SPEAKER_00: Let me read it for us.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5, verse 8, Paul declares, Yes, we are of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: For we walk by faith, not by sight.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 8, yes, we are of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray it would take root in your heart this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is a passage that my mind has settled on recently as I think about how much fear has gripped not just our own nation, but our world right now, in light of COVID, coronavirus.
SPEAKER_00: So much the world, it really is gripped by a deep fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to talk about that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Some of this fear is obviously irrational.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you know many of these numbers, but somebody from the congregation sent me this this week, and I thought it was interesting he crunched some numbers and said, you know, in Virginia, if you're under 70, the odds of dying from COVID are about the same as dying from electrocution or radiation poisoning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in Virginia, according to stats of Friday, is when he sent this to me, you're 11 times more likely to die by drowning if you're under age 70.
SPEAKER_00: You're 19 times more likely to die by falling, and you're 138 times more likely to die in a traffic accident than by COVID.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, of course, we still swim, we still hike, and we still drive.
SPEAKER_00: And as I talk about this this morning, I'm not meaning to poke anybody who's taking reasonable precautions against a highly contagious illness.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you understand that.
SPEAKER_00: I know many of you are caring for parents, many of you are doing ministry in nursing homes and memory loss centers, many of you are nurses and doctors, and so the threat of COVID is very real for your livelihood and your occupation, your ability to care for your parents and loved ones that depend upon you.
SPEAKER_00: So I know that I'm not trying to needle any of you for those reasons.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even talking about the external precautions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the internal attitude of fear that grips so many people right now.
SPEAKER_00: They're terrified of death.
SPEAKER_00: And there's just something emotional about, you know, we realize, probably even intellectually, most people realize they're more likely to die in a car accident than by a virus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they realize that.
SPEAKER_00: But intellectually and emotionally, we're at such a place in our life where we've come to terms with that and to function in our society.
SPEAKER_00: We drive, and there's something about driving that it's relatively in your control, you feel like.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, obviously only half of accidents are, you know, one person's fault.
SPEAKER_00: But there's part of it that you just feel like you're in control of what happens to you, and so there's less of a fear of that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not advocating you should be more afraid of driving, although I have driven with some of you, and you should be more afraid of driving.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not 138 times for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's about 5,000 times more likely for some of you to die in a car accident, I think.
SPEAKER_00: But there is nevertheless an emotional fear that grips you with the uh, you know, something that's contagious and that you can't see, and you just you you're afraid of it because if it gets you, there's this idea that you will die and you're not in defense of it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and God made uh a world where there is sin and there is there are viruses in the world, and the viruses are small and tiny and smaller than the holes in your mask, and people will get sick, and you will get you will be contagious, and other people will get sick, and the virus will spread.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens in a fallen world is that people get sick and then they die.
SPEAKER_00: And so you ask yourself, why would God allow something like this in the world?
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible gives lots of answers for that.
SPEAKER_00: One reason, I think, that's kind of evident is just in the smallness of the virus that God can demonstrate to us with something so small how quickly he can bring the world to a screeching halt.
SPEAKER_00: And that ought to humble us, shouldn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it is in the heart of man to plan his ways, but it is indeed the Lord that directs the steps.
SPEAKER_00: We are so good at making plans and long-term plans and short-term plans, and where we're going to lunch after the service, if I would hurry up, and you know, what you're gonna do next year, and where you're gonna go to college, and what job you're gonna have, and what position you'll play in sports next year, and all of these things that go in our minds, and the Lord can just stop them like that.
SPEAKER_00: The strength of man is nothing really compared to the sovereign, omnipotent power of God.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways that is evident is through the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in the scripture, not just the New Testament where we have the Spirit who seals us, but in the Old Testament as well, it is one of the distinguishing features of those who believe in the Lord, one of the distinguishing features of those who have their faith in Jesus Christ and believe in the power of the resurrection, that they have courage in the face of death.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at this topic the last few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago, we looked at Psalm 18 and we saw David, if you're gonna look at an Old Testament person who is marked by courage, your mind and your thoughts would go to David.
