All right, back to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4, Matthew chapter 4. I believe you have something
that you need and I have something that I need. All right, verse
seven, let me quote. This is the first chapter. So today, the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding. shall keep your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus. Peace without chat, not time,
not alternative to this chat. Keep your heart, keep your affection,
The innermost being a sense where it should be. Keep your minds
from despair, from anxiety, from going crazy. Keep them right
now. The peace of God. Now, you need
it. What is this peace of God to keep? The heart to keep, the
mind to keep you. Well, there are many things written
that lead up to this, many things that are stated. This is the
last chapter in Philippians. He didn't begin here. He didn't
say many things up to this point. And to do the justice, we'd have
to go back to chapter one and just go through the whole thing. It's all together. So look at verse one, brother.
Verse one, chapter four. He says, Therefore my brethren,
my dearly beloved and longed for. Now he's not, this is not a mere
religious slogan. I love you, brother. You've heard
that stuff before, haven't you? No, no. My brethren, dear, if
I long for the person I yearn for, and
he says it at the end of that verse, my fear is below him.
Now this is from a man who said, in one place, I could wish myself
a curse on my brethren. Now you can listen, this is a
man who really cares, a man who knows Christ. and loves Christ's
people. You can listen to a man who really
knows Christ, knows the gospel, and has a genuine interest in
your soul, not in his own fame or fortune, but in your soul.
And it's obvious the Apostle Paul dearly loved these people,
God's people. So he said, It's like a parent
who would say to their child, instead of mad, say, honey, if
you don't want to do this, how much I love you. Have you ever
done that? Sure you have. I've told my daughter before,
honey, if you don't want to do this, how much I love you. He
would never for a moment say that I treat you unfairly or
do anything unrighteous. I do everything I do because
I love you. He never told me to kill the
man. But that's what Faustian Faustus
Paul was saying to him. I am, therefore, my brethren,
my dearly beloved, longed for. These are his children. Paul
didn't have any children. He was going to marry her eventually.
Or did he? Yes, he did. My son, John apparently
did. Or did he? John said, my little
sugar. He was long for it. Carried it for him. So he said
this. And it's like the last sentence. These were the diabolical
words of the Apostle Paul. It wasn't too long after this
he would be here. I leave you with this, he said, my dear beloved,
stand fast in the Lord. Stand fast in the Lord. Lay hold on Christ. Fast. We've looked at this word before. Fast is like something that speeds
us. It's held fast. You know what
I'm saying? Lay fast and make sure it's something
that has a strong hold. Stand fast. Lay hold on Christ
and the gospel. My dear, it's a long story. Lay hold on Christ and the gospel. Lay hold. And once you lay hold,
stay close. Stand fast means stand right
there and don't be moved. Paul said that in another place,
he said, be not moved away from the holy gospel. Well, they're
going to, but you're going to. Like it says, stand fast. Right here, be our second seed
in a rock. Stand fast. Don't let anyone
or anything move you or lure you away from it. And he says, and the peace, and
now each one of these things, there's peace to be had, and
the peace of God. You stand fast, you lay hold
on Christ, and stand fast, do not move away. The peace of God
will keep your hearts away. Because who is the peace of God?
Christ is peace. When the scripture says he is
our peace, Christ said peace I leave with you. My peace I
give you. Peace I leave. Peace with God
is my peace. The peace I have. Christ had when he would go to
the cross that his face set fastly towards Jerusalem. In other words
he was going to be bruised and murdered. All right, and the peace of God should keep
your mind in the car. All right, let's go back to chapter
one. We are going to go into this.
We're not going to read the whole book, but chapter one. What is it to stand back and
forth? Well, I already said it's to
lay hold on Christ, the gospel, and stand there, stay there,
stay put, camp there, just set up residence where the gospel
is. That's what this means here in
chapter 1, verse 27. He said, let your conversation
be as it becomes the gospel of Christ. Conversation, does that
mean your talk, your speech, and what you talk about? Well,
yes, but that's not key to what it is. Key to what it means is
His life, your life. But you know, whatever is truly
your life is what you converse about in it. a few ladies and your children.
