It is so good to see each of you here this morning.
And perhaps if you're here for the first time in this meeting,
we of course want to welcome you.
And we've been talking in this meeting about the Book of
Philippians. And the book of Philippians is
an incredible book because it's very encouraging.
It is one of those books that Paul just exudes his love and
his care and his his great affection for this congregation.
Now, of course, today is what the world and many of us
consider Father's Day. And you think, well, how in the
world could Father's Day ever fit into the book of
Philippians? Well, I won't dwell on that, but
there is a connection and that is this Father's Day, of course,
is something that the world has designated to honor dads or
fathers in this nation. But you know, really, in the
book of Philippians, Paul is giving credit and glory to the
Father, our Father in heaven. And not only that, but as he
begins this epistle, Paul says, Paul and Timothy.
Now, who was Timothy? Well, Timothy was Paul's son in
the faith. Now, there's no record, we don't
know about Paul being married and having children
biologically, but he had plenty of faithful men who followed him
around, who helped him, who are his sons, as it were, in the
faith. And so my point is this, before
we get into the real points, is that if you're a man in this
audience today, make God your father.
Now, hopefully you're a Christian and hopefully God's
Son is your one that you emulate.
But you know, men have such an important role in our culture.
And I think sometimes in American culture, men have sort
of failed in that role. Now, we're not talking about the
family this morning. That's not our topic.
But nonetheless, I just want to encourage the men in this
congregation and throughout wherever I preach to be good
spiritual leaders, to love your wives, to love your children, to
nurture them up in the in the grace of the Lord.
Be men of leadership, not only in your secular life, but also
in the church. And that doesn't mean being up
here in front. It just means being involved and
being really dedicated to the cause of the Lord.
Likewise, of course, we could say many things for the ladies,
but nonetheless, it all takes us working together to be able to
really make the church, make the Kingdom in this area and in my
area at home, what it needs to be.
And so happy Father's Day to the fathers.
But let's not forget our Father in heaven, the Father of lights,
with whom is no bearableness, neither shadow of turning from
whence all good things slow hallowed be his name, as Jesus
put it in Matthew 6. Well, of course, as we've looked
through Philippians, we took on a task that was really too big
for a five day meeting. Well, it's too big for a five
day meeting, but you know, if you don't stay on task.
And that's kind of my problem because I tend to find rabbit
trails that I want to go down and begin to discuss.
And so even things that maybe I haven't necessarily even thought
about at home, they sort of come to me.
And I think what we need to discuss that.
Well, of course, we only ended up into Chapter 2 in our study
over these last few nights. And so naturally and obviously
we're not going to be able to cover every verse in the book of
Philippians. So let me give you a bird's eye
view once again for those who either have not been able to be
here or maybe those who have been here and kind of put this
together and then we'll go into some new material.
But of course, remember, Paul is the apostle.
This is a prison epistle. Paul is in prison in Rome, and
Paul is writing to a congregation that in Acts 16 he
had established, having been a prisoner himself in the jail,
and the Philippian jailer was converted.
And then also they continued to help him from the first day
onward in his preaching of the Gospel.
And so Paul is writing this thank you note.
Now he doesn't only write thank yous.
There are some things he solves or corrects in this
congregation. Every congregation with people
will have a certain amount of difficulty because we are human.
But nonetheless, he encourages them in the Lord.
He encourages them to remember even his own condition and how
that God had used that condition of being in prison to work
things out. You know, Paul talks in the
first part of this chapter of chapter 1, which we've already
covered, about the problem of being in Jesus.
Now, I suspect that most of you believe in Jesus who are in this
audience this morning, and I suspect that most of you are in
Christ. You've been baptized for the
remission of your sins. But you know, even as joyous as
that is, there are going to be problems for you because you're
a Christian. No, it may not be persecution
per SE. It may not be imprisonment per
SE, but you're going to have to make tough decisions if you're
going to follow Christ. You know, submission is an
interesting concept because submission means you make
yourself vulnerable. Now, you know, when I talk about
the family, I know that of course, wives are told to be
submissive voluntarily to their husband, and that's hard because
she is voluntarily making herself vulnerable.
Well, we are doing that when we accept Jesus Christ.
We're agreeing to Jesus. We're going to make ourselves
vulnerable for your cause, and the world's not going to like us
very much. So Paul understood that.
So Paul talks about the problem that he has in Jesus Christ, but
then as he talks about his imprisonment, he talks about the
Providence that God had used in his life.