SPEAKER_00: He stood in the battlefield raising a sling against a giant and declared that the giant would fall.
SPEAKER_00: David said over and over again that the Lord would defend him, and if the Lord didn't defend him, he had what was coming to him.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of his life, he surrenders his will to the Lord and says, I would rather fall into the Lord's hand than my enemy's hands.
SPEAKER_00: He had a life marked by a supernatural courage.
SPEAKER_00: And so we looked at that two weeks ago and how David's life is marked by courage from Psalm 18.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Pastor Ryan went through the book of Ecclesiastes for us.
SPEAKER_00: And if you missed that sermon, I strongly recommend you listen to it.
SPEAKER_00: And that was supposed to calibrate your thinking into this idea of, you know, our life is so short.
SPEAKER_00: In many ways, it is so insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no such thing as a resurrection, why does any of this matter?
SPEAKER_00: And as your thoughts settle there, you better land where God exists and the resurrection is real and he will bring every act of mankind into judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, are you going to respond to that with fear or with courage?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, it should produce a courage in you.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to wrap up our time in this little series, this brief series on courage, by looking at verse 8 of 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul declares for the second time in this chapter that we are of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are marked by this courage in the face of death because, and I know you understand this, death is not the worst thing that can happen to us.
SPEAKER_00: For believers, in many respects, death is the best thing that can happen to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's where our worldview is so different than everybody else's, because everybody else's worst case scenario is our best case scenario.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want, if you're in a project at work, don't you want that kind of person on your team?
SPEAKER_00: Like the worst thing could happen here that fills your heart with fear.
SPEAKER_00: You've got somebody on your team who's like, well, that's actually the best thing that can happen for me.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we are in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why the world can't make sense of believers for the most part.
SPEAKER_00: Because, I mean, even basics of like the pro-life rhetoric, they don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: What it means to be in the image of God, people have a hard time understanding what Christians mean when they talk like that because they don't understand the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand what it means to be made in the image of God, regardless of the color of your skin or the age of your life.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand those basic things.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas we do, and because of that, we recognize that there's this there's this dignity that every human being has.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of what they look like on the outside, regardless of how fast they are, how old they are, how smart they are.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of all those things, we all have to, we're united in this dignity.
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, we recognize that we're all going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of our ethnicity or our language or our wealth or our political power or our social status, we're all going to die.
SPEAKER_00: And then we recognize that God has a purpose for us while we're alive.
SPEAKER_00: And that gives us courage to live a bold life, courage to not just lead a bold life, but courage to face death with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to give you a little outline this morning, but first, just give you this heading.
SPEAKER_00: This passage is about the courage to face death.
SPEAKER_00: Courage in the Bible is a moral attribute.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that one more time because that's different than the way the world understands courage.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, courage is a moral attribute.
SPEAKER_00: In the world's mind, depending on what culture you're from, courage looks different.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in the kind of the American culture, courage looks like a form of bravery or even a sense of being macho, a sense of willing to suffer harm, you know, to run into a burning building kind of thing, which is a very courageous act, of course.
SPEAKER_00: In some other cultures, courage looks like stoicism.
SPEAKER_00: This is true of the Greek culture.
SPEAKER_00: In the Greek world, courage looked like an impenetrability.
SPEAKER_00: Courage looked like the ability to express no emotions.
SPEAKER_00: For the Greeks, courage was stoicism.
SPEAKER_00: It was a loved one dies and you don't mourn.
SPEAKER_00: Something happens to you and you don't celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: That's courage.
SPEAKER_00: It's this idea that you are a pillar and nothing in the world can affect you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Stoics believed.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical courage is different from both of those.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical courage is the moral capability, the moral capability to hold on to faith and drive out fear to lead a bold life for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And you see that in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 4, verse 14, Yahweh says, Fear not, for I hold you, Isaiah, by your hand.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah is supposed to tell the Israelites, fear not, because God, your God, will hold you by the hand.
SPEAKER_00: That's the courage element in the Old Testament, that you put your faith in God, and so it drives out fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to have a healthy fear of the Lord, but as your faith is in God, that fear is given way to courage and confidence.
