If you would, open your Bibles
with me again to Philippians chapter four. We last looked at this passage,
a preach from verse four, rejoicing in the Lord. We rejoice in who
the Lord is, in his character. We rejoice in his sovereignty. We rejoice in his holiness. We
rejoice in His electing, redeeming love. We rejoice in His grace
and His sufficiency. We rejoice He is all we need. And we rejoice that the Father
made it easy to find all these blessings. So easy to find, they're
all in one person. They're all in Christ. Now, if
you need any of these things, you need grace, you need mercy,
you need wisdom, you need a prophet, a priest, a king, you need a
sacrifice, go to Christ. Go to Christ, they're all in
Him. Isn't that easy? I mean, the
gospel, as I mentioned in the class earlier, it's a mystery,
but it's really easy, isn't it? Just go to Christ. Just look
to Christ. Just depend upon Christ. Now today, I want to look at
how rejoicing in the Lord, how with that rejoicing is truly
in our heart. How it affects our conduct. how it affects the
believer's walk here below. Hence my title is Walking Rejoicing. I know there's a lot of people
that can't chew gum and walk at the same time. But you know,
every believer can rejoice and walk at the same time. Our rejoicing
in Christ directs our walk. And I have five ways I want to
show us how truly rejoicing in the Lord affects the believer's
walk through this world. Number one, when we rejoice in
the Lord, there will be unity. In verse two, Paul says, I beseech
you Odius and beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind
in the Lord. Now, it sounds like there had
to be at least some amount of discord among the believers there
in the church. And Paul wanted to see that cleared
up. This is not becoming to a believer to have these divisions and fussing
like that. And I'll tell you the absolute
sure cure for discord among believers now, the sure cure for it is
rejoicing in the Lord. I used to tell my niece, Rosalie,
I've got no time for red lights. Well, if we're rejoicing in the
Lord, I got no time for discord. I got no time for fussing and
fighting. If I'm rejoicing in the Lord,
if we're rejoicing in the Lord together, How can there be discord
between us? How can there be? And I tell
you the way we continue rejoicing in the Lord and the way we continue
to have peace and unity with each other, keep this discord
set aside. You know how you keep those things
at bay? By hearing the consistent preaching of the gospel. In verse
three, Paul says, I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help
those women Well, how's he gonna do that? How's this pastor? How
can he help these two ladies? How can he help the rest of the
congregation to avoid this discord? It's by consistently preaching
Christ alone. I don't think it's possible to
preach Christ too narrowly. That it's only Christ. Only look to Christ. Only rejoice
in Christ. Only desire Him. If we're doing
that, We're rejoicing in Christ together. That's just going to
promote unity. If we're constantly, consistently
hearing the preaching of Christ, how can we not forgive one another?
If we're consistently hearing Christ preached, we're rejoicing
in him, how can we not bear one another's burdens? And I'll tell
you this, almost every single time there's fussing and fighting
going on in the church amongst believers, It's over something
petty. Always. It's not over the blood. It's not over the sacrifice.
It's not over God's character. It's not over how God saves sinners.
It's always over something petty. It has to do every time with
personal glory. This division always is something
that's completely insignificant to the gospel, completely insignificant
to the glory of Christ. And I'll tell you the best way
I can think of for me not to get caught up in personal glory
is to hear the preaching of Christ's glory. Oh, if I'm rejoicing in
his glory, I'm seeking his glory. I'm wanting to see his glory.
My glory is going to be put where it belongs. You know, it belongs
in the drawer somewhere not to be seen. The best way I can think
of not to focus on petty, insignificant things and cause division between
you and me over petty and significant things is to consistently hear
preaching about what is significant. Christ. He's the only thing that's
significant. He's the only thing that matters.
Oh, if I'll do that. Now that's going to put me in
my place. Hearing of his purpose. That's going to put my purpose
in its place, isn't it? It just will. It's just impossible
for two believers to have division with each other if they're both
worshiping Christ together and rejoicing in the Lord together.