We pointed out the other evening that God is in control of
everything now. God gives us free will, and God
wants us to use that will. But God ultimately has it all
figured out. We don't, but he asks us in
faith to follow his plan. But Paul had been in prison.
And what does he tell us? What he tells us as which we
developed the other evening, that even with him in prison,
the gospel had gone forth. Paul's sitting there in that
room in jail, or at least under house arrest, and he is penning
these letters and a guard is literally chained to him.
And that guard is having to listen to Paul.
And maybe Paul is dictating to Timothy what he wants to say.
Who's really in prison there? Who's really chained?
Well, you can debate whether it's Paul or the guard, but I'll
tell you one thing that wasn't chained and that was the gospel.
And so Paul talks about the Providence, how this is actually
worked out better that he's in prison.
And by the way, even if we don't necessarily get the all the
material I want to cover this one, let me just say this.
Sometimes the situations in our life look dismal and we belly
ache and we complain. And by the way, Paul addresses
that in Philippians, he said, you know, don't be complainers.
You know, I'm sort of an, a, a, a person with my wife and she'll
just kind of walk off because, you know, that doesn't solve
anything. But you know, nonetheless,
sometimes we complain and we don't see where this thing is
going. And God has a plan.
Now, I'm not saying God dictates every single difficulty that
comes into your life. I don't know.
But we can use that difficulty to praise God.
Even a tragedy can be something that draws us closer to the
eternal. 1 So Paul talks about the Providence of God, how the
gospel had reached the other guards and even the household of
Caesar. That's incredible.
And then, of course, he talks about the pattern of his life.
He talks about the mind of Christ, which we talked about
the other night, and how that the mind of Christ is what we
are to carry with us into our daily living.
We show others the love of Christ.
We show others the mind of Jesus.
Jesus was a man of peacemaking. He was a man of perfect harmony
with God's will. He was a man of prayer, He was a
man that really tried to bring others and shepherd others to
God. He of course was the Good
Shepherd. And so Paul talks about the,
the, the, the, the pattern of his life.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
And then he talks about Jesus crucifixion, who, though in the
form of God, did not think it was something to be held on to a
grasp, but took upon himself the form of a servant, a slave, and
became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
And of course, because of that, Paul says that God has highly
esteemed and elevated Jesus, and we know that's true.
One of the most beautiful scenarios I think that ever
happens in the Scriptures, along with everything, of course, is
that when Jesus is about to ascend to heaven, you know, the
apostles go with him and he's there and he begins to just
ascend up into heaven. And they're just looking and
they're just wondering what in the world now they knew that
Jesus had prophesied or that he's going to go back to the
Father. John 14 But, you know, they
didn't really understand that. And so now they're standing
there looking up and there's these angels that says, why are
you standing here gazing up into heaven?
You know what they're really saying, hey, listen, you've got
a job to do. Get on with it.
You know, Jesus did that same thing with Mary at the tomb.
Now I'm way off topic. That's OK.
You know, Jesus said, Mary, you know, Mary came up to Jesus and
she thought he was the gardener or whatever.
And then when she realized that she's Jesus, she just grabs onto
him and he says, Mary, Mary, don't, don't touch me or don't
hang on to me. He says, but go and tell the
apostles what's going on. She was the first evangelist in
that context anyway. And so anyway, they're standing
there. Well, of course Jesus sins and
they're a little bit bewildered, but in a few days, because
remember, Jesus had resurrected and for 40 days he had been with
him. And then there's 10 more days.
He said you go into Jerusalem and wait.
So 10 days go by. Pentecost comes fifty days
after, you know, the Passover. And so there the disciples are
gathered and there's this great Pentecostal experience, if you
will, in the true biblical sense, and the Holy Spirit is
poured out. Well, I believe that's when
Jesus was being coordinated. Why do I believe that?
Because Peter stands up and preaches that it was at that
moment that Jesus was taking the throne of David.
The old ancestral throne that the Jews wanted restored was now
being set upon by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
It's a it's a wonderful, wonderful story.
And Jesus, of course, then pours out these gifts.
He pours out through the apostles of the Gospel.
And of course, they are guided by the Holy Spirit.
And we today have the Scriptures, we have the apostles
writings that can encourage us. Well, I'm off track.
Let's get back. So what else did Paul say in
this letter? Well, that if we could just, you
know, if we could take a month of Sundays, so to speak, That's
what we used to say down the hills.