Some women and their children have absolutely never lied, and
so that's all about that. Well, he says, but your conversation
is to come to the gospel of Christ. Your life's centered around taking
up with the gospel of Christ. It all is about the Father's
vision. And you know what Christ did? As the first thing recorded
by the Lord in his 12th year young. 12th years old, that was
his era. 12th years old and he said,
I must be with my father again. And we saw that John had a deonymous
from his mother's womb. Well, be taken up with the gospel
of Christ. Stand fast. And the way to nurture
this life in the gospel, the way to nurture it is by the
company we keep, by the things we do, by the things we avoid. My pastor says, you know, we
feed the new man, the starving old man. It's part of the old
man's way of feeding the new man, feeding with the gospel,
feeding with fellowship, feeding around companions who are headed
in the same direction, who love the same thing. It's constantly
to talk about that same gospel, right? If your life is the gospel,
listen, if your life is the gospel, you will have life more abundantly. that God just existed. And you'll have this peace, which
passes understanding, passes logic, passes karma-free peace,
the face of various things, and it'll keep your heart where it
should be, and your mind from losing it. Well, he said, stand fast in
the Lord. Stand fast. He said that means
to stay put. Stay put. I wonder of some, you
can't help but wonder about the way they treat this gospel of
time. I wonder how long they're going
to be around. I wonder. I just wanted to put that aside.
And I want to ask, you know, we've lost a little one, like
I've always said. It is a sight. And I would dearly love everyone
in here tonight to be able to say what they possibly think. Who are we going to go to? Where
are we going to go? We're going to go back to that
whatever, whoever. We're going to follow that whatever,
whoever. He said, Peter said, this is
my life, your life. Give me Christ, or else I die. Stand back. Stand back. Stand at your ground. Grounded
and settled in the peace of God. Grounded and settled. Stand back. Stand fast. And that was his play on words.
Do you remember Martin Luther? He said, when they told you to
recant, They were going to excommunicate him out of the church and do
all sorts of things to him. But if he didn't renounce this
gospel and this, what he was believing, the truth, they said
that he'd have all the freedom to say it. Do you remember what
he said? Herein, here I stand. I can do nothing. Here I stand. I don't know if any one of us
would be able to say that concerning this gospel. Here I stand. I can hear no other. I can tolerate no other. This is it. This is it. And it will keep your mind. Peace
of God will keep your mind. Keep your heart. Look at Romans
chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Stand fast
in the Lord. Romans chapter 5. Look at it.
What is stand fast in the Lord? Romans chapter 5 verse 2. See
how it is? Romans 5 verse 2 says this, By
whom also? By Christ. We have access. by faith into this grace wherein
we stand. We stand in His grace. You don't want to stand in the
law, do you? I talked to a fellow who studied
that, and he was talking about some places where he hears this
doctrine. But he said, you know, there's
just something about it, I can't put my finger on it, but it's
just, it's legal as it was. Something's bothering me here,
something. I said, yeah. If you can preach
the doctrine, I'll preach it back. If you can't preach Christ,
I'll preach the doctrine. But, uh, the grace of God is
where it stands. the grace of God, the privileges
of God that we have in Christ are law-breakers, are sinners. Look at Galatians chapter 5.
I mean full, free, total, confident access to a holy God, my God,
hellbound, hell-deserved sinner. Rule three, total and complete
forgiveness of every sin that extends to the negligence of
our member, no more. The negligence of the illiterate
shall be assaulted, but it will not be famed. Why? Because you're
not the Christ, you're not the Lord. Don't let anybody bring you back
under the law. This is what Paul says in Ephesians
5, verse 1. Stand fast, therefore in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free from being tangled
with a yoke of bondage. I know it sounds good what they
say about what we can be. And bless God, we will be someday
what we should be. But until then, we're going to
be miserable failures. But we stand, and God is good.