Just like I said a minute ago, every division I've ever known
of between two believers has been over something other than
Christ. Well, how'd that happen? Somebody's not focusing on rejoicing
in the Lord. Somebody's not focusing on Christ. That's what caused the discord.
And the sure cure for discord, the sure cure for this bitterness
and this anger that sets in is, You know how to get rid of that
bitterness and that anger? Have joy in the Lord. It really is
just joy in the Lord. We rejoice in Christ. And when
that happens, there's going to be peace and unity because we're
rejoicing in the same person together. We're all in love with
the same person. You just can't help but have
unity that way. All right, number two, when we
rejoice in the Lord, this is how this affects our walk. We'll
live in moderation. And verse five says, Paul says,
let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at
hand. I know normally we hear this
word moderation and we think about don't eat too much. Don't
drink too much. Do your hobbies in moderation. Take your job responsibilities
in moderation. It's just not good for you to
work 100 hours a week trying to make a living and ignore your
family and ignore, you know, the worship of the Lord. But
keep these things in their place. That's what we normally think
of when we think of moderation. And that's wise. It's wise not
to get carried away with really anything in this life. That's
good advice, but that's not what Paul's talking about here. The
word moderation he uses should be translated. This is what it
means. Gentleness, gentleness and patience. In 1 Timothy 3.3,
Paul is giving us the qualifications for a pastor, and he says the
pastor is to be patient. He's not a brawler. That word
translated patient is the same word translated moderation here
in our text. In Titus 3 verse 2, Paul gave
this word. Speak evil of no man, to be no
brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. That
word translated gentle there is the same word translated moderation
in our text. Let your gentleness, let your
patience be known unto all men, believer and unbeliever alike.
I'll tell you, we can't strive to have unity and peace with
one another if we're not trying to be kind to one another. Maybe
somebody's kind to you. How can you be mean to them?
It just doesn't happen. We can't have unity. if we're
not being patient with one another. Now, we're God's people. We're
sinners saved by grace. But sinners is part of that description
of us, isn't it? You're just gonna have to be
patient with sinners, aren't you? You're just gonna have to be
forgiving with sinners. And I know that can be easy to
say and hard to do sometimes. If somebody hurts you, somebody
hurts your feelings, somebody slanders you, I know it can be
hard to be forgiving. I mean, I'm the worst of the
lot, I promise you. How much trouble do you think you got
with it? I'm telling you, I got more. It's hard to be patient
with people. But I tell you the way that we'll
be gentle with people, the way that will motivate us and put
in our heart to be patient with one another is this, to rejoice
in the Lord. If we're rejoicing in the Lord,
again, we'll go back to hearing that consistent preaching of
Christ. We'll be reminded to be gentle with one another. We'll
be motivated to be gentle with one another. Because you know
what we're going to hear? Oh, how gentle Christ is with his
little ones. He's gentle with them. He corrects
them, but he's gentle with them. How gentle was the Lord with
those disciples? I mean, they kept saying so many
stupid things, kept doing so many things that were just off
in left field. The Lord was gentle with them, wasn't he? The Lord
was patient with them. Oh, doesn't that put in your
heart to be patient with your brothers, your sisters? And Paul
tells us here, this is a good motivation now for patience and
gentleness. The Lord is at hand. Now, this
is not a threat. You know, mothers are famous
for saying, you wait till your father gets home. Your father's
almost home, y'all. Like, you're gonna get it then.
Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie. You know, your father's almost
home. This is not what Paul's saying. This is not a threat.
It's a precious promise. Now you take this with you. You
put this in your lunch bucket and you take it to work with
you tomorrow. The Lord's near. Wherever you go, the Lord is
near. He's already there wherever you
go. And I'll tell you, if we recognize
that the Lord is with us, the Lord's near. He's with us right
now in this service. Where two or three are gathered
together in my name. Where am I? In the midst of them. The
Lord's near. Well, now, if the Lord's near,
won't we be gentle with each other? We have his presence.