SPEAKER_00: You see how there's an overlap here between the idea of courage and faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is the ability to see the unseen and to know the truth about God and the truth about the resurrection and the truth about heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Courage is the ability to live in light of that faith, to live with a boldness.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah chapter 1, God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, and Jeremiah says, No, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, You don't get to say no before you were born.
SPEAKER_00: I, when you were in the womb, I knew, I knew you.
SPEAKER_00: I knit you together for this purpose, Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: I'm putting my word in your very bones, he says later on in the book.
SPEAKER_00: So you don't get out of this.
SPEAKER_00: But then Jeremiah 1, verse 8, God tells Jeremiah, do not be afraid of them.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is going to go in the world, he's going to go preaching the gospel, and the world is going to rebel against him.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites and the tribe of Judah are going to rebel against him.
SPEAKER_00: And God tells Jeremiah, Don't be afraid of them, for I am here to be with you, declares Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: So do you see the connection between courage and faith right there?
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid of opposition, because I am with you, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So if you believe that, by faith you believe that the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, you believe that he's working in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That gives you courage to press through difficult circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: That gives you courage to press through life.
SPEAKER_00: That gives you courage to face death.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 28.
SPEAKER_00: Paul under house arrest, isolated in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He was ready for his trial, and the judges just kept postponing the trial.
SPEAKER_00: They had no need for him.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't really want to hear his case.
SPEAKER_00: He had gone there to testify before Caesar's household.
SPEAKER_00: We know from Philippians chapter 4 that that was successful, that those in Caesar's household did hear the gospel from Paul, but he wasn't brought before Caesar necessarily.
SPEAKER_00: He was just left in his house.
SPEAKER_00: And times going on.
SPEAKER_00: If you've read the book of Acts, the end of it is so frustrating, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because you want some like grand finale.
SPEAKER_00: You want Paul to finally be vindicated and the judges declare not guilty, or you want him to be executed or something.
SPEAKER_00: Like bring the story to a close.
SPEAKER_00: And instead, he's just there, hanging out in his house.
SPEAKER_00: And he grew discouraged, it says.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 28, 15.
SPEAKER_00: He was feeling beleaguered.
SPEAKER_00: He was feeling like his life is just being wasted there.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord sent brothers in the faith to come see him.
SPEAKER_00: And the brothers ministered to him and encouraged him.
SPEAKER_00: And it said that from that conversation, this is Acts 28, verse 15, Paul took courage.
SPEAKER_00: You get what that means?
SPEAKER_00: That he was built up in the faith by other believers, and that gave him the courage to go back to being bold.
SPEAKER_00: That gave him the courage to continue to take a stand for Christ, the courage to be in custody, under house arrest, with a sense of boldness instead of a sense of beleagueredness.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord had even promised him earlier on.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember when Paul was first called to go to Rome, Jesus appeared to him in a vision?
SPEAKER_00: And told him, Take courage, for you will testify about me in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: That was the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Then he gets to Rome and he feels discouraged, even though Jesus has said, You will take courage, and then God answers his own prophecy by sending brothers in the Lord who encourage him by giving him courage.
SPEAKER_00: That's why a courage for a Christian is not stoicism, it's not apathy.
SPEAKER_00: Courage for a Christian is a moral virtue that empowers us to stand up straight, morally speaking, that empowers us to take stands for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Our convictions about God and his word become our backbone in how we live.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord strengthens our heart so that we are courageous.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be courageous.
SPEAKER_00: That you have convictions that work themselves out in your emotions, that work themselves out in your affections, that work themselves out in the confidence you have to be under house arrest for the gospel, for the confidence you have to share the gospel with those that don't know Jesus, for the confidence you have to take stands for righteousness and what is right, for the confidence you have to face death, to look death in the eye and see him as a welcome friend, not as a foe.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that happens in our hearts as the Lord strengthens our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why the Lord told Joshua back in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a New Testament concept.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the Old Testament, the Lord calls Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua 1, verse 6, and says, I'm calling you, Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: You will lead these people, and you need to be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: That's the mark of virtue.