I don't know what they say here, but nonetheless, you know, if we
could take time, we could go through every verse and just
pick out so many details. But one of the major points,
besides what we've already pointed out, is that Paul also
saw Jesus not only as a problem in his life, a good problem.
Not only did he see the Providence of Jesus in his life,
and not only did he see things working out, not only did he
see, of course, the purpose of his life and all those things,
but he saw Jesus as the prize. Now, you know, one of the things
I think we should preface our remarks with is the fact that we
all want to go to heaven, don't we?
That's our goal. We want to go to heaven.
But let me back away from that just slightly and give you
another perspective. I don't want to diminish
anything that we've said about going to heaven, but you know,
heaven really, and I want you to understand what I'm saying
begins here and it begins here not in the physical sense, but
in the fact that we are already citizens of the Kingdom of
heaven. In fact, Paul will say that
actually in the later part of chapter 3 when he says our
citizenship is in heaven. Now, remember, Philippi was a
exact replica, an imperial city of Rome.
And people love to be citizens of Rome because it carried A
tremendous amount of rights. And so if you lived in Philippi,
you also had those Roman rights. And Paul is alluding to the fact
that, hey, no matter where you fit in in this culture, some of
us feel maybe a little bit disenfranchised.
Some of us feel a little bit, you know, discouraged from where
we are and where we live. I've always said I'm not really
an American. I feel more comfortable overseas
than I do here. But nonetheless, it doesn't
matter where I am in this earth. Guess where?
Guess where my citizenship really is?
It's in heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven.
Your name, if you're a Christian, is written in the
Lamb's role, the Lamb's book of life.
And Jesus has paid the price for you to get there.
But nonetheless, there's a prize in getting to heaven.
But it all begins here. And I think if we have the right
perspective, what we can come to understand, And I and I work on
this a lot, maybe you do too. You know, we can come to
understand that the blessings and even the joy of heaven can
begin now. You know, again, life is tough.
I was talking to a sister before church.
You know, we wake up in the morning and we're like, oh,
another day. Well, God has given us that day,
but not just for our own selfish interests to please him and to
praise him. And when we take on that
perspective, it gives us really a purpose.
A lot of peas in that sentence. But anyway, if we mind our peas
anyway. So anyway, He's given us a
purpose to be productive and practical and even develop
perfection. How's that in our lives?
And so then you see, it begins here.
So don't only think about the prize.
Don't ever just only say, well, I just got to get to heaven.
I got to get to heaven. You know, for some reason God
has you here on earth. And that may be to leave someone
else to him. That may be to improve yourself
so that you become a better white.
You know, Paul says to these Philippians, you know, you live
in a World of Darkness among whom you shine as lights in the
world. Well, but he does talk about the
price. So let's get back to that.
You know, he talks about in in verse chapter 3, rather in verse
10 or so he talks about the resurrection of Jesus.
He talks about wanting to know the power of the resurrection
and I don't have time to develop that because that's not this
point. But none of us there is power in
the resurrection of Jesus. And someday we will experience
in as much as God has planned for us, the power of Jesus
resurrection and that we will be raised ourself.
We're going to cast off this mortal body and have a body that
is suited for eternality, for eternity.
Now, I don't know what that looks like.
In fact, first John 31, John says we do not yet know what we
shall be when he returns, but we know that we'll be like him.
You know what? That's good enough for me.
That is good enough for me. I know there's a lot of
discussion even among preachers about, well, you know, is that
body that Jesus has now? Is it flesh?
And what is it? This is, you know, there's all
these passages that we could study, but we'll be like him.
And that's the issue. So Paul's been talking about the
power of the resurrection. And then he says this in verse
12. He says, not that I have already
attained. In other words, I haven't met
the goal yet. I'm not in heaven yet.
I'm not perfect yet. And by the way, in the previous
section, he's been talking about having confidence in the flesh
and having confidence in our past and our, you know, our, our
accomplishments. Of course, there were Judaizing
teachers at that point in time that were very stuck on all of
the points of the law and how that they were Jews and how that
they were the blood of Abraham and so on and so forth.
And Paul looks beyond that. But he says, not that I have
already attained or am perfected, but I press on.
I press on. You know, what he's talking
about here is Endurance. If you ever want to read a good,
interesting story, read about Shackleton's adventure.
Shackleton was a sailor who took the ship.
Endurance, I think it was to the South Pole.
It got stuck. It's a great story.