Stand fast. Stand fast in the Lord. Stand
fast. Lay hold on this gospel. The
gospel of Christ. And be not moved away from your
only hope of acceptance. Back to Philippians 4. Now, Philippians
4. And it says this, verse 2. Philippians
4, verse 2. You see, I would cease the odious
and syndicate that they be of the same mind unto the Lord. The same mind unto the Lord. Look back now at that same chapter
1, verse 27 again. Look back there, he's talking
about that the conversation is of the coming of the gospel of
Christ. Look at it. Got it again? The last part of that verse,
he said, that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving
together for the faith of God. Striving together for the faith
of God. Evidently, these two ladies,
I believe these two women, they were out of sorts one night.
One was white. We don't know. It's not written.
It's not worth writing about. It probably wasn't something
worth getting out of sorts about. That's what we do, isn't it?
None excluded, being angry. These two women were out of sorts
about something in the Apostle Paul, who was no wimp, like we
were talking about a while ago. He said, get over it. Basically,
that's what he said. You too, get over it. Be in the
same line. Be in the same line. Striving together for the faith
of the gospel. Our Lord said a peacemaker. She
said, blessed are the peacemakers. They're called the children of
God. Blessed are the peacemakers. James said, the fruit of righteousness
is the sum of the completeness of them that they eat. So he
tells these two women, and we all need to get something because
we need to have a source of somebody by something. Well, verse 3,
it says, Now, remember, everything leads to peace. Stand fast in
the Lord and the peace of God. Stand fast in the gospel. You're
not going to find peace anywhere else. The peace of God will keep
your mind right. Don't be at odds with anybody.
Be a peacemaker. Be a peacemaker. And the peace
of God will be with you. My daughter knows when I'm not
reading the books, what she's asking. And she's a teacher. You know what I'm talking about,
don't you, Rick? That ain't bad. And she knows that sometimes
I have a right to say it. Thank God. And that's what he
says here. and the peace of God will be
at peace with him. We know we only have peace with
God for our souls through the blood of Christ. We know that.
What we're talking about, you see what I'm talking about? It's
like a parable. All right, verse 3. He said,
Now I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, They started this
out, my brethren, dear beloved, and now he's talking to each
one of them in Hebrew. Each one of them. You, he's saying,
I'm speaking to you today. I'm speaking to you today. Also,
through your family. You. Get out of here. Let me
pick on somebody. You. Go with God. Go with God. And she helped those women which
labored with me in the gospel. Clement Dawson, another fellow
laborer, she's a major in the book of life. Hey, yokel. You
are a yokel, aren't you? Do you know what a yokel is? Joe Parks can tell us what a
yokel is. You have two horses, they go hunting, and they prance
and dix. Dix. Dix? They sort of dix it. Ain't that original? Prince and
Dix. Two old plow horses. Were they
old together, Jeff? Or were they together? They just
didn't want to be together. What if Prince was out of sorts
and he wanted to go right? And Dix, he wanted to go left.
They wouldn't get anywhere. What would they do? They just
never heard from each other, would they? You can't be a yoke-teller
and go on your own way. You've got to be pulled together. That's what Paul said back there
in verse 27, I think, in chapter 1, striving to be with the faith
of the gospel. We're in this thing together.