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense in the eyes of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites are outnumbered.
SPEAKER_00: In a foreign land, for them, it was the only right the Israelites had to cross the Jordan River, march around Jericho, and conquer the land there was that God had promised it to Abraham 400 years earlier, 440 by this point.
SPEAKER_00: But Joshua believes that, and so he takes courage.
SPEAKER_00: Faith produces courage.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned earlier David in Psalm 18, but your mind should go to 1 Samuel 17, where he walks into the battlefield.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Israelites had been being heckled by Goliath and his minions for days and days and days, and they were unable to muster a response.
SPEAKER_00: So much so, so much time had gone by that David grew concerned that his brothers were running out of food and went to bring them food.
SPEAKER_00: He expected to find them surrounded by an invincible army.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he found them cowering, being heckled by one giant.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine this conversation with Saul, King Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, who's gonna deal with that guy?
SPEAKER_00: He's blaspheming the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Saul's like, I don't know, you want to try on my armor?
SPEAKER_00: David doesn't need Saul's armor.
SPEAKER_00: He goes out there in the field with his sling.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what he declares in the field?
SPEAKER_00: In the open field in front of both armies.
SPEAKER_00: This boy says, You come at me with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defiled.
SPEAKER_00: That's what courage in the Bible looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And that is supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: That is a work of the Lord in the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: That is God's spirit who gives somebody the faith to believe in the afterlife, the faith to believe in the reality of Yahweh, our covenant-keeping God.
SPEAKER_00: That faith.
SPEAKER_00: And in the New Testament, that spirit of faith is the one who seals our hearts, who regenerates us, who gives us faith by causing us to be born again, seals our hearts with faith, acts as a deposit, a guarantee for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's why verse 5 of 2 Corinthians 5 says that he gives us his spirit as a guarantee, so we are always of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of those places where the verse marker throws you off there.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5 just runs into verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: God has given us a spirit, his spirit as a guarantee, so we are always of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: This is 2 Timothy 1, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: God gave us a spirit, not of fear, not of fear, but he gave us a spirit of power and love and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: This is marked in the early church.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Peter and John were arrested for their faith, were beaten for their faith, thrown into prison, told, hey, don't preach Jesus, we'll let you out.
SPEAKER_00: They said, no, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We'll keep preaching Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They let him out anyway.
SPEAKER_00: And they go back out to preaching Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what happened.
SPEAKER_00: That's Peter and John right there.
SPEAKER_00: That was their submission to governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: Don't speak, you don't preach.
SPEAKER_00: Nah.
SPEAKER_00: And the crowd watches them as they emerge from custody and watch them go out and preach.
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember what the crowd discerns about them?
SPEAKER_00: This is Acts.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was on my notes.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 4, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: They're seen out there.
SPEAKER_00: And the crowd discerns from them that they were ordinary people, unlearned, untrained people.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they had been with Jesus and they were marked by courage.
SPEAKER_00: How can you have that kind of courage to be told we're going to put you to death if you keep preaching?
SPEAKER_00: And you barely slow your step.
SPEAKER_00: It comes from faith in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, for Peter and John in that scenario, their best case scenario is everybody else's worst-case scenario.
SPEAKER_00: You can't silence somebody who's not afraid of death.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the book of Hebrews ends with this, Hebrews 13, verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: I can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, what can man do to me?
SPEAKER_00: That's a question that should be over every moral decision you have in your life, every day of your life.
SPEAKER_00: That should be the banner over it.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord is my helper, what can a person do to me?
SPEAKER_00: This is Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: What can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Heights can't, depths can't, angels can't, demons can't, principalities can't, rulers can't.
SPEAKER_00: What can separate you?
SPEAKER_00: Who can bring a charge against God's elect?
SPEAKER_00: No one.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus Christ is for you, the devil himself will not be successful in his opposition of you.
SPEAKER_00: That produces a sense of courage.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord is your helper, what can man do to me?
SPEAKER_00: This is the courage to face death we find in verse 8 here.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple evidences of it.