But anyway, Endurance, it means persistence, and it means, you
know, not giving up. So Paul says I'm not perfect.
I'm not there yet, but I press on.
Now it is in the press that we find difficulty, but it's in the
press that we grow. You know, everything in life
really is carried out in tension.
In the process of tension, growth happens.
You know, you take that little egg with a little bird in it and
it has to Peck its way out. There's tension there.
Maybe not tension as in stress as we think of it, but he has to
work the bird or the, the, the, the butterfly in the little
chrysalis has to, has to work together.
There's tension there and yet out what comes from this, this
worm is this beautiful butterfly that then floats into the air.
There's tension there. And you know, sometimes we see
our difficulties and our persecutions and our trials and
our hardships and there's tension there and it's hard to
press on. We want to throw in the towel.
Well, I understand that most of the time I'd rather throw in the
towel too. And sometimes you do things out
of duty. You know, brother asked me not
long ago. He said, you know, I said, I
don't think I've really ever been happy.
He said, oh, that's so sad, so sad.
Doesn't anything make you happy? Well, I don't know.
But I said most what I do is I do out of duty.
Now, that's not a bad thing because duty is a good
motivator. But nonetheless, there's
tension. It's a press, It's a difficult.
It's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, you do things
because it's the right thing to do all the time looking of
course, for things that give you joy too.
Now, again, if you just live your life hoping to find joy in
everything, well, good luck with that.
It's not going to happen because joy is elusive.
And well, let's say this happiness is even more elusive,
but that's another topic for another time.
So he says, brethren, he says, I press on that I made a hold of
that for which Jesus Christ has laid hold of me.
You know, on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, Jesus laid
hold of Paul. You know, he sees that bright
light. He's on the way to Damascus to
persecute Christians. And all of a sudden, boom, he is
face to face, so to speak, with the Lord, the risen Savior.
And Jesus is, you know, he's rebuking him.
Paul, it's hard for you to kick against the goats.
Jesus had laid hold of Paul for a purpose.
Now, you know, if you're here and you're a Christian and
you've heard the gospel and you've been convicted and you
decided to follow Christ, that's Christ laying hold of you.
You can call it, you know, the power of the gospel.
You can call it the conscience. You can call whatever, but
there's a certain lane hold where now you're Christ's.
So what are you going to do with that?
What are you going to do with that?
Are you going to, are you going to go on and and press forward?
You know, the Christian life is compared to a race.
It's compared to building. All of those things take
tenacity, or shall we say stick to itiveness.
That's the Ozark way of saying tenacity.
You got to stick with the program and sometimes you don't
know if it's going to be successful, but here come again,
the Providence, God will see us through.
So he says again, Christ laid hold of me so that I could lay
hold of the prize. Heaven, yes, preaching the
gospel, yes, that also is included.
Then he says, Brotherhood or brethren, I do not not count
myself to have apprehended or to have grasped everything.
But one thing I do for getting those things which are behind
and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press.
Here's that word. Press again.
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God
in Christ Jesus. Now let's unpack that a little
bit, brethren. I'm not there.
He says, You kidding me? Well, it's certainly not in
heaven at this point, although he said he wanted to go.
But Paul's going to be the strongest Christian I ever read
about in my life. And yet he did not see himself
totally as having apprehended. Now, in the previous verses,
he's talking about all of his accomplishments in Judaism and
all of the fact that he could not be self-righteous in spite
or despite of all of those accomplishments.
He was a Jew. He had the blood of Abraham.
He was circumcised on the 8th day.
He was on the tribe of Benjamin. He had, you know, he had all
these things. In fact, he says, you know, when
it comes to observing the law of Moses, I was blameless.
He certainly did it all right. But then he says, you know, I
have to forget those things, forgetting those things that are
behind. I press forward.
Now, let me just try to find some practical application
because we're not under the law of Moses.
We're not, you know, of the tribe of Benjamin and all those
things. But what point?
What concept here is applicable to us forgetting those things
that are behind? Well, I don't know what your
life is like. Maybe you were raised in a
church environment. OK, that's good.
Do we still need to forget all of that?
Well, only in a sense that we begin to ask where we talk
correctly. Do we have things in our life
that we continue to need to work on or whatever.
But let me give you another example.
I often meet people and when I moved to Kansas City, first of
all, we were dealing with a lot of folks who come out of very
difficult backgrounds, drugs, you know, broken homes and they
were broken. They were very much hurting in
their hearts and in their lives. And you know, one of the things
that is so difficult is you get folks to to come to the Lord
because they know the need. It's sincerity.
They really do. They're sincere.
But that old world continues to to pull them back.
Their minds oftentimes are set on those things and they can't
they can't get over it. And sometimes they can't forgive
themselves. You know, Satan loves that.
Satan loves it when we cannot forget, forgive ourselves.
And I don't want to get off into a bunch of psychology this
morning, but self forgiveness is important.
Of course, it's predicated ultimately on God having
forgiven us because we've confessed our sins and he's
faithful and just to forgive our sins first, John.
But nonetheless, when we don't forgive ourself or when we again
are living in the past, it thwarts our future.
Now Jesus even said don't even take thought for the future, but
the that the corollary of that is that they weren't to take
thought of their past either. You can't change the past, no
matter if you have come from a terrible background or a
background of abuse or drug and drug issues or, or just personal
difficulty, mental difficulties. You, you might not change, you
can't change the past. But you could say how do I press
forward and all you got to do is live 1 moment at a time.
You know, I tend to project into the future and say, well, I
don't think I can get there. And so I never tried.
No, I can't get there if I don't take the first step, you know,
it takes that first step with the Lord.
And so really what that ends up being is when we say, well, you
know, I can't go forward. I live in the past.
That really becomes a form of self righteousness.
It's kind of a twisted form, but we are looking and depending on
our own strength. You know, sometimes people come
to me and they say I can't live the Christian life.
And I say, you know what, you're right, you can't live the
Christian life, not alone, you can't do it.
But Paul, as he will say later on in Philippians, I can do all
things through Christ who gives me strength.
You can live the Christian life if you are yoked to Jesus.
And so Paul understood that. He says I forgive those things
that are behind my accomplishments.
You know, Paul could have been. By the way, Paul was a Pharisee.
He had been schooled under the PhD, the highest PhD guy in the
ancient world, Gamaliel. He was a man who was bright.
I mean, he was sharp and he gave all of that up, counted it as
garbage for Jesus. But he could have written his
own. He could have written his own
ticket. He was brilliant.
You read Romans, you'll see that.
And yet he gave all of that up. And see, he doesn't dwell on his
past accomplishments. And that's another really.
And not to get again, too far off on this point, but that's
another thing. Maybe you've been successful in
the past. Maybe you've been financially
successful, maybe you've been really, you know, even
spiritually successful and something happened and you were
all you lost all that. So what you got the future, move
forward, he says again, I forget those things were behind and I
reach this is the idea. You know, when I watch the
Olympics, I see the baton run. I think that's what they still
call it. But anyway, you've got the
runner who comes around the corner and of course their their
teammates are lined up and they've got this baton and they
stretch out to give it to the next runner.
That's the idea here, the stretching forward to move on
into the next part, if you will, of the race.
He says, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call
of God in Christ. One more point before we leave
this little section. And that is as we noted, let's
think about the journey too. Let's not just think about the
prize, but let's find joy in the journey.
There's an old song by a guy named Michael Card just kind of
came to my mind just now. He was sort of a religious
singer, but he's talking about the joy of the journey.
The joy of the journey. Well, I'm telling you what, my
journey has been pretty mentally challenging for me.
Maybe you too. But there is joy in the journey.
Well, let's notice very quickly one more point.
This is found in Chapter 4, and he's talking now about joy.
He's talking about joy in the journey, and of course, if
anybody knew life in the difficult sense, it's Paul.
In first, in Second Corinthians Chapter 11, he talks about
having been shipwrecked, having been stoned, having been beaten,
having been hungry, all of these things for the cause of Christ,
but he still had joy. Joy is something that we can
decide. You know, happiness may depend
upon happenstance, but joy is something that we can decide.
So notice what Paul says in verse 4 of chapter 4.
He says rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice
now really Jesus the Lord is the only stable thing to rejoice in.
Of course God and spiritual things, but you know what I
mean. Joy can come from a relationship
with Jesus because as we noted the other night, comfort comes
from Jesus. And no matter whether we are on
the ship being tossed out by the waves of life, Jesus is there.
You know, one of these little stories you find in the New
Testament is one time the apostles on another occasion
were in a boat, small little fishing boat, and they were
being tossed and turned and they look around and want to cry out
to Jesus and he's asleep. He's asleep over there.
He was exhausted from preaching. Well, he made the waves.
He didn't worry about it. There was peace in his heart.