Christ said he is not with us, he's against us. He's against
us. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn from me. All right, I want two horses
too, but who do they work for? You know who they serve? What would your dad know? What? Bags. Bags? He'd work with bags
more than you, whenever you were behind home. He'd work with a
nice shirt. That's all there is to it. Right? Your dad didn't
have one just like me. He didn't have a flower or anything
like that. Just for a pet. And that's what,
you know, we're, that's the reason the Lord saved us. But his service,
right how did he serve him? God's in heaven. What are we
going to do for him? What can we give? What can we
do for him? God's in heaven. We can do something
for his body. He's in heaven, we can do something
for his body. Christ said, as much as you've done none of the
least of all things, you've done none of them. That's how we start
the week. Want another? Alright? We need to ask ourselves,
am I a yoke-fella? Or is somebody else bearing all
the burdens? That's a reasonable question,
isn't it? Am I a yoke-fella? Have I got this yoke on me, and
am I pulling, or am I being pulled? Have you ever had one of them
good one day just being lazy and the other one was doing all
the work? That's right son, that's what
you want to do. Come on bitch! Come on man! What is he talking
about? Yo, help. Help. Help. Help. Help the women. Help the
women. You know our Lord, women, oh,
constantly about, you know, they seem to be a faithful disciple.
Well they were. The Apostle Paul, oh, how he
commends women from the sixteen other places. Oh, how he commends
them. I wish I had time, and I wish
I could call names without embarrassment. But how I do commend the women
of this church. And if he's coming to us, help. Help. Encourage them. Encourage
them. Thanks. about all the courage
of anybody. That is the courage in the heavens. Thanks. Thanks. The Persian once said, ingratitude
is the worst thing. Ungrateful is the worst thing
you can cause in the world. Ungrateful. Somebody that serves
us and does anything on behalf of this church, we owe nothing,
right? Not to mention our Those who
help us, serve us, are wise or those in the way. We'll encourage
you, thank you, encourage you. Thank you. Cherie, playing that
again. I thought about Cherie. We were
all sitting here, and it's quiet. And all of a sudden, she's got
to get up. And she's hanging in here. She's worked all day
long. She's tired of not getting up. She doesn't want to stand. She's like me. She doesn't want
to stand up here. She doesn't want to sit up there in front of anybody.
Right? Did you get up there cold? Did
you have a good time practicing that? Are you kidding me? He's on a keyboard all right,
what does that have to do with a computer? Did you get up there,
and cold, and quiet, and everybody listening, and you've got a terrible
plan right now? Worried about the space, that's
insane. It's not an enviable or enjoyable
thing. Thank you. I enjoy it, don't
you? I enjoy it. I told her, and,
uh, Walter, and you met, I said, I bought that piano for me. But,
Lord, how I love to hear you play that piano. I bought it
for me. Play it for me. How I enjoy it. And I do not take it for granted.
Believe me. Mistakes? Oh yeah, you make mistakes. I
hear them. Some hear them, but you try. Next Sunday, Nancy, you're going
to play again, right? I bet you'd thank Jerry or something
if you had to. Well, it's an encouragement.
You say, help them. Help those women. Thank you for
teaching our children. There. Thank you. Thank you for
all the time you put into that. You don't thank me for it? I'm going to have you in jail?
I appreciate it. So and so very much. Thank you.
Ladies, thank you for keeping that country that way. So we
don't have to listen to these screaming, I mean these... Thank
you so much. I've been in too many services
where those darling little things are crying, and you can't concentrate
on any of that. Thank you. It's a wonderful service. Wonderful service. Thank you
so much. Thank you, Jim. All right. Verse 4. Pull together.
Pull together. If you're not with us, you're
dead weights. Do something. Help out. Pull. Pull. All right, verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Then
again I say, Rejoice. In the peace of God. Rejoice. Rejoice. At times when
Some come in here and so unhappy and so obvious that I want to
say, look at your jaw, it's dragging the ground. Your lower lip, you
know. It's amazing what a smile will do
to someone's face, isn't it? Nothing out of the ordinary. It makes you feel miserable,
doesn't it? You like it. But it doesn't make
you feel better. You come in, you feel good, and
then you look at someone else. Like, I don't understand. But
someone that's smiling? It makes you smile, doesn't it? You smile. Huh? Smile? You know, it comes to the end
of, uh, it's nothing more than a form of murmuring and complaining. You know? It sure is. And God
hates it. I'm telling you, He hates it.