SPEAKER_00: The first evidence is the Christian's preference.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian's preference.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to marvel about how Paul words this.
SPEAKER_00: And he does this elsewhere also.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at some other places he words it like this, but it's just so staggering that Paul reduces his courage to a choice.
SPEAKER_00: He answers a question in verse 8 that nobody has articulated, but it's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Paul frames his own question here.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul makes us an either-or.
SPEAKER_00: You know the game children play, either or Paul makes us an either-or question.
SPEAKER_00: Would you rather live another day or go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Either or what's a courageous, faith-filled answer to that question?
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: There's no heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, that's why I love how verse 8 starts with a yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: What's the question?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, right off the gate.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven, yes, heaven, yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like his interlocutor here, his the narrator who hasn't even got the question out of his mouth and Paul's already answering it.
SPEAKER_00: Would you rather yes?
SPEAKER_00: He's so confident.
SPEAKER_00: This is true for believers.
SPEAKER_00: Christians long for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Like the deer pants for the water, Christians long for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Like a baby cries for milk, Christians long for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Like an athlete wants to play the next game.
SPEAKER_00: Like a worker wants to be paid.
SPEAKER_00: Like a soldier wants peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Christians want to see heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting to me from a preacher's perspective that verses 6, 7, and 8 here are in the indicative, not in the imperative, because what I mean by that is Paul's just stating these as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_00: He's not turning them into an imperative.
SPEAKER_00: This is not one of his places, and there are many, many imperatives in 2 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, 2 Corinthians is him basically dressing down the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: He's telling them a lot of things to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is not one of those places.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell them, so you be of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, so you guys, get your chin up and get back in the game.
SPEAKER_00: Rub some dirt on it and get back out there.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell them that.
SPEAKER_00: He just says it as a matter, if they're believers, this is true of them, is what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: You are, if you're a believer, you have courage.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it comes across.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, I think that's a cognitive decision he's making when he's writing this, is he's inspired by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He's not turning this around to them to say, hey, you do this.
SPEAKER_00: He's just telling them this is this is what it is.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the example of Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He has courage in the face of death.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: If it was a yes or no question, would you want to keep living in this world or go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: He says, no to this world, yes to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's where the real life begins.
SPEAKER_00: This is all precursor.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a genre of movies that start with the credits.
SPEAKER_00: One of the great things about you know watching them on Amazon Prime or whatever is that you can skip the credits and get right to the movie.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they even offer Amazon Prime even offers you that option.
SPEAKER_00: You know, once the credits start or whatever, you get the little box down the lower right-hand corner.
SPEAKER_00: I love this feature.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever designed this needs a raise immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Skip the credits.
SPEAKER_00: Click yes, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: This life is the opening credits.
SPEAKER_00: It's all the real stuff comes next.
SPEAKER_00: The real stuff comes next.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why Paul says 1 Corinthians 15, he's looking forward to heaven because there, he's looking for in 1 Corinthians 15, it's not just heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He says he's looking forward to death because in death, mortality is swallowed up by life.
SPEAKER_00: What a great turn of phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Mortality meaning the capacity to die.
SPEAKER_00: That's what mortality means.
SPEAKER_00: Your capacity to die is swallowed up by life.
SPEAKER_00: You would expect him to say mortality is swallowed up by death.
SPEAKER_00: That's what finally brings an end to mortality, is death gobbling it up.
SPEAKER_00: When your life is eaten, you know, what brings an end to your life?
SPEAKER_00: The shark that ate you, brought an end to your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you expect the word picture to be.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, no, mortality is gobbled up not by death, but by life itself.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning when you die, your capacity for death is vanquished.
SPEAKER_00: It's annihilated by the reality of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: He uses another example, 1 Corinthians 15, that heaven, your life in heaven is like a tree, and your life here on earth is like the seed.
SPEAKER_00: And you understand this.
SPEAKER_00: The seed cannot produce the tree unless the seed first dies.
SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the seed ceases to be a seed and becomes a sapling and becomes a tree.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the great mysteries of biology.
SPEAKER_00: To this very day, biologists still don't have a full understanding of how that works.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have an understanding of how the seed, I mean, they're just even now are developing new theories about how the seed knows which way to point up and down and which way to send the roots out and which way to shoot up.
SPEAKER_00: And this is still a mystery to science now, much less 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And the seed dies.
SPEAKER_00: At some point, it ceases to be a seed and becomes a tree.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, that's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Your life right now is the seed.
SPEAKER_00: And you want to be the tree, which you will be in heaven, but unless you die, you're not going to get there.
SPEAKER_00: That's what has to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul's point is that if I have a choice, I choose heaven, which is another way of choosing death to get to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying this in such a way.
SPEAKER_00: This is not, when I read this, it does not come across as merely an abstract theological point.
SPEAKER_00: It comes across as something that has personally and profoundly impacted him.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: We would rather be, that phrase rather, it's such a preference to him.
SPEAKER_00: We would rather be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We'd rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many reasons, aren't there?
SPEAKER_00: If you die, you're with the Lord, you see the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason he gives here.
SPEAKER_00: You see the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If you love the Lord, you want to see him, you want to be with him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a love for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see loved ones.
SPEAKER_00: Loved ones who died in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he tells the Thessalonians.
SPEAKER_00: Don't mourn like those who have no hope, because there are those who have died, their bodies went to the ground, their souls are with the Lord right now.
SPEAKER_00: Don't mourn as if you have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: And in that context, the hope is that you will see them again.
SPEAKER_00: So on the one hand, you're longing for heaven because you get to see Jesus, but there's another very real reason that you have loved ones who died in the Lord, and you want to see them also.
SPEAKER_00: This is David in 1 Samuel 12, where his, you know, his son is, his baby, infant son is dying, and David is praying and fasting for seven days for the life of his son.
SPEAKER_00: And then his son dies, and David bathes and goes and worships.
SPEAKER_00: And it is such a mystery to those around him.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is the opposite of the way that should work, right?
SPEAKER_00: You would expect everything to be reversed in that.
SPEAKER_00: You would expect him to be worshiping while the son is alive.
SPEAKER_00: You expect him to be with the sun and worshiping, and as the sun is dying, you would expect prayer, and as the sun has died, you would expect, this is in a non-Christian perspective, as the sun is dead, you'd expect not worship but anger towards the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Not worship, but grief.
SPEAKER_00: For David, when the son was alive, he was devoted to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: When the son died, he was devoted to worship.
SPEAKER_00: And his servant said, It makes no sense, David.
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00: And David said, I'm not gonna bring him back to me, but I'm gonna go to him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that hope in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what motivated David.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna press forward.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, David is excited to see the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote the book of Psalms, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's excited to see the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But also, he's excited to see his infant son who died.
SPEAKER_00: I will go to him, David says, and so I will worship now.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard people argue that those kind of passages don't mean that babies go to heaven, they just mean that David is also going to die one day, too.
SPEAKER_00: You know what you follow that argument?
SPEAKER_00: Like he did, I'm not, he's not gonna come to me, I'm gonna go to him, meaning I'm also going to die, and we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make any sense of the context.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make any sense of a person who has the courage to go worship God because his son just died.
SPEAKER_00: From the non-Christian perspective, that makes zero sense.
SPEAKER_00: From the believer's perspective, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, your heart is filled with worship because you're looking forward to the day that you will be away from your own body and at home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What a day that will be when parents meet children that perhaps they never met before.
SPEAKER_00: Not in their fallen state, not in their needy infant state like they would be in this world, but in their transformed, glorified state.
SPEAKER_00: What a day that will be.
SPEAKER_00: What a day when parents are united with children that preceded them in death, when children are united with parents that preceded them in death.
SPEAKER_00: It's a grand reunion.
SPEAKER_00: There are those that say, I I'm not ready to die yet because I want to see my family grow up, and I want to see the grandkids grow up, and that's that's those are good reasons, right?
SPEAKER_00: Family is good.
SPEAKER_00: All of God's gifts are good.
