishment for that God judged them for that and, here is the judgment. It’s found in numbers chapter 14.

I think we have time to read it this morning. Let me tell you what happened God said to the nation of Israel this is Numbers 14 verse 29 In this wilderness Your bodies will fall Every one of you 20 years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home except Caleb and Joshua as for your children that you said would be taken as plunder. I will bring them in to enjoy the land.

You’ve rejected so God said Everybody 20 years old and under is going to die in the wilderness. So, for 40 years, they wandered in the wilderness a whole generation died off and now Israel is at the edge of the Jordan river. Joshua is the new leader and they’re ready to go into the promised land. And so, God had to give the law a second time because a whole generation died off.

And that lets us know that Joshua and Caleb were the oldest ones to enter the promised land It was a whole younger generation that followed him in there. So that’s the context of Deuteronomy chapter 6 and let me just begin reading in verse 1. These are the command decrees and laws your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land so that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. If you look in chapter 5, it’s the giving of the 10 commandments again.

So, these are the laws and the commandments and the truths that I want you to follow as you enter the promised land. Verse 2 so that you your children and their children after them notice the generational impact there. May fear the lord your God as long as you live by keeping his decrees and commands that I give you. And so that you may enjoy long life hear Israel and be careful to obey.

So that it may go well with you and you may increase in the land flowing with milk and honey. Just as the lord the God of your ancestors promise you. And so, there’s the context they’re ready to go into the promised land after 40 years of wilderness wanderings. And now they’re giving some instructions some truths that they need to obey so that what life will go well.

You notice the principle that’s found in in verses 2 and 3. As we’re reading these verses that says fear God live by keeping his commandments so that you may enjoy long life. Be careful to obey so that it may go well with you. The basic principle is this life goes much better when you obey God. Life goes well when you follow his commandments and his principles and so the context of this whole passage is entering into the promised land. And the truth in verses 2 and 3 is this obedience brings blessing all right. So, let’s look at the commands.

What are these commands that the God’s given to Moses is given to the Israelites and 3,400 years later. We’re reading them so let’s think about these commands and the first one as we think about the first word in verse 4. the word here and I mentioned that earlier it’s the Hebrew word Shema and therefore these verses 4, 5,6 and 7. Are probably the most well-known verses in Jewish life in fact, it became a prayer, and the Jews were to pray this prayer two times a day.

And it’s called the Shema because the Hebrew word for here is Shema. And in it contains God’s plan for the family God’s plan for passing on truth. Small group ministries and churches is very popular today, but God’s original small group was what the family. And that’s where truth is to be passed on and so three imperatives three commands.

And let’s look at the first one and this is this is what we need to take home with us this morning number one. We must pursue an all-consuming passionate love for God we must pursue an all-consuming passionate love for God hear oh Israel the lord our God. The lord is one what does he say in the next verse?

Love the lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength and as we mentioned. Jesus quoted this verse in Matthew 22 and the pharisees says what’s the greatest commandment? Jesus quotes Deuteronomy chapter six of these verses he has the word mind in it and love the lord your God with all your mind as well. And so, we must pursue an all-consuming love for God we must continually fan that flame in our life.

You might ask well, what does it look like what does this? All-consuming passionate love for God looks like and let me just give you a couple words here that might encourage us. What are some evidences of love for God number one is obedience. Jesus said if you love me keep my what commandments if you love me, then you need to know my truth.

And you need to obey my truth and so what’s loving God look like it means knowing his truths. And obeying living it out there’s another I believe second evidence of loving God and it’s found in 1st John. Give some marks of a person who’s been born again and it’s not only obedience, but it’s love for other believers other Christians. We sang about it this morning the family of God I’m so glad I’m part of the family of God.

And this is what the Apostle John writes in 1st John chapter 4 verse 19 we love because he first loved us God initiated this love relationship whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar for whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen and he has given us this command anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister and so one of the evidence of loving God not only obeying him but it’s loving the family of God It’s loving other Christians It’s loving a church family and being passionate in that love for others there’s a third evidence there are many of love for God, so it’s obedience and it’s loving other Christians, but how about sacrifice and service? Now one of the evidences of love for God is that we have the desire to serve him and to sacrifice for him the story of Mary of Bethany who just a week before Jesus went to the cross brought a perfume of spikenard that was worth one year’s wages and what did Mary do? She broke that spikenard jar and she poured it on Jesus’s feet and anointed the feet of Jesus the week before he went to the cross some of the disciples weren’t happy that was worth a year’s salary we could have sold that and given to the poor Jesus said no, this is an act of worship leave her alone loving God has demonstrated in sacrifice for him we just studied the book of the Philippians.

We’re going to finish it probably next week but remember the person that took the book of Philippians the letter from the church at Philippi to Paul. His name was Epaphroditus and he traveled 800 miles from Philippi to Rome to do what to take this letter that the Philippians wrote to Paul and to bring a gift Bible says he got sick He almost died but Epaphroditus did that out of loving service and sacrifice to God Revelation 2 and 3 there’s the seven letters of the seven churches and each one of them has a commendation you’re doing this well and Jesus also gives a condemnation or a correction for each church but when we read in revelation chapter 2 verse 4 the church at Ephesus the correction is this verse 4 I hold this against you. You have forsaken the love you had at first, you’ve lost your passion and love and appreciation for what God has done for you and so he gives a correction here.

You need to repent and you need to do the first works, very easy to happen for those of us that have known Jesus and walked with him for years and years and years and our Christian walk can kind of get very routine and in the doldrums and we need to pursue an all-consuming passionate love for God well, there’s a second command and it’s found in verse 6 in Deuteronomy chapter 6 God’s plan for the family verse 6 is these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. So, he’s talking to the family. He’s talking to parents talking about passing on truth where does it start by knowing God’s truth and having it in our lives? Someone has said you cannot pass on what you do not possess and so if we’re going to pass on God’s truth to the next generation, we need to know it we need to live it out.

It needs to be in our hearts we must know and obey God’s truth; that’s the starting point now I would not be um; I would not be a very good flight instructor some of you sitting out here. I know are pilots but I would not be a good flight instructor because I know very little about aviation about aerodynamics if I was in the pilots seat I would be looking for where’s the gas pedal and the steering wheel and you know, you would not want to be on a plane where I was the instructor of the pilot the same is true because there’s so much at stake the same is true in passing on truth we first have to have it in our lives because there is so much at stake. What’s at stake the next generation? And so, the first command is we need to pursue an all-consuming passionate love for God the second one is we need to know and obey God’s truth.

We need to be that model of truth in our family’s life well, there’s a third one and this we’re going to spend a little more time on number three here because this is where the passage of truth takes place here’s the third command God’s plan for the family we must impress God’s truth to the next generation through strategic communication verbally and symbolically we must impress God’s truth the next generation through strategic communication verbally and symbolically, let me read again verses seven through nine the word impress here in Hebrew means to pierce hearts pierce their hearts we could paraphrase impress on your children what the commands he’s referring to? Here’s what he says talk about them when you sit at home when you walk along the road when you lie down when you get up tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads

Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates did you notice there’s some action verbs in these verses the word impress the word talk the word tie the word bind the word right you get the impression God wants us to do something and if we’re going to make a spiritual impact on our children and our grandchildren, we have to talk to them about God’s truth

Now in Deuteronomy chapter six verse seven, there’s four key teachable moments in family life so we might say well when how does this work out when? What can moms and dads and I’m going to include grandparents and aunts and uncles anybody who wants to make an impact in the next? generation for God’s kingdom and pass truth on how can we do this? then God gives us four key moments let’s look at them again in verse seven impress them on your children talk about them when you sit at home when you sit at home.

Mealtime I don’t know if families do this anymore in our busy culture gets increasingly difficult but sitting at home at least when I was growing up we had family mealtime together and It’s a great time to connect as a family to eat a meal together and spend that quality time together we’ve all seen this today in our culture today and in restaurants and quite frankly we’ve probably been guilty of it at some point in time you look over across the restaurant and there’s this family eating dinner together.

And they’re sitting at the table and what are they doing? Everyone’s got their phone out we need to talk we need to talk to one another and so mealtime is a great, great opportunity to connect with the family and look for opportunities to pass on God’s truth. I grew up in a pastor’s home and we had this little wooden I’m going to call it a wooden bread box. I think it might have said our daily bread on the top of it and you open the top of that inside were Bible verses.

In fact, I’ve got something similar it’s called Ruth Scripture Treasures It’s referring to Billy Graham’s daughter, Ruth Bell Graham and so there’s these little cards and there’s a scripture verse on each one and not every night but maybe three or four times a week after dinner would get that little our daily bread box and open up the top and take out one of these scripture verses and when we were really young

My dad mom would read them all and we got to be old enough to read we would read them as well and then we’ll just spend like five minutes talking about what does this verse mean? And then we would pray It’s called family devotions Dr. Rob Rienow at visionary family ministries has done his research and he says you know how many families this is church families that do anything like that today?

Four percent four percent and so meal time is a great time to uh to pass on God’s truth. There are all kinds of help today I mentioned I think last week keysforkids.org Got some great just short stories and Bible truths that that you can share with the kids when our kids were a certain age and we weren’t very consistent in this and in our own lives.

We tried hard but uh, we tried to make it fun because if it’s not fun, the kids aren’t going to want to enjoy it but we would like also act out mimic Bible stories and the kids would and then would try to guess what it was and that was just a way of connecting with them and passing on God’s truth so here’s the four key moments impress God’s truth when you walk along uh is the second one when you when you sit down the second one is when you walk along the road in verse 7 talk about them when you sit at home when you walk along the road well, we don’t do too much walking today.