The children of Israel didn't go in for that reason. Murdering
the Lord. Constantly. Bad night. That's
what a bad night is. Isn't it so good to hear? Bad
night. Bad night. It quenches the spirit. That's what it is. It quenches
the spirit. Holy Spirit. We come in here to work, we come
in here to rejoice, you know. We come in here to hear the good
news. We come in here to build up one another in the space.
Strive together for the things of God. To encourage one another.
To help one another. To pull together. To help. Strengthen
one another. So, it's vital. Everybody smiles when I smile
at them. It makes you smile, doesn't it?
Well, do it. Rejoice in the Lord, he said.
And again, I said, he said, always do it. Always. I don't feel like
it. Why not? Well, you don't know my problems.
Paul wrote this sitting in a jail cell. But she doesn't know about it. Oh, man, he had stripes on his
back. Beaten with an ax, it was like
a stone. Shipwrecked. No home. All his
friends gone. And he said, Joyce! He started
out this way, didn't he? In Chapter 3, finally my brother,
Joyce, the Lord. Always, he said. Opportunity. Opportunity. Opportunity. Rejoice in the Lord. We haven't
had that problem in this world. He said you would. Christ said
you would in the world of man and flesh. But be of good cheer. What does that mean? I don't know. And the N-O is going to work
a far more exceeding eternal way of glory and joy. Joy. Rejoice. Now, listen to
me. Either we are glad when they
say unto me, let's go to the hospital. Either we're glad to hear the
gospel, and it makes us glad. If we're glad to see those we
haven't seen all week long for three or four days, we love them,
and we haven't seen them in three or four days, we love them, and
we're sure glad to see them. Either we are, or we're not,
either way. Right? That's just right. Glad to see them. You're not glad to see them,
you aren't. Is that right? James Jefferson. Turn around for James Jefferson. End of it. That's a proven point.
Every time I smile, I'm showing you how to smile back at somebody. That's how you do it. That's
how you do it. James chapter 3, verse 17, says,
"...for the wisdom of the small blood is much purer than the
peace of the world, and gentler, and easier to be entreated."
He didn't say entreated. And all over the United States,
this group, not partiality, but absolute conquerors, had a total
unrighteousness. What's that? Total unrighteousness. We'll go back to version 5 and
read it in a minute, that's all. Thank you, Jesus, for all that
you've done. I'd like you to just show me,
show me there in your frank open book, in peace, peace with God,
peace in your heart, in your mind, through the practice of
surrender, and make peace. Think about the woman whom you
maybe intend to, you know, be a parent to, and you love her,
not your own child. Think about it. And if you love
her, if you intend to be there to do more of that true reaction
of that love, isn't that love itself our mission? Okay? All right. Turn around. Is that
a good view? Turn back. Turn around. Keep down. That's better. And that's one of the most challenging
things you can do. So if any of you get this, so
this form, coming in the spirit, the root, the root, the root, the
root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the
root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the
root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root,
the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the
root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the
root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root,
the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root,
the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the root, the
root, Another verse 5 here in the text. Verse 5, he continues
the same thought. Let's talk about rejoicing a
little bit. We've been talking about it for
a time. We've been talking about it for a hundred years. No, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, He said, take away everything we have.
I got up there. There was an article in the Bulletin
about Maxine Hinderer. It was so good. Maxine Hinderer was robbed on
his way somewhere, and these old Christians involved in the
Jeffersonian And the next day later, he posted,
he took a diary back then, and when he wrote in his diary, he
said, I thank God, I don't know if that's what he did, I don't
know, but I thank God that they, I don't know if that's what I
did, I don't know if there's a minimum of it, but I thank
God that they took my purse and I lost it, as he said. He said,
I thank God that, uh, that he spoke, uh, he said, I thank God
that, uh, I hadn't been involved before. Mm-hmm. All those days
I've never been involved. Till now. He said, I thank God
that they took my purse and all they took everything I had, so,
uh, it wasn't much. So, that's, that's, I thank God. Mm-hmm. He didn't exist. No, that's, that's, that's, that's
not, that's, that's the problem. I was not proud. I was not corporalized. And I
hate being down there. I just let it all
out. And he let it all out now. He
let it all out. One more time. Well, verse 5 says, let your
moderation do nothing at all in this. Let your moderation. Moderation is the same as patience. It's the only time the word is
used. Moderation doesn't mean guilt
and impatience. It means to be a gentle person. That's what we read on the exact,
the genesis. We don't need to translate wisdom
from above. It's not really wisdom. It's
spiritual. It's practical. It's general. It's moderate.