The Lord's taking care of the situation. He's near. If he's
here, he's taking care of the situation. And the Lord is at
hand also means this. Not only is he here with his
people and with his presence and his spirit, it means the
Lord is coming again very soon. I tell you, when I think about
how soon it will be that the Lord's here again. It's gonna
be so soon. That makes it easy to be patient.
If it's gonna be over soon, doesn't that make you patient? I don't,
you know, I tell myself all the time, but just patience is a
weakness of mine. If you don't have to be patient
for very long, It's easier to be patient, isn't it? The Lord's
at hand. He's here and he's coming again
soon. I tell you, that directs our
walk, doesn't it? Help us be gentle with one another, patient
with one another. Then number three, rejoicing
in the Lord, it affects our walk this way. It'll cause us to see
that really we have very little reason for anxiety. Verse six,
Paul says, be careful for nothing. Now, Paul doesn't mean don't
be careful about things. Please, when you cross the street,
be careful. I mean, you know, God gave you
some sense. Look both ways before you cross
the street. Be careful. You parents, you be careful what
you teach your children and how you teach them. You be careful
to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. You be
careful to raise them you know, respecting authority and having
a work ethic and being the kind of person that can stand on their
own two feet when it's time. Be careful about that. Put some
thought into that. Paul doesn't mean don't be careful
about taking care of your body, but be careful about that. you
know, be careful, be reasonable, you know, about what you eat
and how much you eat and what you drink and how much you drink,
you know, be careful. Take some vitamins, you know,
do some exercise, you know, get your physical once a year, be
careful about those things. Genesis, the Lord gave you a
body and a mind to take care of it. Now use it. I mean, don't,
don't be thoughtless about this thing. And Paul didn't, don't
be careful about your job. He didn't mean that. He doesn't
mean don't be careful about your finances and those kinds of things.
Be careful. God gave you a job. Take care
of it. Be careful that you do a good job. He doesn't mean those
things. The word careful, he means here,
means anxiety. Now be careful to do what you
can do. Be careful to do what is in your control in every situation,
and then don't fret about it. Your anxiety will fly away. if we're rejoicing in the Lord.
I mean, honestly, if I'm rejoicing in the Lord, I'm rejoicing, oh,
the Lord is near. The Lord of heaven and earth.
He's my God. He's my Savior. I mean, what
is there to worry about then? I mean, really? I mean, it's
just awful hard to be full of anxiety and be full of joy in
the Lord at the same time. I mean, it's difficult. Now listen,
I want, to handle this topic honestly and compassionately. I think something we recognize
now that we didn't recognize 30, 40, 50 years ago is the clinical depression and
anxiety. These are medical issues. These
are real medical problems. You know, I'm old enough, I can
remember a time where having anxiety and having depression,
these mental problems, was a shameful thing. I mean, just shameful.
You just, man, you didn't talk about that. Now listen to me. I want to take a burden off of
you. If you have those issues, mental issues of anxiety and
depression like that, please seek help. Please seek help. If you have cancer, You seek
help. You seek medical help, don't
you? If you have heart disease, you seek medical help. Seek medical
help for these things. There's no shame in that any
more than any other disease. Please understand, what we're
talking about here, this anxiety that Paul saw, it's not a clinical
depression. It's not a medical kind of thing.
What he's talking about more, is the kind of internal dialogue
that I have with myself. The internal dialogue, what I'm
saying to myself, that can lift my spirits up or it can depress
me and make me all worried about things. It's possible for me
to talk myself into being anxious about things. And again, I'm
not talking about a clinical depression. I'm talking about
just normal, everyday things. It's easy for me to talk myself
into being depressed about them. But if I'm rejoicing in the Lord,
who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,
and I'm rejoicing in that, and I know His will's always good,
I know everything He does is always right and best, I'm rejoicing
in that. It's gonna be kinda hard to be
full of anxiety about these things. It's gonna be, it's really hard
to think that everything that happens to me, and think of it
as the worst case scenario, Do you ever do that? Like Eeyore.