Although that’s a good thing to do, but this would be travel time when you’re when you’re in the car and you’ve got a captive audience and it’s a good time what to connect with the family so for I don’t know eight or nine years maybe longer than that. um, we lived in in Chelsea and we had our kids in public school, but in about sixth or seventh grade, we transitioned them to Lenawee Christian school but that was in Adrian 32 miles my wife did all the driving 32 miles down 32 miles back afternoon 32 miles down 128 miles a day I finally said hey see if they’re hiring anybody there maybe get a job working at the schools and cut down the travel time and I remember being at one of the school events and here the middle school principal. Mr. Howard was his name and I guess I was looking for a little bit of sympathy.

I’m just complaining about like, you know how long of a drive it is and how much time in the car says hey use that to your advantage use that 40 minute drive to what engage with your kids and talk to your kids and turn the whole perspective around now the few times that I went in the morning they were sleeping but the afternoon they were awake and talking on the way home and so talk about God’s truth when you sit down at dinner time when you walk along the road travel time two others here when you lie down night time any parent knows that bed time is a key time, isn’t it? With our three boys, we used to call it popcorn time because we’ll put them to bed like, uh, I’m thirsty I’m hungry. I need to go to the bathroom. I don’t feel good and pop, pop, pop, pop. But bedtime’s a crucial time to talk to your kids time to pray with them I don’t know why we stopped doing this when we get when they get older.

We don’t tend to do it when they’re young Greg Speck, who’s a youth specialist, travels all over the country talking to youth, and we’ve gotten to know Greg over the years a little bit. Greg Speck says, when they become teenagers, teenagers are nocturnal. So, you may be wanting to go to bed, but sometimes night time’s when they want to talk.

And you better give them that opportunity and grab that opportunity. But when you lie down, and here’s the fourth one, when you get up. So, the next morning, breakfast time, great thing to do is pray with your kids before you send them off to school.

It’s a great thing to do, and just love on them. And so, four key times that we can capture the moment and pass on God’s truth. All right, command number three, and then we’ll wrap this up, is this.

We must impress God’s truth to the next generation through strategic communication verbally. We’ve already demonstrated that. What’s the Bible say? Bible says talk, and you need to talk about God’s truth, but also symbolically.

Look at verse eight. Tie God’s commandments as symbols on your hand, bind them on your foreheads, write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Now the Jews took this literally.

Bind God’s truth on your forehead and on your hands. Maybe you’ve seen these pictures of the Jews at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and it’s called the phylacteries. They’ll have a leather strip around their forehead with a little box, and inside that box on their forehead is scripture.

They’ll have a leather strip around their forearm, and then on their hand is a box, and there’s verses of scripture, probably Deuteronomy chapter six. They took this literally. It says tie them or writes them on the doorframes of your houses, on your gates.

This is something that the Jews still do today, Orthodox Jews certainly. It’s called the mezuzah. And maybe you’ve seen this in some homes.

On the doorframe of the home, as you’re entering the home, there’s this little box, like what’s in that box? Probably people who are following Deuteronomy chapter six, and in that little box is scripture. Now, most commentators think that this isn’t to be taken, literally, it’s basically saying have God’s truth at the forefront of your heart, the forefront of your minds, and the forefront of your thoughts, but we need to pass on God’s truth, both verbally and also symbolically. Now, in our last five to seven minutes here, we’re just going to think about God’s plan for the family and applying this to our lives and so let’s just conclude with some questions here that will help us by way of application, and here’s the first one.

Am I increasing in my love for God? In other words, do I love God more than I did like six months ago, a year ago, 10 years ago, whatever? Is my love for God growing? You see, the longer we walk with God, the more we should love God. That’s the way God designed a marriage relationship to be as well. The longer you know someone, the longer you walk with them, and you meet them, and you think you love them, but you really don’t know what that love is, and as you walk together and journey through life together, your love grows deeper and increases.

Am I increasing in my love for God? It starts with spending time with God. God speaks to us through his word, and we speak to him through prayer. It’s this love relationship, and so we need to grow in what? The grace and knowledge of God, and grow in our love for him.

Secondly, am I involved in passing God’s truth on to the next generation? Am I involved in passing God’s truth to the next generation? And the challenge of Deuteronomy chapter six, and I think this is clear from Ephesians chapter six, is where is that main responsibility to do that? And the message of scripture is that it starts at the home, and especially with dads. We’re going to be responsible someday for the spiritual upbringing of our family, and so this is given to parents. Ephesians chapter six, fathers, don’t exasperate your children but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

This lays at the doorstep of the home. Now the church can help. The church can help encourage, and we can help with various programs at Awana, and Beyond Awana, and youth group, and junior church, but ultimately, the responsibility for the spiritual training of our families lays at the doorstep of dads, moms.

Starts at the home. I remember our previous church. One family came to me once, and they were very, quite frankly, very upset.

They had four children, and not one of them ended up walking with God, and they came and began to point the finger at the church, and like, you guys let us down. You didn’t do your job. And really, we can help, but it lays at the doorstep of the home.

So, am I involved in passing God’s truth on to the next generation? We can do this as parents. We can do this as grandparents today, can’t we? If you don’t live close to your grandkids, guess what? FaceTime, and talk to them about God’s truths.

Am I involved in passing God’s truth on to the next generation? And let me just add this to point number two, if I waive application, and also, don’t forget to pray, pray, pray. Just pray for your family. As a parent, it’s an obligation that you’ll carry for your entire life.

You’ll always be praying for your kids, always should be praying for your grandkids. This is what Job did in Job chapter one. Job had seven sons, three daughters, and it says he offered a sacrifice daily, a picture of intercessory prayer, perhaps my children aren’t doing what’s right. He prayed for them, and so we need to be involved in passing God’s truth on to the next generation.

Lastly, and then we’re done, here’s the third one. Third one is this, am I using symbols to open a door to faith conversations? And so, I’m taking this out of Deuteronomy chapter six, where it says, tie God’s truth as symbols on your forehead and on your hands, on the doorpost of your home.

Most of us don’t have Bible verses attached to our foreheads or our wrists, but I was thinking, this is something we can do. Now, when I was growing up, and we had this picture in our home, and I saw it in many homes, I’d walk into the living room, and there’s a picture, maybe it’s in the dining room, and it’s from Revelation chapter three. Some of you know what this picture is.

Jesus standing at the door, knocking. It’s just a symbolic picture representing Revelation chapter three, and it was in many, many, many, many Christian homes, just kind of as a symbol. Well, I don’t see too many of those pictures today, but I also want to say that I think there are some things that we can do that will show people that we’re not embarrassed of our faith.

There are some symbols that we can use to say, hey, I’m a follower of Jesus. Our oldest grandson Shane, he’s in sixth grade, he frequently goes to Clinton schools, wears T-shirts and sweatshirts, and on it is his favorite Bible verse, Philippians 4:13. I can do all things through Christ, which gives me strength. He recently told me he might be switching his favorite verse to Joshua chapter one, which is a great, great passage.

Verses six through nine. I’ve told this story to so many of you, so forgive me for bragging again, but now I’ll do it to the whole church. So, two weeks ago, his assignment in sixth grade was to talk about someone who has influenced and impacted your life, like a five-minute speech.

Guess who Shane chose? Jesus. I saw his 3×5 card notes. The reason I picked Jesus is because he goes, my religion teaches me that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

And there are Bible verses that when you feel down, you can turn to like John chapter three, verse 16. And guess what? When you’re feeling bad, you can pray to him. He goes on to talk about the Bible and talk about all the scripture verses in the Bible.

And so, wearing a T-shirt, a necklace with a cross. I notice some of you wear those. It’s a great conversation starter, potentially verses of scripture on a wall, on a refrigerator, on a mirror.

Here’s one I’ll go out on a limb on. Don’t criticize me for it later. Maybe you can email me later.

How about a tattoo? I happen to be the only one in our family that doesn’t have one. I ask people about their tattoos. Tell me about this.

If you’re going to have a tattoo, what greater thing to have a tattoo of, of something that represents something very important in your life. My first exposure to tattoos was my uncle, one of my dad’s brothers, and he was a Marine. I always admired Uncle Rich because when he wore his short-sleeved shirts, man, he had all these tattoos on his arm, like, man, this guy’s a real man.

But even a tattoo can be an opportunity, what? To open up a faith starter conversation. Well, God’s plan for the home it’s found in Deuteronomy chapter six. And it’s crucial, we love God, that we know God, but we also take these opportunities to pass on God’s truth to the next generation because there is a battle out, a spiritual battle, the lives of your kids, our grandkids.

And I love, maybe the visual illustration that’s coming in my mind is that picture from Pennsylvania and the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania when our president nearly was assassinated and he had a bullet graze his ear and secret servicemen jumped on him and then this iconic picture of President Trump who got up with blood trickling down his face. What did he say? Three words, fight, fight, fight. I don’t know what he was referring to there, probably a political fight, but our application of that is we need to fight.

We need to fight for the next generation. Gods told us how to do that, and I trust that we will impress God’s truth on the next generation.

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Phil. 4:8-9

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All right, if you remain standing, we’re going to read just a couple verses of scripture from Philippians chapter 4. This is verses 8 and 9. And Paul’s beginning to wrap up his letter. And let me read the words on the screen and you can follow along. Paul writes, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if there’s anything that is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

And whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put into practice, and here’s the promise, and the God of peace will be with you. All right, well, we’re in the homestretch of the book of Philippians and were in chapter 4.

Last week we looked at the first seven verses and thought about the three areas of peace that God wants us to have. And I call it the triad of peace. It’s the peace with God, Romans 5:1, the peace of God that Paul talks about in Philippians 4. And then we talked about peace with others.

This morning, we get to verses 8 and 9, and we’re just going to spend about 30 minutes on these two verses. And Paul begins to wrap up his letter. In fact, he begins this section with the word finally.