He left it all in God's control. Well, Paul really wants us to do
that too. But he says rejoice in the Lord
and then he says, let your gentleness be known to all men.
Let your let your peace that you have in Christ exude forward so
that others find this peace. Have you ever been around
somebody? You know, I'm a little high
strung sometimes. Have you ever been over
somebody? They're just, they're just so
calm. Even in a difficulty, they're
just calm. And and that sort of wears off.
That sort of bleeds over into you.
He says. And then he says, you know,
don't be anxious for six. Don't be anxious.
I told my wife and I think I may even mention this, but you know,
coming to this meeting, I wasn't anxious about you guys.
I know many of you and crowds don't bother me, but I was just
anxious, probably because I'd studied Philippians and I didn't
know what I was going to say. And I said maybe it's ironic
because or maybe it's providential is what I told her.
I said, because Paul says don't be anxious.
In other words, don't get so wrapped up in your emotions and
in your connection with the things of life that you can't
focus on Christ. We're all going to be concerned.
We're all going to have anxiety to some degree.
That's understandable. That's normal.
But he says don't, don't let it control you.
Be anxious for nothing. And so how do we let that not
control us? What he says by everything in
prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving prayer.
My grandmother, she was a dear lady.
Ruetta knew her and she was the lady who lived a very hard life,
not from her own dealings, but just poor and had seven girls
that she trying to raise and grandfather.
It was a little bit on the hard side.
And she had this thing on the refrigerator.
I don't know if I remember it perfectly, but it said something
about if something is worth worrying, worrying about, it's
worth praying about. And if something is worth
praying about, it's not worth worrying about.
That's pretty good, isn't it? Well, we're all going to worry,
but the point is, is that we back away from that and trust in
the Lord. So he says by prayer and
supplication. I I take supplication here to
maybe be and then a little more intensity than prayer in self.
Another you're you're supplicating.
It may last longer than a simple prayer, but then he says with
Thanksgiving, one of the hardest things to do is to be unhappy
and be anxious when you are giving thanks to God.
Because you see, when we're giving thanks to God, we are
realizing that no matter what, God's in control.
But also, it may very well be that this circumstance that is
before us, God having allowed, will bring us closer to God.
So we give thanks. We say, God, thank you for
testing my faith. You know, a faith that's not
worth testing, is not worth having because that's how we
determine where we are in our spiritual development.
But we thank God that he gave us prayer, that he gave us Jesus,
that he gave us that Ave. of prayer.
He could have left us out. He could have said, you know
what, Romans 5, you're sinners. I don't want anything to do with
you. But while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And so then he speaks here of
the peace of God. Make your request known to God
in Thanksgiving and prayer, and the peace of God, which
surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds
through Jesus Christ. The internal comfort, the
internal blessing of having that relationship with Jesus is going
to give us a stability that this world does not know and can not
know without Jesus. Our culture needs Jesus so bad.
It needs Jesus. It needs Christ.
It needs not only the correct religion, of course, but it it
needs the peace of Christ so bad.
I watched in horror this week as Tel Aviv was being bombed and
all. Likewise Iraq and Iran rather
being bombed and bombing each other.
Well, I was in Tel Aviv years ago when Saddam Hussein was
threatening to send his Scud missiles over to Tel Aviv.
It's very scary. There's terrifying things.
This world is filled with unpeaceful situations.
We need to pray for that, of course, but we need to pray for
the peace in our lives. And that comes first of all by
having a relationship with Jesus.
Sometimes our anxiety, sometimes my anxiety, I don't know about
you, comes from latent sin, hidden sins in my life and they
work on my conscience. But when you can correct that,
you can pray and you can cast those cares on the Lord, there
will be a peace, at least for a time that really, you can't even
put a price tag or you can't even put a definition on it.
It's a good thing. But those are the thoughts this
morning. We could ramble along for a long
time, but if you're here this morning, you're not a Christian
and you don't have that peace of Christ.
You know, really Jesus made it simple to be his follower.
It will get difficult, but he made it simple.
He said, come to me. We come hearing his word, we
believe it, we accept him, we repent of our sins, we confess
him as the Son of God, our Lord and our Savior.
We have his blood that washes away our sins in the waters of
baptism. And then of course, we rise to
walk in a new life and we press forward.
We forget that which is behind and we live for him.
You're here this morning. We can assist you in that or
anything else. We'll be happy to do that while
we stand up while we sing.