Eeyore is always depressed because Eeyore is always positive that
the worst case scenario is going to happen. That's the only positive
thing about Eeyore. He's positive the worst case
scenario is going to come to pass. But if I'm really rejoicing
in the Lord, he's sovereign. Eric in his prayer thanked God
for his sovereignty. I'm thankful, I'm rejoicing in that, you know,
and I know what he does is good and best and right. Then I just
don't have to be worried about the worst case scenario with
everything the Lord brings my way. I'm not saying the things
won't hurt. I'm saying I don't have to think
of the worst worst case scenario and all those things. If I'm
rejoicing in the Lord and I trust that he sovereignly reigns, over
everything that happens to me. Everything that happens to me,
He brings my way. You know, it's easy to say, thank you, Lord.
He sends blessings our way, isn't it? Well, am I going to thank
the Lord and thank the Lord for His sovereignty when He sends
blessings my way and then complain when He brings something painful
my way? I mean, I am, but is that what
we ought to do? Job told his wife, oh, no, no,
no. We're going to take both from the hand of the Lord. If
I take the good from His hand, I'm going to take the evil, too. And maybe this will help you
when the Lord brings you into the furnace of trial. It'll be
helpful to be reminded at those times, often, of who our God is. He's too wise to make a mistake.
He's too good to do wrong. It's good to be reminded how
the Lord loves and cares for his own. We talked about the
Lord adopting His people, making them His children. It's good
to be reminded of our Heavenly Father's perfect love, perfect
care, perfect provision for His children. He's already proved
it, hasn't He? I mean, these are not just words
on paper. This is not just theory. He's already proved it. He sent
His Son to die for us while we were yet sinners. He sent His
Son to purge us of our sin. He took care of the worst problem,
the problem that no human being could ever solve. The father
found a way. He found a ransom. He provided
a ransom. Well, this thing, I mean, now
it hurt. Please understand, I'm not saying
trials don't, they hurt. But it's a little thing compared
to my sin. I believe God can handle this just fine, don't
you? I believe he can. See, it'll help my anxiety. by
looking at things as they are, not as I imagine they will be.
It really will help. And be careful not to fall into
this trap. Don't borrow trouble. Don't borrow
trouble. Human beings, oh, we're a mess. You know, everything is going
fine right now. Everything seems to be going
good. And here's the only thing we can think about tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the only thing's possible, everything's good now, but the
only thing possible for me tomorrow is trouble and heartache. Now
why do we do that? How about instead we spend our
time thanking the Lord for his blessings of today? Thanking
the Lord, rejoicing in the Lord for his blessings today, and
trust in the Lord. He'll take care of tomorrow too.
And wouldn't that be better if we could do that? Don't let worrying
about tomorrow stop you from enjoying today. And don't let
the trouble of yesterday stop you from enjoying today, too.
See, rejoicing in the Lord, that directs our walk, doesn't it?
Isn't that what the Lord said, Matthew 6, 34? Take therefore
no thought, and the word means anxious thought. Don't take any
anxious thought for tomorrow, for the morrow shall take thought
for the things of itself. Sufficient under the day is the
evil thereof. Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.
Thank the Lord for what he's given us today. And when Lord
brings you into this, this time of trouble, this don't hurt. I would ask you that you don't
put a false religious front on this thing. When you're in times
of pain and sorrow and loss, You know, we think we're putting
off this good show of faith, and it's going to help other
people. And really, it's not going to help them. Really, it
hurts them. Because when they suffer, they feel the pain. They feel the sorrow. And they
think, well, I don't have the kind of faith this person has.
I'm not as strong of faith as this person. And really, it hurt
them, didn't it? I was talking with Shelby Fortner
a couple of months ago. You know, this thing, losing
Don, it's been hard. It's been hard for her. And she
said, yes, I trust in the Lord. Absolutely, I trust in the Lord,
but I'm in the flesh and this hurts. Just remember this, both can
be true. I can have full faith and confidence
and trust in the Lord and hurt too. We both at the same time. I may not be able to chew gum
and walk the same time, but I can trust in the Lord and hurt at
the same time. I can do both those things together. Now, our
trials hurt, but here's what we rejoice in, that God's grace
is sufficient. You know, I don't like pain. I don't like it and I worry about
it. I worry about having some extreme
pain, those kinds of things again someday. I worry about that.
But I don't have this kind of anxiety, this fret about it,
because I don't worry about the outcome. You don't have to worry
about the outcome, because I trust the Lord. See, He's in charge
of that. And here's another meaning of
this word careful, and I didn't know this until I was studying
this message. Another meaning of this word
careful means anxiety, and it means seeking to promote oneself. Now seeking to promote oneself
may not bring anxiety to me, but I promise you it's gonna
bring anxiety to others. if I'm seeking to promote myself
anywhere, whether it's at work or particularly in the church,
particularly amongst believers. You know, our desire is to rejoice
in the Lord. That's the desire of every believer.
Well, it'll be helpful if I want to rejoice in the Lord to quit
thinking about myself, quit thinking about my circumstances, and start
thinking about Christ. Worship, true heart worship and
peace amongst God's believers are ruined every single time
when we're promoting self. You can't promote self and promote
Christ too. Preaching the gospel is lifting
Christ up. You can't lift Christ up if I'm promoting myself. It's
impossible. If we think about how blessed
we are, Almighty God chose me. He chose to save me, and I didn't
deserve it. He chose to pour out His mercy
and grace upon me, and I'm not deserving of the least of His
mercies. The Father sent His Son to suffer and die to put
away my sin. I can't get over that. He did
that for me. The Holy Spirit came. And he
gave me faith. I sat and listened to the gospel
for I don't know how many years and wouldn't hear it, wouldn't
believe it, wouldn't love it. And Holy Spirit came and gave me
faith to believe Christ anyway. If God was like me, he'd throw
me out. I'd give you too many chances,
strike 1,512,000. You're out. No. He gave me faith anyway. Gave
me faith to believe Christ and trust in Christ anyway. And real
soon, He's coming to take me home, to be with Him forever. Now, if I think on those things,
don't think of myself, don't think of my circumstances. If
I think on those things, in the darkest of night, in the hardest
trial, I'm going to be able to rejoice in the Lord. See, I just will have less anxiety. The less I think about myself
and the more I think about Christ. And you might think that's impossible. Preacher, you're just talking
religious talk that sounds good on Sunday and don't work on Monday.
Now, wait a minute. Is it impossible to have a sense
of contentment and peace of heart when you're getting rung out
in a trial? Is it? Eli did. Samuel came to him and said,
God said he's gonna kill your two sons. Eli said, it's the
Lord. Let him do what seemed to him
good. Job did. Thee by other than our Lord tried
like Job was. Lord killed all Job's children.
He took away all of his earthly possessions so that all Job was
left with was a piece of broken pottery. It wasn't even a whole
vase. It was a broken piece of pottery.
That's all Job had left to scrape the boils that covered his body.
And what did Job say? The Lord gave and the Lord has
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I grant you that attitude and
that faith is not possible unless the Lord gives it. I grant you
that. But you know what? We can pray
and ask the Lord to give it to us, can't we? Which are good.
If you want it, be wise to pray and ask the only person that
has it to give it to you, wouldn't it? That brings me to the fourth
thing. If we're rejoicing in the Lord,
this is how this will direct our walk. If we're rejoicing
in the Lord, we will pray. We will pray. And we'll trust
the Lord. Verse six, Paul says, be careful
for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, Let your request be made known unto God. I'll
tell you a real good cure for anxiety, a real good cure for
constantly thinking about the worst possible outcome is prayer. You know, it's just hard to be
full of anxiety when you're praying. Isn't it hard to be full of anxiety
when you're with your heavenly Father? And Paul tells us here, this
is such a gracious thing, make your request known to God. Make
your request. Don't worry, well, is this wrong?
Make your request known to God. Savannah Grace can call me any
time of day, any day of the week, and say, Daddy, I need help.
And I'm, you know, sometimes I might not be able to do, you
know, I'm just a... Our Heavenly Father has power
and control over all things, and he has perfect love for his
children. His cell phone's never off. Sometimes maybe she couldn't
get ahold of me without my cell phone. Make your request known
to God. He says, pray, ask me for what
you need. God cares about how his people
feel. That's an encouragement to pray.
But Paul says, now when you pray, make your request known to God
and do it with thanksgiving. Do it with Thanksgiving. It's
just hard to fret about things that I don't have when I'm thanking
God for the things I do have. Isn't that right? It's hard for
me to think about what I don't have. What I'm thinking about
is what God has given me, what I do have. Oh, I tell you, if
you just start thanking the Lord for the many, many, many blessings
He's given you, you'll see, really, I have very little to fret about. Rejoicing in the Lord leads God's
people to pray. God is sovereign. Well, I don't
mean either. Well, God's sovereign. He can
do whatever He wants anyway. No, we're to pray. Yes, God's sovereign.
And we're to pray. We're to rejoice and thank God
for who He is. I'll tell you, you can start
with this. Thank God He condescended to save sinners like we are.
Oh my goodness. We're wretched. and vile? Yet
He condescended to save us? I'll tell you, that's a mighty
good place to start with Thanksgiving in that. And praying. Now I'm not talking
about truly praying. I'm not just talking about going through the
motions. I'm talking about true prayer. It puts everything in
its proper perspective. Because if I'm truly going to
pray, to ask God for what I need, to thank Him, to praise Him,
those three things ought to be in every prayer. You know what
that requires of me? If I'm gonna thank God, if I'm
gonna praise Him, if I'm gonna ask Him for what I need, that
requires me to be in the dust at His feet and Him to be on
the throne. Well, that's everything in its
proper perspective. If I'm at the foot of the throne
of grace, what do I got to worry about? There's no anxiety there,
is there? There's no worst possible outcome
can happen there. And here's the fifth thing. If
we are rejoicing in the Lord, we'll have peace of heart. Verse
seven, Paul says, in the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And we've
talked about this peace summit in recent weeks. The peace that
Paul's talking about here is not peace because they don't
have anything to fret about. It's not peace because there's
nothing wrong. No, it's not having peace because there's no trial.
that's buffeting me right now. This is peace of heart because
I have peace with God. And I can enjoy that peace even
though the trial is buffeting me. We have peace with God through
the blood of the cross. The blood of Christ, his blood
he sacrificed for the sin of his people, took away the sin,
all the sin that made God angry. He poured out his wrath upon
his son till the sin that made him angry was gone. There's no
more wrath left in God for his people. He poured it all out
on his son for the sin that was charged to him. God's not mad. You think of it, God's not mad
at his people anymore. He's at peace with his people. Now if God's not mad at me, God's
at peace with me. What on earth do I have to fear?
Not one blessed thing. And this is peace. Now, the peace
I'm talking about here is something only a believer can understand.
It passes all human understanding. This is something that's only
experienced in the heart. It's spiritual peace. See, the
things of this earth, the trials of this earth are still going
to hurt my body. There's still going to, pain
and loss and sorrow, they're still going to hurt. but nothing
can touch my soul. Nothing can touch my heart. Nothing
can take away my peace with God. Nothing can take away my peace
that I feel, you know, this peaceful, easy feeling, because nothing's
wrong, but not my peace with God. It can't touch that. And
I tell you, the believer, this peace with God's a two-way street.
God's not mad. And I'm not either. The blood
of Christ has been applied to my heart. He's given me a new
heart. And I'm not angry with God anymore either. See, there
can't be any peace until the combatant surrenders. See, I'm
the one that started the war. I'm in this with Adam. We started
the war. There's not going to be any peace
until we surrender. I surrender. I lay down my shotgun. I surrender. And I'm glad to
do it. Peace is a whole lot better than
war. And I'm not afraid of God. No, I worship Him. I pray. I
have fear, reverential reverence of Him, but I'm not afraid of
Him. I worship Him. I praise Him. And because of
the blood of Christ, because of the person of Christ, I can
come boldly before His throne of grace. If I'm praising the Lord for
His sovereignty, His sovereign power, His sovereign grace, that
He is in control of everything. His sovereignty means nothing
can stop His will or purpose from being done. Nothing. Then
I'll tell you, I'll enjoy peace of heart. Now, I'm going to still
feel anxious about things because that's what this flesh does.
I'm going to feel anxious about things because I don't know the
outcome. I don't know how this thing's going to turn out and,
you know, I might worry about that. But the believer can also
see I know I feel that way in this flesh, but there's no reason
for me to. There's no reason for me to fear that because I'm
in God's hand. Isn't that what the Savior said? They're mine. No man can pluck
them out of my hand. I tell you, that gives me peace.
Peace of heart that passes all human understanding. And lastly,
and this is kind of what we've been talking about here, the
unity that Paul wanted to see. this discord he wanted to see
got rid of in the church of Philippi. If I have peace with God, I'm
rejoicing in Christ Jesus because it's his blood that gave me peace
with God. I'm going to find it easy to
be at peace with my brothers and sisters. They've been washed
in the same blood. They've been chosen in the same
electing love. They've been redeemed by the
same power. They've been given the same new spirit, new nature
that I have. I'm going to find it easy to
be at peace with my brothers and sisters. And sometimes something
might come up that might make that difficult to do for a few
minutes. But I tell you what, strive for
it. When that comes up, now you strive for it. And you know what
will give you the motivation to strive for it? We want to
promote peace here. We want to promote peace. because
there can't be any worship of God without peace. If people
are fussing and fighting and you just know, oh, I got, you
know, this little sect here, this little sect here, this little
sect here, they're interpreting everything that's being said
and done by what's going on with their little fussing and fighting
and their little feud that they got going. If people are thinking
about that, we're not thinking about Him. I insist there be
peace here for that reason. I'm not just being a hard case
here. Our purpose is to worship our
God. God's given us the blessed, blessed
privilege of hearing his gospel preached. He's given us the blessed,
blessed privilege of having a place in our town where the gospel
is preached. I don't wanna waste it, Eric.
That's not everywhere. I don't wanna waste that. God's
given us the opportunity to worship him. I want to do everything
in my power to be able to do that, because he's worthy. And if that's our goal, it's
our unified goal, we'll have peace, we'll have unity. and
God just might be pleased to bless his word. All right, I
hope that'll bless you. Let's bow together. Our Father,
we thank you for your word, this instruction in your word to tell
us again to look to Christ, to depend upon him, to rest in him,
that his person, his blood, his sacrifice, his gospel is the
only issue. Father, I thank you for this
place. I thank you for this family of believers. Thank you for the
peace, the unity of purpose that you've given us that we might
be able to worship you. Father, I beg of you that you
preserve it, that you preserve it for many, many, many years
to come, that this might be a place where Christ our Savior is exalted
and where your people can come and be blessed and instructed
and edified by the preaching of Christ our Savior. is in his
blessed name. For his sake and his glory we
pray. Amen. All right, Sean. If you would turn to song number
527 and stand as we sing thanks to God.