Moderate temperament is what that means. Be known for it. That's your moderation. Be known.
And all men. Be known as moderate temperament. Easy going. I know somebody who
is. I know those people, like I said,
and they're just as glad to see you around. They've been known,
been known before. They've been known, and I know
them. These horses, again, as an illustration.
In some horses, we had four horses. And they're different techniques. And one of them, I don't ever walk around behind
that horse without saying, hold on there, hold on there, man,
it's me, it's me, I'm back here. I live like this, it's me now,
don't do anything rash. But then, oh Molly, well, I see
my history here. You know anybody like that? You have to keep from ruffling
their feathers. I didn't mean that. Now go over and hold on
there. Don't stop. I didn't mean that. You know
anybody like that? Well, he said, don't be like
that. Let it be in moderation and be done with it. Be done with somebody you can't
stand. I know it's a strange thing, but I don't deny it. The Lord is in him. You know what he means
by that? His eyes behold his Irish child.
He's listening. He's got an eye and an ear on
his children. I used to think my mother had,
her ears, I used to hear it a hundred miles away, a smell, a kid's
smell of a feed truck, and an ice pack. And to hear it, it's
so keen, you know, she knew what I was doing. I'll open it up. Our Lord heard my voice. The
Lord came. You take that in your own children,
and I'll take this in my own. You know, that's the moderation
you need. Gracious man, I'm going to be
gracious. All right. Be careful for nothing. I've got to do it.
I've got to quit. Be careful for nothing. Don't
be full of anxious care. Full of worry, anxiety. Don't be full of yourself, careful,
full of care for nothing, but in everything. You got a problem? Something coming up? Worries
and everything. By prayer. Take your burden to
the Lord. By prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving. That'll end a lot of work right
there. That'll put an end to it. Let your question be made known
unto God. Take your burden to the Lord,
as Solomon said, and then what's the other question? Somebody
went and said, how about it? I can't hear you. Leave it there. Take your burden to the Lord,
and it will be done. And the peace of God. The peace of God, which pastors all understand. How do you get in front of this?
I don't understand. The peace of God, which pastors understand,
carnal reason, human logic, shall keep your hearts, where they
are, and your minds, Through Christ Jesus. Proof is all we
see. It's all in him. Proof never calls out against
him. Christ Jesus. Sand it fast. Start it up there in him, John.
Sand it fast in the Lord. According to your faith, so be
it unto the Lord. That's the end of the peace of
God. When you say start it up there,
that faith comes out here, and here's how you let it out. And
in all these things Paul says, All right, let's stand. Thank you for your word. disposes us, all things are naked
and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do it, the
Lord who is in heaven. Thou, O Lord, seest us, and we thank you that it is so,
and that your word chastens us, your word rebukes us, admonishes
us. And let us learn from this work
we've chastened us so that you don't have to do anything more
severe. Let us learn from this work. Let us be doers of the work,
not hearers of it. Let this be the chastening we
need. Give us peace, a heart and mind
which passes understanding, cause us to stand fast in the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the gospel, diving together for the faith
of the gospel. Bless this church, every person
in it, young and old. Lord, save our children, that
they might be fellow, the old fellows, all who sit under this
gospel. Lord, thank you for your people,
for your glory, and for their eternal sustenance and life.
In Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen.