Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Spring Forward Sunday.
[00:00:03] I love Spring Forward Sunday.
[00:00:06] I just wish we lost two hours instead of one. That would just make my suffering complete.
[00:00:14] But it's good to be with you if you're a guest with us. My name is Chet. If we haven't had the chance to meet, I'd love to meet you.
[00:00:22] But today I am gonna talk about how Satan invented Spring Forward and.
[00:00:28] And then we're gonna pray against it now. Just kidding. We are gonna continue. We've been looking through the book of Philippians and we are gonna continue that. But before we do, would you pray with me?
[00:00:39] Father, I thank you so much for, Lord, your goodness that does chase after us, that follows us all the days of our life. Lord, thank you for that. Help us to see it. Help us to experience it and to trust it and to know it. Lord and Father, today I pray that you would give us internal strength for the challenges of our life.
[00:01:05] Give us internal stability for the pain and the difficulty. And Lord, all that we face in this room, that our hearts may be filled with your peace and you might be glorified.
[00:01:19] Bless us in this time together, Lord, we ask this in Jesus good name.
[00:01:24] Amen.
[00:01:26] Well, I've always been a big fan of playing on the water. And years ago I bought a paddle board. You know what those are? And it's super fun. You know, you get on it and paddle around and I loved it. Always have a lot of fun with it. And a couple years ago, I just took it out by myself on Lake Erie and I had, like, no sense of balance. It was just like, why are you laughing at that?
[00:01:52] Normally, you know, it's pretty on point, but this particular time, I, like, could not. I was, you know, real shaky and I was like, what's going on here? Like, you know, do I have an inner ear infection?
[00:02:02] What is happening here? And it was a really bizarre thing. And then I pulled the board out and I realized it normally has, like a 5 or 6 inch fin on it and that had fallen off or broken off and it wasn't there. And I looked at it, I was like, man, that fin does that much.
[00:02:20] That brings that much stability to this whole board. And I was like, that was kind of crazy. But that principle is true, right? A sailboat, as long as it has that deep fin, it can endure some really, really turbulent seas. A plane is stabilized by it, and. And basically, the more turbulence something is going to go through, the more internal stability is required. You with me on this?
[00:02:48] And today, I think that principle is not only true for boats. And planes and paddle boards. But it's true for our souls as well.
[00:02:57] See, I believe we don't need a less turbulent world.
[00:03:03] Hey, that would be nice, but I don't think we're gonna get it.
[00:03:07] We don't need necessarily an easier journey. What we need is a stronger soul, a greater soul, a soul that has an ability to internally stabilize itself with God's help. And today, when we look at the book of Philippians, that's what these verses are really about, is how do we.
[00:03:32] How does God give us this incredible internal stability that helps us face the turbulence of life? Because, let's be honest, we all know in this room, life is turbulent. The wind and the waves come. It's not easy. It's hard. The Bible never says otherwise. It says, yeah, we will face challenges, we will face difficulty, but there is this great power that can bring stability to our souls through Christ at work in our lives. And so we're gonna talk about that today, and we're gonna look at the end of Philippians, chapter three. So last week we went through a lot of chapter three, and I'm gonna pick up today at 3:20, and then we're gonna get into chapter four. So our study of Philippians is coming to a close soon. Just a couple more sermons on it. But chapter three, verse 20, here's what it says.
[00:04:27] But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
[00:04:47] Therefore, my brothers, now I just want you to just notice that therefore right there, so that therefore is connecting that verse that I just read. So he said, this idea of what future we have in God, this is what is gonna set up everything he's gonna say. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord. My beloved.
[00:05:13] I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.
[00:05:21] How would you like to be called out by name by the Apostle Paul?
[00:05:26] Say, hey, knock it off.
[00:05:29] Syntyche in uidodio. Yes. I ask you also, true companion, help these women who've labored side by side with me in the Gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.
[00:05:42] Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice.
[00:05:47] Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.
[00:05:51] Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by Prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Aren't those beautiful verses?
[00:06:13] There's so much in them and I wanna unpack all of it. But that would be like a two hour sermon, you know, so I'm just gonna do like an hour and a half today, if that's okay.
[00:06:25] But there's so much. But I do, I want, first of all, I want you to see this powerful theme that sets all of these things up about prayer and rejoicing and, and getting along with people. All these elements, they're set up in verse 20 by this grand narrative.
[00:06:47] And what Paul says, he says, you're a citizen of heaven and you're waiting for Christ to finish his work in your life. And it's gonna transform everything in your life.
[00:07:02] And basically what Paul is doing is he's saying, hey, Philippians, if you want to live differently in this world, if you wanna have a deep internal stability, you have to connect your life to the grand narrative of God.
[00:07:22] Now here's why I think this is so incredibly helpful. Many great philosophers and thinkers have said that human beings are narrative animals.
[00:07:35] Narrative animals. And what they mean by that is that we understand life in ourselves as a story.
[00:07:43] We all do, right? Like, that's why we love movies and books. And like, story is such a defining thing about human beings. And whether we realize it or not, we all have a story that we see our life in.
[00:08:01] And the story that we understand becomes a guide for how we understand and experience life. You with me on this now, let me give you a cool example of this. I love Winston Churchill. I think he's just so fun to read about. And when he was a younger man, he served in the army. And then he became a journalist. And one of his first big breaks as a journalist was he was sent into South Africa, Africa by Great Britain to be a war journalist. And there was a war going down there and he was gonna write about it, but on his way down there, he was in a train, his train got ambushed and he was taken prisoner. Now, he was a high value prisoner because he was from nobility, his family had a lot of money, his name was known. So this was a really bad thing.
[00:08:54] And he realized that he could possibly be killed in this or, you know, a lot of things could go wrong. But he said that as he thought about his situation, this thought came into his mind. He's like, he knew that he was not gonna die there.
[00:09:12] And he said, I know I'm not gonna die here because my life is meant to impact this world, and if I die here, that's not gonna happen.
[00:09:22] And what he did was he saw his life as part of this grander story, and he made a daring escape out of that prison camp, and he actually pulled it off. But what I want you to see is he reacted to that because he saw his life as part of this different story.
[00:09:45] You with me on this? Now, all of us have a story that we see our life in.
[00:09:52] But the problem is, a lot of times we adopt this story, we make up this story, we kind of let life write it for us instead of it being directed by God. You with me on this? Some of us, we look at our lives and we're like, the story of my life is. And everything always goes wrong.
[00:10:13] The story of my life is I can never get it right.
[00:10:19] Some of us, the story of my life is, I'm not wanted. I don't belong.
[00:10:25] I don't fit in. Now, when those are the type of narratives in our mind church, we are not gonna have the internal stability that God wants for us.
[00:10:36] When the grand story of our life is not God's grand story, it's always gonna be deficient.
[00:10:44] It's always gonna be broken at some level. You with me on this? But here's the good news. Today there is a grand story about your life.
[00:10:53] There is an awesome narrative that you have been invited into.
[00:11:00] There is an author behind the story of your life, and it's the Almighty God.
[00:11:08] See, one of my great frustrations with our culture today is that we tell people the world came into existence randomly.
[00:11:20] You're just an evolutionary blob of cells and stuff like that. You have no purpose, no meaning. And then people's minds are losing it. And then we're like, why is everybody having a hard time in their mind? Well, we've just told them you have no meaning and no purpose and no one cares about you. And then we're surprised that that affects people's well being. Anybody with me on this?
[00:11:48] And that's a terrible story, and I don't think it's a true one. But here's what Paul says the story of our lives is. Look again at verse 20. He says, but our citizenship is in heaven. Here's what he's saying. You and I, you belong to God.
[00:12:08] You are his.
[00:12:13] Your ultimate home is not here, but you do have a home.
[00:12:19] You do have a place where you're going. That is incredible. Our citizenship, he says, and from it we await a savior. Here's what Paul says. Here's the story of your life. You belong to God. And there is a hero in the story of your life. But it's not you.
[00:12:41] It is Jesus Christ.
[00:12:43] And he is the one that will redeem you. He is the one that will rescue you. He is the one that you should be looking for and waiting for and. And all things. And if you try to make yourself the hero of the story, it won't work. Cause you're not it. But you do have one. And it is Jesus Christ. And he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. Here's what he's saying. There is a hopeful future ahead.
[00:13:15] All the junk and pain and darkness that we experience in this life will one day give way to the light and glory of Jesus Christ.
[00:13:28] Paul says, look, there is hope in every circumstance.
[00:13:32] There is a better future for all of us. And it says, and he's able. He subjects all things to himself. In other words, that he is the king and no one will stop his purpose.
[00:13:47] Now Paul says, this is the story of your life.
[00:13:50] You belong to God.
[00:13:53] You have a hero. It's not you, it's Christ. He's coming for you. He's not going to leave you hanging. He will always be there. You have a future of glory to look forward to. And by the way, nothing is going to change this plan.
[00:14:10] Now that's an awesome story to be part of. Amen.
[00:14:14] And Paul says. He says, look, if you are going to have a stable soul, you might need to replace a story in your mind of what your life is really about, of what is really happening.
[00:14:30] And someone said this, and I loved it. They said, sometimes you have to take big truth and bring it into little places.
[00:14:39] You gotta take hold of these big ideas of the story of God. And then you gotta bring that big truth into our daily worries and fears and remind ourselves, look, no matter what's happening, here's the real story.
[00:14:57] It's the story of God and what he's doing in Christ.
[00:15:01] And I love that. And then Paul goes on.
[00:15:04] He says, therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, stand firm in the Lord.
[00:15:11] I love that.
[00:15:13] Stand firm in the Lord.
[00:15:17] Now, standing firm in the Lord is not about how strong we are, but it's about what the foundation of our lives are.
[00:15:30] I heard a man talking one time about his dad. And his dad was like a member of the government of a certain political party in Brazil decades ago.
[00:15:43] And in Brazil, there was at the time he was in it, there was a military coup that took over the government. And so his dad got imprisoned as a political prisoner along with a lot of other people. And many of them were tortured and killed. And it was a very ugly affair. And he said that as a kid, his dad would tell him a little bit about what that time was like. He eventually was able to get free from it. But he said that, you know, they would torture people and do these terrible things, he said, and some people would just. They would just break immediately.
[00:16:18] They'd give up information, they'd want to try and make a deal, they would do all these stuff. And he said, some people, that was their response. He said, other people, no matter what they did, they would never break.
[00:16:33] No matter how cruel they were to those people, they would never break. And the son said that when he heard his dad saying that, he said, in my heart, he's like, I wanna be like that group of people.
[00:16:47] I wanna be the type of person that never breaks.
[00:16:51] And don't we all want that?
[00:16:54] Don't we all want that internal strength that no matter what waves and difficulty come, we don't break, we don't get knocked off. We stand firm. Now, here's the cool deal. We can all be those type of people. People.
[00:17:16] Because here's what Jesus said. Jesus said, the most important thing is not your ability to stand, but what you're standing on.
[00:17:27] Jesus said, if your life is built on me, then your life is built on a solid rock that no matter what waves come, what wind comes, what storms come, and if you're standing on the right foundation, you will stay standing after that.
[00:17:49] And it's not about how strong you are, but it's all about what you're standing on.
[00:17:55] And I was thinking about this image in my mind. I saw a documentary a few years ago and it was about, like the big wave surfers. It was so cool. And it turns out that some of the biggest waves in the world are in this little town in Portugal called Nazare, this little fishing town, but because of there's this huge, deep underwater canyon right at the shore. It makes like these insane waves. And if you Google it today you see them, you'll be like, yeah, those are insane. And these crazy people go out and surf them and there are these mass waves. But when you see where they're at, it's really cool. You'll see like this little lighthouse and then you'll see these huge, massive waves. But the lighthouse is on some solid rock and you'll See these monstrous waves come in and crash and come in and crash and come in and crash. And guess what? The lighthouse is still there.
[00:19:00] And people stand on it and people see it. And these are the biggest waves you can ever see. And people that are standing there are just fine.
[00:19:10] And that's what Jesus is telling us. If we build our lives on him, then we can stand firm.
[00:19:19] Then we can face the challenges of life and still be standing. Not because of how great we are or how strong we are or how resilient we are, but because of where we've placed our feet. You with me on this? And Paul says, stand firm. And then he goes into these different ideas about how to have a healthy mind or a reasonable mind in these verses. In verse 5, I think all these are kind of connected to this. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone or, or reasonableness. You could think of this as like an even keel mind.
[00:20:05] And all these different teachings I think are centered around this idea. And the first one is he talks about these two ladies, Euodia and Syntyche.
[00:20:16] And he says, see that they agree in the Lord.
[00:20:22] And it's a good reminder that sometimes we've got to submit our relationships to the purpose of God and not our own pettiness.
[00:20:36] See, Paul goes on to say, he says about these women, that God's brought them together, that they're co workers in the good work of the gospel, that their names are written in the book of life. And here's what Paul's saying. He's saying, hey, listen, don't let things tear you apart when God has brought you together.
[00:20:58] Agree in the Lord. And see, one of the ways that God brings stability to our life is by the good people he brings into our life.
[00:21:10] And when we let small stuff get in the way of that, we short circuit.
[00:21:17] Part of how God wants to bless our life. You with me on this?
[00:21:21] And one of the ways that we can constantly be aware of that is to just say, look, I wanna have a more generous spirit. I wanna rise above.
[00:21:33] I like how someone said, they said, you know, don't spend your life talking about people, spend your life talking about ideas.
[00:21:40] And I like that as a way of thinking, you know, when we let just stuff irritate us that shouldn't, or we hold onto it, or we make it bigger. None of us ever feel stronger for doing that, right? We've never had a moment. We just like slandered someone behind their back and we're like, gosh, I feel so much better now.
[00:22:03] You kind of think you might, right? You're like, I think this will help me. But then you do it and you don't feel better. Amen. Church you don't get anything from actually only weakens our internal reality. But when you take the high road, you do feel stronger and you do open the door for God to bring good people in your life that you can walk with and that will walk with you. You with me? And here's what Paul's saying. He's saying, look, Euodia in syntyche, God has been at work through you guys together.
[00:22:41] Your names are written in the book of life.
[00:22:45] You're gonna spend eternity with each other.
[00:22:49] Just think about that for a second.
[00:22:51] Y' all better figure it out.
[00:22:54] I don't know if you know, but eternity's a long time.
[00:22:58] He's saying, agree in the Lord. Like look at the bigger perspective.
[00:23:03] Don't sweat the small stuff.
[00:23:06] And some of us in our lives, maybe we need God's help and do it. Lord, help me to not sweat the small stuff. Help me to not let stuff become a wedge that should never be one. To become a roadblock in a meaningful relationship that shouldn't even be there in the first place. This is what Paul is calling us to. And then he goes on, he says, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness, let your even keel mind be known to everyone.
[00:23:42] And what is he saying? He's saying, hey, it helps in life to kind of keep a level mind.
[00:23:50] Easier said than done, Paul.
[00:23:52] But how helpful is that, right?
[00:23:55] If you let failure go to your heart, then success will go to your head. You with me on this?
[00:24:02] There's an even keel when we fail. We need to remember our names are written in the book of life.
[00:24:13] And the way that we honor God when we fail and we struggle is not putting ourselves under some self imposed penance, but standing back up and taking a step forward. You with me on this?
[00:24:29] That's an even keel mind. When things go really great and God blesses us and life is awesome, we don't all of a sudden start taking credit, be like, you know what? I am pretty awesome now that I think about it. You know, I don't know what's with all these losers around me, but I got this all figured out, right? That's not even. You don't, you don't get too high and you don't get too low, but we keep a healthy spot. We remember, look, Christ died for me. I'm still messed up, but I'm Loved. At the same time, we're able to navigate that place. And when we can hold our minds and our hearts there, it gives us a greater stability in life.
[00:25:14] Right. We've never panicked our way to a better future.
[00:25:17] Amen.
[00:25:19] We've all tried, but it's never like, ah.
[00:25:23] And then you're like, man, gosh, that really helps things, you know?
[00:25:27] It doesn't help. What helps is you take a step back, you take a deep breath, you remind yourself, look, the Lord is still at work. He loves me.
[00:25:39] I'm waiting for Christ to save me. Like, you connect to those ideas, and then you come back to the situation. You with me on this? Paul says, let your reasonableness be known to everyone. And then he says, the Lord is at hand, or the Lord is near.
[00:25:58] God is never as far away as it feels sometimes in our life, he's always closer than you think.
[00:26:07] And Paul says, so don't be anxious about anything.
[00:26:13] But in everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God now. I just. I love these ideas together. The Lord is near.
[00:26:23] Don't be anxious and pray now. It reminds me, my daughter, Emory, she gets up super early, like, sometimes, you know, 4:00am, 5:00am She's a very early bird, and that's too early. Church. Amen.
[00:26:44] And so sometimes when she gets up, you know, she'll go to, like, the top of the stairs, which is kind of right outside her room, and she'll stand there and she'll go, mom, dad and I always go into, like, instant rage when I hear that. Cause my fear is, you're gonna wake up the other two, and then we're gonna have a real mess on our hands, you know, parents. Amen. Like, hey, lock it down.
[00:27:13] And, you know, I get that you're scared of stuff, but I always will, you know, go to her and be like, emery, we're right here. You're fine. We're right here. Like, if we were any closer, we would be in your bedroom.
[00:27:26] We're five feet away from that.