And we’re going to think about the battle for the mind that he talks about in verses 8 and 9. When we move down to the next section, 10 through 20, Paul’s giving them a thanks, because you know that this letter is really a thank you note. The church at Philippi, and Paul was the founding pastor, they sent a gift through Epaphroditus, traveled 800 miles to bring Paul that gift. Where’s Paul? He’s in prison, isn’t he? He’s in a Roman prison.

He’s awaiting trial. And so, Paul’s really saying, thank you for the gift that you sent. In fact, if you remember back in chapter 2, Paul says he’s sending Epaphras back.

In fact, it says that he got sick on this trip and he almost died making this journey, this 800-mile journey to take this gift to the church at Philippi. And then the last couple of verses, Paul gives greetings from Caesar’s household. So, what happened when Paul was in prison? He made wise use of his time.

Then he wrote four prison epistles and he’s sharing the gospel. And some of Caesar’s household comes to faith in Christ. Well, this morning we’re going to look at verses 8 and 9. And I’ve called it two pleas, P-L-E-A-S, and a promise.

And we’re going to think about the battle for the mind. And just an introductory thought here as we think about the battle for the mind is this, we this morning need to be aware of the ongoing spiritual battle in our lives. We need to be aware that as a follower of Jesus, there is an ongoing spiritual battle that goes on in our lives.

The Bible talks about three enemies that we have. Enemy number one, the world. By that, the Bible means the world system.

And we live in a world whose system is opposed to God, anti-God, and opposed to the truth. That was true in Paul’s day as well. Enemy number two is the flesh, Romans chapter 7. Even though we come to faith in Christ, our sin nature is not eradicated.

And so, we still struggle with the pull of sin and temptation in our lives. Paul talks about it in Romans 7. He says, the things I want to do, I don’t do. And the things that I don’t want to do, I end up doing.

Oh, wretched man that I am. Though Paul struggled with sin, probably you and I do as well. That’s part of the sanctification process.

But the third enemy in our life is very clear from Ephesians chapter 6, and it’s Satan. Years ago, a book was written, Satan is alive and well on planet earth by Hal Lindsey. And Paul talks about our enemy in the Ephesians chapter 6. Let me just remind you of these verses.

Verse 10, be strong in the Lord and his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you may be able to take your stand against the devil’s schemes. The King James, the old King James uses an old outdated word, the wiles of the devil. The Greek word is methodeia.

So, Paul’s saying, be aware of how your enemy works, how Satan works. We do that today. In fact, I was just watching the news yesterday and they’re talking about the defense department and the budget.

And they say, you know what, we need to kind of refashion the way we focus our energies and finances in our defense budget because people operate with drones today. You know, 30, 40 years ago, that was unheard of. There’s always shifting tactics and Paul says, be aware of how Satan works.

That’s why Paul wrote to Timothy. He says, I want you to endure hardship like a good soldier. And so, if you’re trying to live for Christ, if you’re trying to stand for truth, if you’re trying to make a difference in your world, guess what, you’re going to face opposition and there’s a battle going on.

And the battle is for your mind, your thoughts. That’s where Satan started way back in Genesis chapter three. And Paul warns about it in his letter to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11, verse three.

But I’m afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the certain serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray. So where is Satan’s focus? He begins to focus on our minds and our thoughts. That’s what he did in the garden of Eden, talking snake.

That’s a little weird, isn’t it? But it’s true. And Satan began to have Eve question God’s word, question the goodness of God. They had freedom to every tree in the whole garden except for one.

And Satan begins to focus on, well, God’s not, God’s restrictive. And God, if God was good, he’d let you take every tree in the garden. And then of course, Satan lied, didn’t he? He said, no, you’re not going to die when you eat of the fruit.

And that was a lie because God said in the day that you eat of that fruit, you will die. Spiritually, you were dead immediately. Physically, you began to die.

And so, Satan, who’s the father of lies, who’s the great deceiver, begins to attack our minds. That’s why Paul’s words this morning are so important and so instructive. And we’ll get to them in just a little bit.

But another book has been around for a long time, since 1980. Dr. Tim LaHaye wrote a book entitled The Battle for the Mind. Here’s what he says about our thoughts, our brains, and the mind.

I’m quoting him here. Scientists call the human brain the most complex living mechanism in the world. The average brain weighs about three pounds, contains 12 billion cells, each of which is connected to 10,000 other brain cells, totaling 120 trillion brain connections.

I’m convinced as you get a little older, I think I’m down to about 110, to be honest. But that’s a lot of connections. The brain is very, very complex.

He says your brain supervises everything you do, from the involuntary beat of your heart to the conscious decisions of life. And so, Satan’s attack is going to be on our minds and on our thoughts. And the Scriptures have a lot to say about our minds, don’t they? Verses like Proverbs 23:7, as a man thinks in his heart, and the Bible uses the word heart to kind of sum up our intellect, emotion, and will, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

Matthew 22, verse 37, what’s the greatest commandment? Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your, M-I-N-D, with all your mind. And so, Christianity is true, isn’t it? There’s some that have criticized Christianity. I remember Ted Turner years ago said, Christianity is a religion for losers.

It’s for people that need a crutch and can’t make it through life on their own. No, Christianity is true. It is intellectual.

It makes sense. Josh McDowell wrote Evidence That Demands a Verdict years ago. He started out to disprove Christianity.

As he investigated it, he discovered what? Just the opposite. This is true. And so, we need to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind.

Romans 12:1 and 2, be not conformed to this world, but be what? Transformed by the what? Renewing of your mind. And that’s part of what we’re doing here this morning as we focus on God’s word. So, the battle for the mind.

And Paul gives us two pleas. Here’s the first one in verse 8. Focus your mind and thoughts on God’s truth. He’s encouraging us here in Philippians 4:8, to focus your mind, focus your thoughts on God’s truths, on the scriptures.

There’s eight categories to think on and we read them in the scripture reading. Paul says think about things that are true, that are noble, that means honest, things that are right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy. And there’s a lot of good books around.

But I want to suggest to you that here’s one book that all those words would describe what? The Bible. Think about things that are true. What did Jesus say in John 17:17? Sanctify them with your truth, with my truth.

My word is truth. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So, in this day and age of people are wondering like, is there such a thing as absolute truths? Yes, there is.

God is the God of truth. God cannot lie. Titus chapter 1 verse 2. Every word in this book is true.

Every promise will come to pass. God’s word is true. Think about things that are right.

Psalm 19:8. The precepts of the Lord, the laws of the Lord are right. And we could go on through all of these eight characteristics, but focus your mind on God’s truth. It was Jim Morrison who was the lead singer of the Doors that said whoever controls the media controls the mind.

Whoever controls the media controls the mind. And so, in our day and age, we need to be very, very careful because media, entertainment, social media, secular universities are all out what? To control our minds. And not only are our lives at stake, but the lives of our children and grandchildren are at stake.

There is a battle for their minds. And so, in this day and age, we have these things, don’t we? Smartphones. According to the latest data that I saw, young people spend an average of seven hours a day on screen time.

Computer, cellular phones, TV, et cetera. 87% of the time on social media is on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Compare that with statistics that says 3% of all teens say they read their Bible every day.

So, we got seven hours a day spent on screens. And 3% of teens, young people that may spend a little bit of time on the bible, guess who’s going to win the battle for their minds? It’s what’s been bombarding them seven hours a day. And so, we need to be very, very careful about our thought, life, and what we need is a daily intake of God’s Word.

We need a daily intake of God’s Word. I graduated from Cedarville University back in, when did I graduate? 1977, a long time ago. Cedarville University is a great, great school located in southwestern Ohio.

My older brother and sister-in-law spent about 30 years working there. They just retired a year ago. I tell you; it is one of the most outstanding Christian schools, not just in the Midwest, but in the whole country.

They have about 6,000 students. I still like to kind of stay in touch with the school. And yesterday was their graduation.

And in this day and age, you can watch graduations over livestream. So, I just spent about 20 minutes watching the graduation. And here’s what Dr. White, who’s the president of the school, as he was giving his concluding remarks to about 800 graduates, here’s what he told them to do.

Number one, he says, I want you to read your Bible. I want you to be in Scripture every day. Read your Bible.

He said, number two, I want you to go and find a local church that teaches and preaches the Bible. And don’t just go and enjoy the preaching and the fellowship, but I want you to get involved in that church. And then he went on to list three or four more things.

It’s exactly what Paul is saying here in Philippians chapter 4, verse 8. We need a daily intake of God’s word. There are so many options available for us today. And we have a lot of these on the back table, our daily bread out of Grand Rapids.

And these are worldwide. I don’t know how many of these they print every quarter. But these are daily readings that you can pick up and read.

You can have it sent to your phone. I read this every morning, every day, the daily bread. Walk Through the Bible has a lot of options for devotions and getting into God’s word.

Keys for Kids. And if you have young kids, go to keysforkids.org. And there is a whole raft of resources that will help you just begin to plant God’s word into the lives of your children. Well, the first thought, the first plea is to focus your mind on God’s truth.

But Paul continues in verse 9. And here’s the second plea. And we’ll put it in these words. Find a mentor who will help you put God’s truth into practice.

Find a mentor, someone who may be a little further along in their Christian Walk than you are. Because it’s not important, it’s important to not only know God’s truth intellectually, but what do we need to do? We need to learn how to live it out. Put it into practice.

So, what does Paul say here? Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me. So, here’s that powerful combination of lips and life. Paul said, I not only taught it to you, but I also, what, lived it out.

I modeled it for you and what you’ve heard from me and what you’ve seen from me, put it into practice. And so, are any of us going to do this perfectly? No. But there should be a consistency that our kids and our grandkids and others see between what we say we believe and how we live our lives.

And when there’s a disconnect for that, especially in home life and when kids see parents, you know, worshiping and praising God on Sunday and then live in a totally different way the rest of the week, it becomes a huge turnoff. And they say, well, that’s not Christianity that I want. And so, Paul says, find a mentor who will help you put God’s truth into practice.

And that’s James chapter 1, verse 22, that familiar verse where James writes, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Don’t just be a hearer of the word and walk away from your Bible study or a sermon and say, well, wasn’t that nice? But no, we need to think about, Lord, what do I need to do? Is there a sin I need to repent of? Is there something I need to start doing that I’m not doing? And Paul says, what can help us with that is to have a mentor who can model God’s truth for us.

Dr. James Dobson, in his book, Parenting Isn’t for Cowards, made this statement, attach a boy to a good man and he seldom goes wrong. The influence of a mentor, of a role model in a child’s life and the same is true of a daughter to a mom or a female. I think I mentioned three or four weeks ago that I can look back and there’s four men in my life that played a significant role in who I am today.

Number one was my dad, pastored for 60 years. Second one was a fellow by name of Tom Ladd. He was a youth leader in our church growing up in Cleveland, Ohio.

And he had kids and teenagers and him and his wife poured their lives into the young people. And I was the benefit of that. There was a Bible teacher in our small Christian school that I attended by the name of David Graham, who was my soccer coach, my Bible teacher and greatly influenced my life.

And then a fourth man by the name of Louie Konopka, when I was married and got to seminary and Louie was a little bit older than I and became a mentor to me and greatly influenced my life simply by spending a lot of time with him. Diane and I were newly married. Louie and his wife had pastored a church in Ohio for four years.

They were back at Grand Rapids Seminary. They had two children and we spent a lot of time with them. And I watched him.

Watched how he treated his wife. Watched how he disciplined his kids. Played a lot of Dutch Blitz together.

You know what Dutch Blitz is? Western Michigan thing. Okay, we got Henry back there who knows what Dutch Blitz is. Oh, we got another one.

Yeah, it’s a great game. Oh, we got three. It’s a great game.

More so on the other side of the state, maybe. But he was a mentor. And this is what Paul’s plea is.

Find a mentor. What you have learned, received or heard from me or seen in me, put into practice. Now, a fellow by the name of Bobb Biehl has written a book titled Mentoring.

And he says, why is mentoring so important in our day today? And he gives a couple reasons. Number one, he says, because of mobility. Because we live in a culture where society and people move a lot.

And so, years ago, the whole family unit was all together. And maybe you were influenced by relatives and aunts and uncles. Today, that doesn’t happen as much, it’s very rare.

A lot of relatives are thousands of miles or hundreds of miles away. The average American family moves 11.7 times. I don’t know how you move .7, but about 12 times.

And so, because of mobility, there’s a widespread rootless feeling and disconnection. And so that’s where the church can help and become so very, very important. Secondly, he said, another important reason for mentoring is because of the concept of manhood and womanhood.

You know that there’s some confusion in our world today about gender. That there’s some people on more of the liberal side that can’t even define what a woman is. And so, what we need to do is we need to have role models, godly mentors, of what biblical manhood is and what biblical womanhood is.

And that comes from scripture. That comes from others that are going to live that out and what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman. Proverbs chapter 31 has got some good verses there.

This is what Paul writes to Timothy. I want you to teach God’s truth to other men who will be able to teach others. In Titus chapter, I think one talks about older women mentoring younger women.

And so, find a mentor who will help you put God’s truth into practice. Well, here’s the promise now. Two pleas.

Focus your mind on God’s truth. Paul says, what you’ve heard from me, seen in me, in my life, I want you to put it into practice, to live it out. And now here’s the promise.

This is from the last part of verse nine. Paul concludes, and the God of peace will be with you. The God of peace will be with you.

He’s the prince of peace. He’s the God of peace. Jesus said in John, the upper room, my peace, I give you, I leave with you.

And so, God wants us to have peace. And he’s called the God of peace. Now this is an important promise, isn’t it? Because Paul, their mentor is what? 800 miles away.

He’s in Rome and he’s writing to believers who are in Philippi, 800 miles away. And so, mentors can come and go. Family relationships can come and go.

Relationships in general will come and go. But there’s one promise. There’s one relationship that will never ever leave us.

And it’s the God of peace. Hebrews chapter 13, verses five and six, I will never leave you or forsake you. And so, Paul encourages these Christians and says, I want you to hang on to this promise of the God of peace.

We’re never alone. God is faithful. He will always be with us.

Well, this morning as we conclude, let’s just think about some quick practical applications of Philippians 4:8-9, and then we’ll conclude. Here’s the first one. What do we need to do with this? Number one, here’s just another reminder.

The scripture says, guard your mind. That’s Proverbs chapter four. And I’m not sure I have the right verse on the screen there, but let me get to it.

Proverbs chapter four. Here’s what the author of Proverbs writes, beginning in verse 20, Proverbs four. My son, verse nine chapters of the book of Proverbs is a father talking to a son.

And so, he addresses his son. My son, pay attention to what I say. Turn your ear to my words.

Listen to me. Do not let them out of your sight. Keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.

Verse 23, here’s the verse. Above all else. Priority number one, guard your heart.

But we can say, guard your mind. Why? The last part of the verse, for everything you do flows from it. Everything you do is going to flow from what your thought process in your mind.

And so, we need to protect our minds. We need to guard our minds. Someone has said, sow a thought, reap an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character, sow a character, reap a destiny.

Everything we do will flow from our thought life and from our minds. And so, we need to be very careful in guarding that today. And that’s a challenge.

Challenge for parents, grandparents in this day and age of media. When I was growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, back in the 60s, I remember we got our first television set. I was in kindergarten.

And we lived in a city and we got this first television set. I was in kindergarten and we were fascinated with it. And the next day, my older brother wasn’t feeling good enough to go to school.

And to this day, I think he faked it. He wanted to watch the television. And I came back from school and you know what he told me? He says, I saw a horse on television.

Like what? You saw a horse? I mean, we lived in the city. Now we had three stations, Channel 3, NBC, Channel 5, ABC, Channel 8, CBS. That was it.

11 o’clock at night, they played the national anthem and the TV was off. We live in a whole different world. And it’s challenging.

Boy, do we need to be on guard, not only for our own minds, but to guard the minds of our kids and our grandkids. So be discerning, guard your mind. Number two, maximize your exposure and intake of God’s truth. So, maximize your intake of God’s truth.

So, what we want to do is we want to fill our minds with God’s truth. Over the years, I’ve had people ask me, what do you think about transcendental meditation? Well, I’m not sure. I’ve never really practiced it, but I did a little research into transcendental meditation, and it really has its roots in Hinduism, and it really teaches you to empty your mind.

Maybe focus on some sort of mantra that you repeat over and over. Well, I want to tell you the biblical mindset is God doesn’t want us to empty our minds. He wants us what? To fill our minds.

To fill our minds with God’s truth. And so, here’s the Navigator’s Hand illustration because it talks about five ways you can intake God’s truth in your life. Number one, you can hear God’s truth.

That’s what we’re doing this morning. Romans 10:17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You can read God’s word.

Revelation chapter one says, blessed is the person that reads the words of this book. You can study it. That’s Acts 17.

The Bereans were studying the scriptures every day, and Paul writes to Timothy and says, study to show yourself approved unto God. You can memorize it. Memorize scripture.

You can meditate on scripture. And so, maximize your intake of God’s word. Thirdly, start early teaching and giving exposure of God’s truth to your children.

Start early in teaching and exposing God’s truth to your children. Now it’s never too late to start sharing God’s truth, but the best way, the best way to do it is what? To start young. Paul writes to Timothy, his last letter, 2nd Timothy chapter three.

Here’s what he’s writing to Timothy, who’s a pastor in Ephesus and Paul was his mentor. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it. He had some mentors.

It was his grandmother and mother, Lois and Eunice and some others, Paul. And then verse 15, here it is. The King James uses the word child and NIV uses the word infant and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

The Greek word is brephos. It means from a baby you knew the scriptures. So somehow Timothy’s mom and Timothy’s grandmother, I don’t know how they did it, but from early on they started to pour God’s truth into the life of even a little baby.

Maybe that’s by reciting scripture. Maybe that’s by playing some worshipful songs when they’re young, but start early. That’s a good plug for cubbies, isn’t it? I think puddles is even before that, but I’m not sure I want to be in a class with young people that’s called puddles, but the main thing is start, start young, start early in teaching and training your children.

Here’s the last one and then we’re done. Get involved in a mentoring relationship. Get involved in a mentoring relationship.

It doesn’t have to be a formal one-on-one meeting all the time, but just somebody that can encourage you or maybe just somebody that you’re watching their life and that you look up to and know that they’re living for Jesus and prayerfully seek out a mentoring relationship. Proverbs 13:20 says, walk with the wise and become wise. And so, the people that we hang with are very, very important because they influence us.

In fact, just the opposite is true in 1st Corinthians 15:33, where Paul writes these words, he says, bad company corrupts good character. And so prayerfully seek out a mentoring relationship. Well, there’s a battle for the mind, battle for your thought life.

And the encouragement this morning is to allot our minds and focus on God’s word and God’s truth and to build that into the lives of our kids and our grandkids. To find a mentoring relationship or to not just intellectually know God’s word, but someone that can help us live it out and put it into practice. And then remember the promise, no matter where you are, no matter what you’re experiencing, God is with us.

The God of peace. He’ll never leave you. He’ll never forsake you.

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Philippians 4:4-7

All right, thank you for your singing. If you’ll stand, we’ll read our scripture this morning, and this is Philippians chapter 4, 4 through 7. Here’s what Paul writes, Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Here’s the promise. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

All right. We’re in the homestretch here in the book of Philippians. So, if you want to turn to your Bibles to Philippians chapter 4, you can just follow along with the outline on the screen this morning.

We’re in the homestretch. And as you know, Paul’s writing this thank you letter back to the church. He’s in Rome.

He’s in prison. He’s awaiting a trial. He doesn’t know if he’s going to live or die.

And he makes wise use of his time, doesn’t he? He spreads the gospel. And some of Caesar’s household comes to faith in Jesus. And he writes four letters, four prison epistles.

This is one of them, primarily a thank you note, because the church has sent a gift through Epaphroditus to Paul. So, this morning in the first seven verses of chapter 4, we’re going to answer five questions. And you have them on their outline.

And so let me just review those questions. Here’s what we’re going to answer. What does it mean to stand firm in the Lord? That’s found in verse 1, Paul’s admonition to stand firm in the Lord.

What does that mean? Number two, who are Euodia, Syntyche, and my true companion that’s mentioned in verse 2? Who are these people? Number three, what’s the book of life that’s mentioned in verse 3? What’s the book of life all about? Number four, what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord always, as Paul writes? And then he says, and again, I say rejoice. Do we have to have a smile on our face all the time and just always choose joy? What does that mean to rejoice in the Lord always? And then lastly, we’ll finish with this. This is one I need every day.

How can I have victory over worry and anxiety in my life? How can I have victory over worry and anxiety? So, the book of Philippians is Paul’s most personal book. Chapter 1, he says, I have you in my thoughts. I have you in my prayers.

I have you in my heart. And look how he starts out verse 1 of chapter 4. He gives six enduring terms. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, we’re part of God’s family.

You’re my brother and you’re my sister in the Lord. You whom I love, who I long for, you’re my joy, you’re my crown. One translation says, you’re my beloved or you’re my dear friends.

And so, Paul has this intimate, close relationship with the church at Philippi. He was their founding pastor and he loves these people and they love him. And so, Paul begins by just reaffirming his love and his relationship with the Philippian believers.

But let’s get to our questions here and then we’ll answer these and think about three applications from the first seven verses here. Here’s question number one. What does it mean to stand firm in the Lord? Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love, I long for, my joy, and my crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends.

So, it’s a command. It’s an imperative. It says, I want you to stand firm.

And so that command, that imperative, I believe can apply to two areas of our life. Number one, he’s telling them to stand firm in truth, to stand firm in doctrine. Secondly, stand firm in your duty.

Stand firm in your belief. Know what you believe. Stand firm in your behavior.

And so, the apostle Paul tells the believers in Philippi, I want you to be grounded in truth. You heard the story of the pastor that the elderly couple that visited his church and he wanted to kind of get to know them a little better. So, he made a personal visit to their house and he sat down with them.

And after they kind of got to know each other a little bit better, he began to ask some questions about their spiritual background. So, he turned to the husband and he says, well, can you kind of share with me, what do you believe? And that kind of took the husband by surprise. So, he kind of thought about it for a little bit.

He really didn’t know what to say. He says, well, I believe exactly what my wife believes. He turned to the wife, and he asked the wife, well, what do you believe? And she thought about it a little bit and she said, well, I believe exactly what my husband believes.

And finally, the pastor said, well, what do you both believe? And they said, pretty much the same thing. So, we need to know what we believe. Did you know that there’s five fundamentals of the faith? These are truths that might be referred to as bullet theology, because these are truths that we should be willing to die for.

Because without these truths, then we don’t have the essence of the gospel. Here they are. The inerrancy of scripture.

The scripture is without error. It is the inspired word of God. Secondly, the virgin birth and deity of Christ.

That Christ is who he said he is, he’s the son of God. The third one is the substitutionary atonement. He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that in him we might become what? The righteousness of God.

He paid our sin debt. Number four, what we celebrated last Sunday, the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus. We stand firm on that because what? Without the resurrection, we’re wasting our time.

There is no gospel. And lastly, the second coming of Christ. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Apostles’ Creed.

It’s one of the earliest creeds that was written. It’s from 140 AD, so this has been around a long, long time. And the apostles and the early church fathers got together and wrote a statement of some very important doctrinal truths.

Let me just read it to you. It’s a couple paragraphs long. Here’s what the Apostles’ Creed says.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven. He sits on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the universal church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

That’s the Apostles’ Creed. So, to stand firm means that we need to know what we believe. And you know what? God’s given some gifts to the church, and they’re listed in Ephesians chapter 4, to help us with that.

And the Apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesian believers, writes about some of the gifts that God has given, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, what, to equip God’s people for works of service, and to become mature in Christ. And then verse 14 says, then we will no longer be infants, talking spiritually, being tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of doctrine. In other words, there’s lots of false teaching out there.

There’s lots of different doctrinal truths out there. And when we know what we believe, we’re not going to be swayed. We’re not going to be like chasing after, oh, that sounds appealing.

No, because what? We’re grounded in truth. And so, to stand firm means to stand firm in what we believe, but also in our behavior, because we’re in a spiritual battle. And Ephesians 6 talks about standing against what? The wiles of the devil.

In fact, that word stand is used four times. And so, we’re to what? To stand firm, not only in what we believe, but in our Christian life, our journey. Paul talked about it in Philippians 3. He says, I press on toward the goal to win the prize.

And we listened to a song a few weeks ago, and we studied that passage. In Jesus’ name, I press on. And so, it’s to keep living for God and keep working for him and standing firm in the truth.

Well, there’s a second question we’re going to answer, and it’s found in Philippians 4:2. Here’s what Paul writes. I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche. Not in the top 10 baby names in 2025, but here’s Paul’s plea.

I plead with them to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help those women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel. So, who are Euodia and Syntyche? And apparently, they were two women in the Philippian church.

And apparently, they were having a dispute or disagreement. And apparently, it was public because Paul is 800 miles away in Rome, and he hears about it. But these two ladies aren’t getting along.

And so, what does Paul write? He says, I ask you to be of the same mind. These are ladies who apparently have worked with Paul side by side and sharing the gospel and serving in the church. Help those women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel.

They were part of Paul’s ministry team. And he admonishes them, I want you to be of the same mind. He writes about this in Philippians 2, Paul does.

He says, make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. It’s unity. It’s oneness.

Apparently, these ladies were having this public dispute. And he asks them to be of the same mind. There are times for the sake of unity within the church that we need to set aside our personal preferences for the sake of unity.

And so, that’s what he’s asking these ladies to do. We don’t know what that dispute was about, but there are times where we need to, if it’s a personal preference for the sake of unity, we need to set that aside and have a oneness and unity in the Lord. Well, Paul mentions a true companion here.

In verse 3, I ask you, my true companion, help those women since they contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers. So, some translations use the word true companion. King James uses my true yoke fellow.

The New Living Translation says my partner. So, who is this person? And the answer is we don’t know. I don’t know who he is.

But apparently, Paul knows him and Paul’s asking him to come alongside and help these two that are in disagreement come to, what, oneness and unity. And that’s a biblical principle, isn’t it? There are times if we can’t settle a disagreement with another believer, maybe within the church, what’s the easy thing to do today? The easy thing to do is just like, well, I’m just going to run off and go somewhere else, go to another church. There are times when God leads us from one church to another, but what God wants us to do is he wants us to, what, work out those differences.

If you can’t do it, then you need to look for another mature believer that can come in and help you resolve those differences. And so, Euodia and Syntyche were two women having a disagreement, and Paul says, hey, let’s just all get along and be of the same mind and set aside those personal preferences for the sake of harmony and unity.

Third question, and this is found in the last part of verse 3, as Paul writes that this true companion needs to come and help the women who have contended at his side for the sake of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers.

Here’s the phrase, whose names are in the book of life, whose names are in the book of life. So, what is the book of life? It is mentioned four times in the Bible. Here in Philippians 4:3, it’s mentioned three times in Revelation.

Revelation 3:5, 20:12, and 20:15. There are also two other references in Revelation to the Lamb’s book of life. So, what is this book all about? Apparently, there’s a book of life that contains the names of all those who have been redeemed or saved.

God has a book, and in that book are the names of what? All those who have come to know Jesus as their Savior. And so, when we come to the end of the book of Revelation and something called the great white throne judgment, that’s not a judgment for believers, but it’s for those who have not received Christ as their Savior. John writes about the great white throne, and here is the presence of everyone.

And I saw the dead great and small, verse 12, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. God is a just God, and eternal condemnation will be worse for some people than for others, I believe. There are degrees of punishment in hell.

Then he goes on to say, then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

And so, there’s the book of life, and in that book are the names of those who’ve come to faith in Jesus. So, there’s an old hymn. I don’t think it’s in our hymn book, but the hymn writer writes the hymn entitled, Is My Name Written There? Let me just give you the words.

Fans of one Lord, I care not for riches, neither silver nor gold. I would make sure of heaven, I would enter the fold. In the book of thy kingdom, with its pages so fair, tell me, Jesus my Savior, is my name written there? Lord, my sins, they are many, like the sands of the sea, but thy blood, O my Savior, is sufficient for me.

For thy promise is written in bright letters that glow. Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them like snow. Is my name written there, on the page white and fair? In the book of thy kingdom, is my name written there? The last stanza, Oh! that beautiful city, with its mansions of light, with its glorified beings, in pure garments of white, where no evil thing cometh to despoil what is fair, where the angels are watching, yes, my name’s written there.

And I trust you know this morning, Christ as your Savior, and if you do, your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. In November 22nd, 1963, name Ronald Wayne Clark, written in the Lamb’s book of life, I trust your name is written there.

Well, question number four, back to Philippians 4, what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord always? And then Paul adds, and again I say rejoice, Philippians chapter 4, verse 4. So, here’s Paul, it’s the joy epistle, he’s writing from prison, and yet he’s choosing joy, but what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord always? I remember the first church that we were at in Ohio, Strongs, Ohio, there’s some good friends of ours that attended, and husband’s name was Steve, and I liked Steve, and he became a great friend, but Steve like was always smiling.

I mean it started to bug me, because you know, he just had this smile on his face like all the time, and like man, doesn’t this guy ever like get down, or get discouraged, or is that just a genuine joy that he has? So, I asked the question, do we have to be joyful all the time? So, there’s a book entitled Joy and Tears, The Emotional Life of a Christian by Gerald Peterman, and what do you do in your life when you get a cancer diagnosis? How do you respond when a marriage ends, or a company downsizes, and you lose your job, or your child becomes sick with a serious illness, and are you just supposed to plaster a fake smile on your face, and say well praise the Lord, and quote Romans 8:28? Well, here’s what Gerald Peterman writes, he starts out by quoting Romans 12:15, which says rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep with those that weep, or mourn with those that mourn, and he writes that verse presupposes that we can distinguish rejoicing from what? Mourning, or weeping, or entering into someone’s pain, and so no we don’t have to go around like choosing this smile on our face when our heart is breaking, because as Ecclesiastes 3:4 says, there’s a time to weep, and there’s a time to laugh. 1st Corinthians 13:6 says, love does not rejoice in evil. We’re not going to read some story in the newspaper of horrific evil, and say well isn’t that wonderful, we’ll choose joy.

No, no, and so here’s, again I’m going to read a couple paragraphs from Gerald Peterman, so what does it mean when it says rejoice always? Well Peterman writes, when we look, we need to look at Paul’s word for always, which in the original is ah-ee, sometimes this word always refers to something that happens continually, continuously, 24 7. For example, Jesus says he always does his father’s will, and that the father always hears him, John 11:42. Hebrews says Jesus always lives to make intercession for us. On the other hand, this same word Paul uses for always sometimes refers to things that happen often or typically.

For example, during Jesus’ trial, he was asked in question about his teaching and about his disciples. He responded, I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all Jews come together. Always here means typically or characteristically.

Jesus didn’t always teach in the temple, he taught in other places. So even in Philippians, Paul mentions that while writing, Philippians 3:18, he wept over the enemies of the cross. So, Paul’s not rejoicing over the enemies of the cross, Paul is weeping in Philippians 3:18 because they’re enemies.

And so, the summary is joy should be characteristic of our lives, it should be our typical experience. But if we have times of pain, weeping, or anxiety, that does not mean we fail to obey the command of Philippians 4:4. It might mean instead that we’ve obeyed the command of Romans 12:15. Now that kind of helped me, you know, that God’s given us emotions, and sometimes we’re filled with joy and happiness, and other times we’re entering into someone’s pain, and we’re hurting with them.

And that doesn’t mean that we’re not obeying Philippians 4:4. The joy needs to be the typical characteristic of our life, but not all the time. I hope that makes sense. Here’s the last one, number five.

How can I have victory over worry and anxiety in my life? And we’re going to look at that in Philippians 4:6 and 7. So Jesus talks a lot about that. Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, I think it’s four, five times, is don’t worry, don’t be anxious, don’t worry, God closed the birds and the fields. He’s going to take care of you.

Don’t worry. And that’s what Paul writes here in Philippians 4:6 and 7. He begins to talk about worry. Now there’s general categories of worry in our life.

I just jotted down a few. We worry over family, and I’ve discovered that as you get older and your family begins to grow, there’s more people, not only you worry about your kids, not only worry about their marriages, their grandkids. The worry list gets longer.

And so, we worry about family, don’t we? We worry about finances in our economy. We worry about our health. We worry about the future.

Especially, you know, young people and what’s God’s plan for my life and what’s his direction for my life. And so, we have this worry list. Dr. Vance Havner, a late Southern preacher, said worry is like a rocking chair.

It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. But worry really doesn’t change anything, does it? So here Paul says, do not worry. Now here’s a definition from, this is from Dr. Ray Pritchard.

He writes, worry is excessive concern over the affairs of life. The key being excessive. Worry happens when you are so concerned about the problems of life that you can’t think of anything else.

It is an all-consuming feeling of uncertainty and fear. And the Apostle Paul and God tells us, don’t do that. So, there’s a fine balance between just stewing and worrying and a life of anxiety over here.

And I know a family in our previous church, and the husband was not the leader in the home, not providing for his wife. And when she used to express that concern, he would just say, well, just trust God.

But while he was trusting God, he was just sitting in his chair doing nothing when he should have been out looking for a job. So, we don’t want to go that direction, do we? So, the sweet spot is in the middle here. And so, what does Paul tell us? It’s a command.

Do not be anxious about anything. That is an imperative. Stop worrying.

Now I got to ask a question here. Does anybody remember the Bob Newhart show? Have you ever seen the clip where a woman comes in and she’s paying lots of money for advice and he asks her like, well, what’s your fear? And she says, well, my fear is that I’m going to be like put in a box and buried in the ground. And so, she looks to Bob Newhart for advice.

And finally, Bob Newhart says, well, here’s my advice to you. Stop it. She goes, what? Stop it.

And they go on and on. He says stop it about six or seven times. He says, stop it.

He says, if you don’t stop worrying about that, that’s a horrible thing to think about. So just stop it. And that’s the only advice that he gave her.

Well, that’s what Paul’s saying here. First of all, we need to stop worrying. And here’s what we have to admit.

This kind of worry is a sin. And we have all these categories of sin, you know, horrible sins, acceptable sins. If the Bible says don’t worry and we’re worrying all the time, then that’s a sin.

And so, we need to acknowledge that because it’s what? What is worry? We’re not trusting God. We’re wanting to take things into our control. We’re not trusting a sovereign God who loves us and has a plan for our lives and loves you and your kids and your grandkids more than you could ever imagine.

And so, Paul says, number one, stop worrying. And then he gives us a prescription. Here it is.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. So, he tells us, stop doing this. Here’s what I want you to do.

I want you to pray. And I want you to take that worry list. And sometimes it’s even helpful to write it all down.

I want you to give it to me. Casting all your care, that word for care is worry and anxiety. This is 1st Peter 5:7.

Cast all your care upon him because he cares for you. God will take care of your family. God will take care of your finances.

God has a plan for your life and your family’s life and we simply need to trust him. And then there is the promise. And that’s how verse 7 ends.

What happens when we stop worrying and we take all those requests, our worry list, and we pray about them? Here’s the promise. The peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts, that’s your emotions, and your minds, that’s your thoughts, in Christ Jesus. The word there, is like a military word, standing guard.

God’s going to give you the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. And so, we can go through the storms of life and if you know the makeup of a hurricane and the center of a hurricane is what? The eye. And there are storms all around and then you get into that eye of the hurricane and all of a sudden, it’s completely calm.

And that’s what God promises to us. It is the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. Well, this morning as we close just three application questions because we’re kind of camping on this word peace because the Bible talks about three kinds of peace in scripture.

And so, here’s our three questions. Question number one as we think about application, have you made your peace with God? In other words, is your name found in the book of life? Romans 5:1 says, therefore being justified by faith we’ve made peace with God. Before we become a child of God, we’re his enemy.

We’re in darkness. And then through the blood of Jesus and his forgiveness we are at peace with him. Romans 8:1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

We’ve been forgiven. Sins have been paid for and we have peace with God. The second question is this, not only have I made my peace with God but are you experiencing the peace of God in your life? I don’t know about you but life is challenging and we’re all just a phone call away from difficult news and difficult things happening in our life.

And I tell you what, this is something we need daily in our life. When that anxiety and that worry comes and when we’re awake at night and we’re wondering and we’re worrying, you know, don’t count sheep, talk to the shepherd as they say. Pray.

And trust God. And that peace of God will fill our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So, you can experience the peace of God even when you’re walking through the storms of life.

Lastly, third one is this, are you experiencing peace with others? So, these are, I call it the triad of peace, you know, peace with God, the peace of God, and then peace with other people. The old poem, oh to live in heaven above with those we love, oh that will be glory, but to live on earth below with those we know, well that’s a different story. And sometimes it’s difficult to get along.

And yet what’s the scripture tell us? We need to work to maintain unity. Here’s what Romans 12:18 says, if it is possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. If it’s possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

So do everything you know how to do to make peace with that situation. But guess what? Sometimes peace takes two partners. And sometimes peace with another person doesn’t always happen.

And there’s times where we just kind of need to separate or put up some boundaries. But in general, like God wants us to live at peace with others. And so, I trust you’ve made your peace with God.

I trust you’ll experience the peace of God today and take some time later today if you’ve got worries and anxiety and turn that worry list and make it into a prayer list. And then I trust that you’ll experience peace with other people. But Jesus said, I came to give you peace.

Not like the world gives. But I’ve come to give you peace. He’s called the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 26:3 says, you will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed or focused on God. So, what we tend to do is we focus on the circumstance. He wants us to focus on him.

I don’t know what burdens on your heart this morning. Someone has said we’re either coming into a trial or in the midst of a trial or coming out of one. But life is hard.

The fact of the matter is all of us have things in our lives that cause us worry and anxiety. And as we close our service this morning, let’s put into practice Philippians 4:6 and 7. Whatever’s on that worry list in your heart this morning, give it to God. The great burden bearer, then you will experience his perfect peace.

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The day that changed the world, and it can change us, can’t it? I hope that’s your testimony this morning. Well, there’s no other place I would rather be this morning than right here, and I’m so glad you’re here. Although a close second, I watched early this morning a service from the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.

And Phil Tuttle, who’s the president of Walk Through the Bible, and we’ve gotten to know Phil as an acquaintance because he’s been at Maranatha many times. Phil Tuttle gave a great message, and how cool to celebrate the resurrection at the empty tomb. And as I listened to Phil, he did peek into the tomb, and he said it is still empty.

So that is good news. The tomb is empty. Well, we’re going to spend maybe 35 minutes.

I’m going to try to land the plane at about 11:20. If you get a little weary, start waving white hankies, and I’ll shorten it. But we’re going to think about the resurrection, obviously, and it’s the cornerstone truth of Christianity.

Because without the resurrection, Christianity collapses like a house of cards. Without Christianity, there’s no truth of the resurrection. Without the resurrection of Jesus, we might as well stop meeting on Sundays, or maybe we’ll just meet and talk about current events.

Maybe we’ll talk about the latest political scenery. That’d be a great way to have a church split, wouldn’t it? Next Sunday, we might as well just plan breakfast with the Easter Bunny, if Christ hasn’t risen. There’s always been doubters of the resurrection.

There were doubters in Paul’s day. There was a religious Jewish sect called the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. And as somebody said, that’s why they are sad, you see, because they have no hope.

When Paul preached on the resurrection in Acts chapter 17 at Mars Hill, the response of some of the religious elite and the higher-up echelon of the day was they mocked Paul when he spoke of the resurrection. And so, Paul addressed that in 1st Corinthians 15, and he says, how do some of you say there is no resurrection? He goes on to say, if there’s no resurrection, our preaching is useless, we’re liars because we’ve gone around telling everybody the tomb is empty, Christ has risen, our faith is futile, we’re still in our sins, we have no hope, and we’re lost. But in 1st Corinthians 15:20, Paul writes, that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

So, this morning we’re going to think about some proclamations of Jesus from John, the Gospel of John, and look at four statements that Jesus made as we trace through the Gospel of John this morning. And let me just start by sharing a little background of the Gospel of John, because the Gospel of John is unique. We obviously have four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic, that word optic, means to see, syn, the prefix s-y-n means to see with. And so, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic Gospel because much of their material is repetitive.

In fact, they cover the same events. For instance, 90 percent of Mark’s Gospel is found in the book of Matthew. And 50 percent of Mark’s Gospel is found in Luke.

But John is unique. 92 percent of John is not found elsewhere in the other three Gospels. And so, this morning we’re going to think about the proclamations of Jesus from the Gospel of John, and we’re going to look at four of them.

And really the key thought is, who is Jesus? Jesus asked his disciples that question in Mark, Matthew chapter 16. They were up in Caesarea Philippi, and he asked the question, who do people say that I am? And so, the apostles and the disciples started to answer, some say you’re John the Baptist, some say you’re Elijah, some say you’re Jeremiah, some say you’re another prophet. And then he said, who do you say that I am? And of course, we know Peter’s answer.

He says, you’re the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And so, everything centers on who Jesus is. And Jesus claimed to be God.

And in C.S. Lewis writings, and it’s quoted in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, I think it’s chapter 7, it’s entitled, The Trilemma, Lord, Lunatic, or Liar. This is when you examine the claims of Jesus. You have to choose one of three categories.

Either he is who he claimed to be, the Messiah, the Son of God, who did miracles and overcame death. Or he’s a liar because he claimed to be God. Or he’s a crazy man.

There’s no other in between. You can’t just say, well, he was a good person or he was a good moral teacher. And so, everything hinges on who Christ claimed to be.

And so, Tim Keller writes, if Jesus rose from the dead, then he’d have to accept all that he said. If he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about anything that he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching, but whether or not he rose from the dead. And so very quickly, we’re going to run through four statements from the Gospel of John, statements that Jesus proclaimed.

And here’s the first one, if you want to follow in your outline. It’s the personal prediction of Jesus’ resurrection from John chapter 2. John chapter 2. Let me give you a little background to John chapter 2. Jesus is at the beginning of his three-year ministry. And in the first part of the chapter, he works his first miracles.

There are seven miracles recorded in the Gospel of John. He turns water into wine at the wedding of King of Galilee. And then later on in John chapter 2, it’s the Passover.

And people are coming to the temple from all over Israel to offer their sacrifices and observe the Passover. And Jesus is in the temple courts. And he’s seeing people who are selling lambs, because you need a lamb, or you need a couple turtle doves to offer as a sacrifice.

And they are price gouging people. They are making profit on religion. And this is not the picture that we usually have of Jesus.

But let me read it to you from John chapter 2. And it says, in the temple courts, he found people selling cattle, sheep, doves, and other setting at tables, exchanging money for an exorbitant price, by the way. So, he made a whip out of cords and drove all the temple courts, drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins to the money changers.

He overturned the tables to those who sold doves. He said, get them out of here. Stop turning my father’s house into a market.

The Jews then responded to him and said, what sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? Who are you to come here into our temple and overturn all these tables and kick all these people out? Jesus answered them, here it is, destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days. Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days. It had taken the Jews 46 years to build the temple.

And so, these Jews are like laughing at Jesus. They replied, verse 20, it’s taken 46 years to build this temple and you’re going to raise it in three days? But the temple that he spoke of was what? His body. He’s predicting what? The resurrection.

And he prophesied about that in other places in the gospel of Matthew as Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish, great fish, so the son of man will be three days in the center of the earth. And so, Jesus time and time and time again, what? Predicted and prophesied that he would be raised from the dead. The disciples were slow to understand that, but they finally did.

He made a second bold prediction, and it’s the precursor of his resurrection. And the word precursor simply means the foreshadowing of something to come. Now we’re in John chapter 11, and you know the story that Jesus had some close friends in the town of Bethany.

It was just outside of Jerusalem a couple miles. He spent a lot of time there for some R&R. It was Mary Martha and her brother Lazarus.

Jesus gets word that Lazarus is sick and he doesn’t come right away, but he waits because he’s got a greater plan. And so here we are in John chapter 2 or John chapter 11, and we know that finally Jesus gets there and quite frankly the family’s disappointed. Lord, if you had been here earlier, my brother would not have died.

And when God doesn’t operate on our timetable, which he usually doesn’t, it’s because he has something far greater in mind to accomplish. And he tells Mary and Martha, your brother will rise again. And now here’s proclamation number two, bold statement number two.

He says to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

Do you believe this? That the person who puts their faith and trust in me will never die. Their body will die. Their soul will not.

They’ll never ever die. And then what does Jesus do? He goes to the graveside. He weeps and cries over the loss of his good friend Lazarus and they roll away the stone and they’re like, wait a second.

He’s been dead for four days. That’s not going to smell very good. And Jesus says three words, Lazarus, come out.

Lazarus comes walking out of that grave bound in those grave clothes. It was good news for everybody. Except for poor Lazarus.

He had to die again, didn’t he? Bad enough to die once. Lazarus had to die twice. But Jesus said whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

Do you believe this? The great evangelist D.L. Moody passed away a number of years ago, but he used to say this, someday you will read that D.L. Moody is dead. Don’t you believe it? Because at that moment I will be more alive than I have ever been. And if you have loved ones that have gone on before you, that’s true for them today.

That they are more alive than they have ever been. Well, the third bold statement or proclamation that Jesus makes in the gospel of John is found in John chapter 19. And I’m going to call this the victory proclamation, the victory proclamation, the proclamation of victory.

John 19 verse 30. Now here we are at the end of the gospel of John. Jesus made seven statements from the cross and we have three of those statements here in John chapter 19.

And so let me begin reading in verse 25. Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, that’s Mary, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So that’s a lot of Mary’s.

So, there’s four women there. Mary the mother of Jesus, his mother’s sister. Most scholars think that was Salome.

And Salome being the mother of John. Most scholars think that Jesus and John were cousins. Do you ever wonder why he said to John, you know, take care of my mom? Because they were family.

And so here are these three Mary’s and Salome. There they are at the grave site. Someone has said the women were the first to leave the cross by the cross and the first at the grave the next day.

And we read in verse 28, later knowing that everything had now been finished and so that the scriptures would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty. A jar of wine vinegar was there. So, they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of a hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, here’s his third proclamation, statement. And he spoke it in Aramaic and the other gospels say he said it in a loud voice. It is finished.

In the Aramaic, it’s one word, Tetelestai. It was a proclamation of victory. What’s he saying? The sacrifice of sin has been made.

Jesus who in John the Baptist psalm said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus’ mission paid for a sin debt was finished and he makes the victory cry. You know what happened at that moment? The Bible tells us in Mark chapter 15 that the temple curtain that separated the holy place and the temple from the holy of holies tore in two.

Symbolizing that now we have what? Direct access to God. Previous to that the only person that could go into the holy of holies was the high priest and he did it once a year and he had to offer a sacrifice of sin for himself and then a sacrifice of sin for all the people. And now that curtain tore in two.

It was not a coincidence. It was not an accident because it was 60 feet tall and four feet wide. Jesus said there’s a new way.

You can come directly into my presence. Well, there’s a fourth and last proclamation that we’re going to look at and it’s from John chapter 20 and it’s the prediction of Jesus’ resurrection, the promise of our future resurrection, the proclamation of victory, but here it is the proof of his resurrection. John chapter 20 records this very very familiar story of Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene.

You’re familiar with it that while it was still dark Mary and the woman come to the tomb. They want to finish the burial of Jesus and they’re coming expecting a dead body, a corpse. And when they get there the stone’s rolled away and it’s empty.

And so, the first thought is what? Someone has stolen the body of Jesus. Peter and John show up and they race to the tomb and John lets it be known that he out runs Peter and he gets there first. John doesn’t go in.