[00:27:28] We're right here.
[00:27:30] You're fine. There's nothing to worry about.
[00:27:33] Go back to sleep. Amen. Go to sleep. And in fact, sleep a little extra, too. You know what I'm saying?
[00:27:43] Give us. That never happens, by the way.
[00:27:46] But we're right here. But here's what I hear Paul saying. God is a much better father than that.
[00:27:55] We're at the stair. We're like, God, like, I'm right here. You don't have to yell.
[00:28:01] The Lord is near.
[00:28:03] You may think that I'm in five houses down the street. You might think that I'm in a different state or city, but I'm right here. But the Lord is gracious. He's near.
[00:28:15] He doesn't get upset by that. But Paul says, no, no, the Lord is near, so go to him in prayer.
[00:28:23] You ask for anything, ask for everything.
[00:28:28] Let prayer be your way out of anxiety.
[00:28:34] Let prayer be what you do as you experience the anxiety and fear of life.
[00:28:43] And ask God, and he tells us, you know, these different words of how to pray or different aspects of prayer. And the first one is sort of this word of prayer as a place.
[00:28:56] And it's the idea that I think prayer is best when it's structured into our life.
[00:29:03] We all pray probably at random times and things like that. But when we really bring prayer as a way of life, it carries more power in our lives. You with me? When prayer is something you do every morning, like brushing your teeth, it gains a new power in our life. And that's kind of the first word. The second word is a pleading that God invites us to plead with him.
[00:29:32] He doesn't get annoyed with it.
[00:29:34] I get annoyed when my kids plead with me.
[00:29:37] Like, I've told you no 85 times.
[00:29:42] Allie and I will say, don't ask us that question again. We lit it. Now, I know I'm not doing a parenting sermon today, Church.
[00:29:50] Not that you would receive it from me. Like, quit asking those questions.
[00:29:55] But the Lord says we can plead to him.
[00:29:59] He's not put off by that. We can just let.
[00:30:03] Let our worry and our fear be channeled to him in prayer. And then he says, and pray with thanksgiving. Plead, but also be thankful.
[00:30:15] I hear that verse and I think about this. I want to be a son that is easy for God to bless.
[00:30:24] And don't you like giving gifts to people who show gratitude for it?
[00:30:28] Right.
[00:30:30] We all appreciate that you love. You know, when you bring someone you love a gift and they're excited about it, like, that's a deeper joy than receiving the gift. Amen.
[00:30:42] And what these verses remind me of is that we all can be that way with God.
[00:30:48] That as God blesses us and hears our prayers and moves in our life, we can honor him with that deep, real gratitude if we're thoughtful and intentional about it. And Paul says, make your requests known to him. Then he says this.
[00:31:08] And the peace of God will guard, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
[00:31:22] Just think about these verses for a minute.
[00:31:26] What is the greatest stabilizing factor in the human soul.
[00:31:32] I think it's a piece of God that surpasses understanding.
[00:31:36] It guards us. It guards our heart, our emotions, our will. It guards our mind, our thoughts, our anxieties. It guards us.
[00:31:49] Paul says that the peace of God which surpasses understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
[00:31:56] Now, here's what I love about these verses.
[00:31:59] What Paul is after is an internal change.
[00:32:06] He's not after the externals of their life changing.
[00:32:11] He's saying, what I care about is God ordering your internal world.
[00:32:17] Because isn't it true in life, if my mind is in a good, healthy place and my heart is in a good, healthy place, then it matters a lot less whatever is happening outside me. Amen. When your internal world is strong and rooted and stabilized, then the turbulence outside of you, you can navigate.
[00:32:43] Might not be easy, but you can do it.
[00:32:46] If the boat's got enough ballast, it can go in some rough seas.
[00:32:51] If the plane's all operational and the. Whatever those things are, tails, rudders, I don't know a lot about planes. If that's all functional, it can go through some weather. Amen.
[00:33:04] And the same is true in our souls. And he says, in Christ, the peace of God which surpasses understanding will guard you. Now, I think that phrase which surpasses understanding is so powerful because how many times do we live in anxiety and fear that surpasses understanding?
[00:33:29] I don't know why I'm freaking out, but I feel it in my chest. Anyone?
[00:33:34] I don't. I know. I know I'm. I know my mind's.
[00:33:38] It's a runaway train, but I can't pull it back. Anyone? You're like. It's. It's an anxiety that surpasses understanding. In fact, I think that's part of the very nature of anxiety. It's like this. I can't connect all the dots here of what I'm feeling and experiencing in my mind.
[00:33:58] And I love that Paul used this phrase. It says, yes, we all know the anxiety that surpasses understanding. But do you know the peace that surpasses understanding?
[00:34:11] Because that's real, too.
[00:34:14] And Paul says that can be real in your mind and your heart too.
[00:34:21] And in fact, that's part of the work of Christ in each of us.
[00:34:28] And I think that sometimes, honestly, I think we have a hard time believing that because we know what it feels like to be in our own minds.
[00:34:38] We know what it feels like to be in our own hearts. We know what it feels like to be in our own skin. And sometimes it just feels like.
[00:34:46] And is that real?
[00:34:49] And I just want to remind us or tell us today that I do believe it is very, very, very real.
[00:34:58] And that God has it for us today.
[00:35:00] And it's not about you and it's not about me. It's about Jesus Christ and how great he is.
[00:35:08] Church I think sometimes in our life we surrender too much ground to fear and worry.
[00:35:15] Just think, well, I'm never gonna escape it. So I'm not going to challenge it. I'm not going to fight it. I'm just going to accept it as part of our lives. But I think the scriptures here are inviting us to challenge it.
[00:35:30] To say, look, you don't have to forfeit that ground in your life. Now, there might be a battle there, and there will be a battle there, but you don't have to forfeit that ground.
[00:35:40] Because Jesus Christ is that great and his work is that great.
[00:35:47] It reminds me one of my favorite stories in all of scripture is in Mark, chapter 5.
[00:35:51] And Jesus arrives at this place called Gerasenes. And it's a place that's kind of remote and outside of where we would expect Jesus to be. And as he gets off the boat, the most out of control man you could ever imagine meets him there.
[00:36:12] And Mark gives us a lot about this guy's story and none of it is pretty.
[00:36:18] This dude's internal world is completely dominated by evil and it's out of control.
[00:36:27] He's a danger to himself, he's a danger to others. Like it is the example of the most broken internal world you could ever imagine.
[00:36:39] If you got problems Today, read Mark 5 about this guy and you'll be like, you know, it's not so bad because it's just an extreme, extreme example.
[00:36:49] And we see Jesus get out the boat and this man approaches him and everybody's terrified of this man that knows him. Everybody that's close. They've tried everything, done everything. It is as hopeless of a situation.
[00:37:04] And he approaches Jesus, you're like, what's gonna happen?
[00:37:11] Is this dude gonna let loose on Jesus? Like, what is Jesus gonna do here? How is he gonna deal with this absolutely lost cause, this internal destruction and domination by evil? What's going to happen?
[00:37:29] This is going to be a battle.
[00:37:34] Well, it doesn't end up being a battle at all.
[00:37:40] Because all of that evil, it just fully submits and bows down before the presence of Jesus Christ.
[00:37:51] And where everyone was terrified of is actually terrified of Jesus.
[00:37:58] And then everybody else is terrified of Jesus. Cause they're like, if that is afraid of Jesus, who is this man?
[00:38:05] What is he? And Jesus completely heals and restores the man completely. And he sends him off and he says, hey, buddy, you got a story to tell, now go tell it.
[00:38:18] And here's what I love about that story.
[00:38:21] It says to us, look, no matter how messed up this is, no matter how messed up this is, Christ is greater.
[00:38:30] And his presence completely outweighs all of the brokenness that lives within us.
[00:38:39] And there is help, there is hope, there is strength, and it's all because of him.
[00:38:47] And today, church, we can ask for his help.
[00:38:50] He longs for us to do it. We can invite it in and we can experience his peace. Let's pray for it.
[00:38:58] Lord, we do just stand in awe in worship of the greatness of who you are.
[00:39:05] Lord, we know the greatness of worry and fear and how that can just wreak havoc in our hearts and minds. And Lord, we can lose our sense of stability in this world.
[00:39:23] But Father, we pray that we could see your peace that passes understanding. We could experience it.
[00:39:31] We could see that it does not come from our techniques or our strength, but it comes from your presence. And we invite it in.
[00:39:42] We pray you would put all of us in the right mind and the right heart this morning, that we could serve you better and love you and love your people.
[00:39:55] And Lord, like the man In Mark 5, we pray we could have our own story to tell, different and uniquely ours, but our story about your strength and your power at work and our broken souls, and we could talk about your healing and your goodness and your love, and it would glorify you. Bless us with all this. In Jesus good name we pray. Amen.