Peter and his impetuous personality goes right in. He says the tomb is empty. They go back home and Mary Magdalene is still hanging around the garden and says in John chapter 20 verse 11, now Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels seated where Jesus’ body had been. They asked her, Woman why are you crying? They’ve taken my lord away and I don’t know where they put him. At this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize it was Jesus.

I don’t know if you when you have tear-filled eyes and that happens to me quite frankly. I can cry very easily and it kind of blurs your vision and she doesn’t know who this person is. She thinks he’s the gardener.

Woman, why are you crying? Jesus asked. Who is it you’re looking for? Thinking he was the gardener. She said, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you’ll put him and I will get him.

And then Jesus said to her one word, Mary. Now you need to know the background of Mary Magdalene. It’s really Mary of Magdalas was her hometown.

Because there’s so many Marys, that’s how they distinguish her from the other Marys. Jesus had delivered her from what? Demon oppression. Mary had seven demons in her life and Jesus had freed Mary from that demonic oppression.

And so, Mary is very very devoted to Jesus and when Jesus calls her name Mary, she turns around and cried out in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said, do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to my father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them I am sending to my father and your father to my God and your God.

The proof of his resurrection was that Jesus made for six weeks post-resurrection appearances. In fact, 1st Corinthians 15 verses 3 through 8 lists the other, some of the other post-resurrection appearances that Jesus made. He appeared to Peter, he appeared to the twelve, he appeared to more than 500 people at one time.

Paul writes, some of them or rather he says most of them are still living though some have died. He says you can go; you can go visit these people and ask them. Later on, that night, Jesus appears to all twelve of the disciples and he shows up there in a room, upper room, with the doors locked and he shows up and he says what, peace be still.

When John writes, 1st John, the apostle John, one of his last epistles, he begins by writing these words, that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and had our hands have touched, we proclaim to you, we’ve seen Jesus, we’ve seen the resurrected Christ. You know what, if the religious leaders and the skeptics wanted to prove that that Jesus was still dead, all they had to do was produce his body. Could have been very easily disproved, but they couldn’t produce his corpse rather because he was alive.

And so, Jesus makes four bold proclamations that change the world and change us. It’s the prediction of his resurrection, the promise of our future resurrection, a victory cry, it is finished, and then he proved that the tomb was empty by making his post-resurrection appearances. Well, this morning, just in our last 10 minutes, I want to just share some applications from what we’ve just talked about this morning.

What does the resurrection mean for you and for me? And there are three of them, and then we’ll close our time together on this Easter morning. Here’s the first one. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead addresses our universal need for forgiveness and reconciliation.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead addresses our universal need for forgiveness and reconciliation to God. In Ephesians chapter one, when Paul writes about what we have when we have Christ and put our faith in him, he makes a long list of things, but he says, number one, we have the forgiveness of sins to be forgiven. And that’s a need that we all have in our lives, because as we know, sin, what has separated us from God, because God is holy.

And it’s only the cross that bridges that, that brings us back to God. So, there is a universal need for forgiveness. Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story entitled, The Capital of the World.

And in it, there’s a story of a young man by the name of Paco. Let me read this story because it talks to our need for forgiveness. Says no one can really say why Paco ran away, or perhaps he didn’t.

Perhaps he was kicked out of his home by his father for something foolish that he said or did. Either way, Paco found himself wandering the streets of Madrid, Spain, with hopes of entering into a profession that would most likely get him killed. Bullfighting.

Those who train under a mentor have a good chance of surviving this profession. But Paco’s memory of his mistakes and guilt over what happened blindly drove him to this one-way street to suicide. But that was the last thing that his father wanted, which is why he tried something desperately, which he desperately hoped would work.

There was little to no chance that he would be able to find Paco by wandering the streets of Madrid. So instead, he put an advertisement in the local paper, El Liberal. The advertisement read, Paco, meet me at the Hotel Montana at noon on Tuesday.

All is forgiven. Love, Papa. Paco is such a common name in Spain, that when the father went to the Hotel Montana the next day at noon, there were 800 young men named Paco, Paco, Paco, Taco, take your pick, waiting for their fathers, all waiting for the forgiveness they never thought was possible.

And Jesus himself offers us an invitation to come to the foot of the cross and find what? Forgiveness and freedom in who Jesus is. And the resurrection of Jesus is the answer to our need for forgiveness and reconciliation. Now, some people think, well, if Jesus died for all our sins, then everyone’s going to make it to heaven, right? And I wish that were true, but here’s what the Bible says, that this is what my theology professor used to say, that Christ’s death on the cross is sufficient for all, but it’s efficient for those that believe.

In other words, we have to personally receive that gift. And when we do, our sins are forgiven. As far as the east is from the west.

They’re buried in the depths of the sea. And God says, I will remember them no more. Not that God forgets them.

It means he will not hold them against us anymore. We are forgiven. There’s a second application truth and it’s this, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead gives us hope for the future.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead gives us hope for the future. That’s what Jesus said in John chapter 11, that if you believe in me, you will never die. This is what Paul writes to the, the last Thessalonian believers who had lost loved ones.

And they thought, oh, they’re going to miss Jesus coming and they’re doomed and they’re lost. And so, Paul writes to them and explains the order of things. He says in 1st Thessalonians 4:13, brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, those who have died so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope without Jesus and the resurrection and believe in him.

There’s no hope. But then Paul goes on to talk about the resurrection or we believe that Jesus died and rose again. And we believe that God will bring with Jesus.

Those who have fallen asleep in him, it’s called the blessed hope. That’s what gives us assurance. At this point in my life, I’ve been by hundreds of gravesides.

And just this last Thursday in the cemetery in Napoleon, we laid our dear friend, Frank “Bud” Lane, in the ground. But you know, we did not do that without hope. And we know that, yes, this is a separation time, but there’s a day coming when Christ is going to come back and the dead in Christ are going to rise and there will be a resurrection and there’ll be a great reunion someday.

And so, as Christians, we never have to say a final goodbye. It’s always going to be until we meet again. And that’s where true hope is found.

There’s a third one and a last one. Application truth number three is this, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ motivates us to advance God’s kingdom and live a life of purpose. That the resurrection of Jesus Christ should motivate us to labor faithfully for the kingdom.

And that’s how Paul concludes that great resurrection chapter in 1st Corinthians 15. It’s a long chapter and he talks about the truth of the resurrection. But then here’s how he concludes.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Know what you believe.

Hold on to those doctrinal truths that are in the scripture. Then it sounds like a paradox. Always giving yourself fully to the work of the Lord.

Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. So, what’s Paul saying here? Because of the resurrection, because of the gospel, he wants us to live a life of purpose. He wants us to be motivated, what? To give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord.

Because whenever you do that, whether you’re investing your time, your talent, your treasure, your labor is not in vain. It will pay what? Eternal dividends someday. There’s an awards assembly someday in heaven.

It’s called the Bema Seat Judgment. God’s going to evaluate us and we’ll suffer either loss of reward or reward depending on our faithfulness to him. So, the resurrection of Jesus should motivate us to make an impact for Christ. In this work, our association with Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference goes back over 40 years. I first started spending a week’s vacation there when our boys were young and went back for many many years in a row and just developed relationships there and we’ve continued that relationship and ministry and we’ve met people from all over the Midwest over these 40 years that have come there year after year and gotten to know them. One of those family names is the Riepma family and although we’ve not gotten to know them well, Pat Riepma used to be the head football coach at Northwood University for many many years.

Pat developed cancer and went home to be with the Lord a few years ago, maybe five years ago. His saying that he used to tell his football players and everybody he ever met, he would use the acronym, he said, Go MAD, go make a difference. This was his challenge to his football players.

His brother Mike Riepma and his wife Cher have been missionaries, missionaries with New Tribes Mission, now Ethnos 360 and they’ve spent their lives serving the Lord on the mission field and now this letter that some of us received from Mike about three weeks ago is his final communication. This is my last letter. This is what he writes.

This will be my final communication with you so there are many emotions flying around as I write this letter. Paul wrote in 2nd Timothy 4:7, I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I’ve kept the faith. He knew his promotion day was coming shortly and he was ready to meet his creator and savior Jesus Christ.

I believe my promotion day into heaven is also coming quickly from all the symptoms the cancer has spread. This week has been the hardest for me as I can no longer eat and keep food down and I’m barely able to drink. While the outward body is wasting away, my heart has been renewed day by day by the promises of God.

I’m just going to fast forward here to the end of the letter. He writes, my prayer has been to finish well and to be an inspiration to many. I can see my finish line approaching quickly.

I’ve been so blessed and amazed by the grace of God to use my life in a small way to encourage a small tribal group of people in the Amazon rainforest for his glory. The word challenges us to store up treasures in heaven and I am happy to know that I will have many friends in heaven. Sleep is hard to come by these days and the time is late so I will wrap this last letter up.

Jim Elliot famously said, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. The scriptures say if you lose your life for his sake, you will really find the true meaning of your life. May we all experience the joy of serving our loving father, your brother in Christ forever, Mike Riepma.

My knowledge, Mike hasn’t reached that final destination yet but is very very close and he’s looking back on his life and he’s saying I’m so glad I gave my life to Christ. I’m so glad I invested my life in trying to reach a small group of tribal people in the Amazon rainforest. I’m so glad I gave my life to Christ.

When I lost my life in Christ, I found my true purpose in me. What makes that possible? It’s the resurrection of Jesus. So, the resurrection of Jesus is the answer for everything, for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for hope, meaning, and purpose.

And this morning I trust that you know him, and I trust that you will make his name known. I trust that you will exalt in the fact that the tomb is empty and that someday we’ll all be together in heaven, and we’ll sing the glories of God forever and ever in worshiping and serving and praising Him.

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