SPEAKER_00: None of God's gifts should keep you from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You want to go to heaven because you see Jesus, you see loved ones there, you want to go to heaven because you get rest from your work.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably chief in Paul's mind, right here.
SPEAKER_00: We skipped some of that in chapter four, but in chapter four of 2 Corinthians, Paul's saying, I'm being laid hard-pressed on every side.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is going wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8 of chapter 4, I'm afflicted in every way, not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, not forsaken, struck down, not destroyed, carrying about in this body the body of the death of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is not happy language here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I feel like I have a dead body tied to my back wherever I go, and people are throwing rocks at me while I'm carrying it around.
SPEAKER_00: They're crushing me.
SPEAKER_00: But notice what he says.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard pressed, but I'm not yet crushed.
SPEAKER_00: I'm perplexed, but I'm not yet given over to despair.
SPEAKER_00: There's that not yet.
SPEAKER_00: How much longer can he hold out?
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: So he says, Let's not find out, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Bring me home now.
SPEAKER_00: And then you receive your reward in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He goes there in verse 10 will appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for him in the body, whether good or or evil.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Paul's looking forward to his reward.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus says: store it for yourself treasure in heaven, not on earth.
SPEAKER_00: You don't live for this world because if you live for this world, you lose everything in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, live for the next world.
SPEAKER_00: Use your money not to invest in this world, but to invest in the next.
SPEAKER_00: So when you get to the next, you find friends there, new friends that your money got there by supporting missions and evangelism and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Also, you want to go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Did I mention seeing Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Was that on my list?
SPEAKER_00: Put it on there a second time.
SPEAKER_00: You want to go to heaven because you want to see the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where he is back in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: At home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see how this kind of thinking breeds courage in this life?
SPEAKER_00: How this makes the kind of people who make sacrifices for eternity?
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned a few weeks ago the biography of Ann Judson I read this summer.
SPEAKER_00: It still stands out to me.
SPEAKER_00: It still rings in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Those who knew her described her as one of the most remarkable people to ever live.
SPEAKER_00: She had so many opportunities in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: She was so well educated, so wealthy, a very powerful and influential family, and she left all of that because she was so burdened by this ocean of people in Burma and in India that did not know Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Who does that?
SPEAKER_00: Who walks away from power and influence and wealth and high society to go?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you read about how she died and suffered in Burma, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And she never regretted her decision.
SPEAKER_00: At least that she expressed.
SPEAKER_00: That's the moral virtue of courage.
SPEAKER_00: Or Jonathan Edwards, regarded as one of the most brilliant intellectuals ever to be born in the Americas.
SPEAKER_00: He spent the last few years of his life with an Indian tribe translating the Bible into their language.
SPEAKER_00: He was offered the president of schools in London, president of all kinds of colleges in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: He turned them all down to go minister to the Indians.
SPEAKER_00: In our own church, in Emmanuel Bible, we have seen so many brilliant young people raised up that have left for the mission field, that went to the Middle East to share the gospel in restricted or closed nations that are going to live their life there, despite having opportunities through their connections here to work in the government here, to have kind of powerful and influential and even courageous jobs stateside.
SPEAKER_00: They walk away from that to go to closed countries and difficult parts of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And outside even the context of missions, those examples are all missions.
SPEAKER_00: Outside the example of missions, there's the normal kind of courage in the normal, everyday way that Christians lead their life.
SPEAKER_00: The courage to take moral stands that will end up costing people their jobs or opportunities at work, the courage to sever a friendship that is not leading to sanctification, but leading towards compromise, storing up treasure in heaven rather than on earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul viewed death as a welcome friend, not as a foe.
SPEAKER_00: He was widely regarded as exceptionally brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: He was made a minister to Parliament.
SPEAKER_00: He could have pastored any influential church he wanted to.
SPEAKER_00: In London, he just had one small problem, namely that he was a Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: So didn't fit in in the Anglican church, was called a non-conformist.
SPEAKER_00: And people pled with him.
SPEAKER_00: They pled with him.
SPEAKER_00: If you just get rid of your conviction about baptism, you could be the chaplain to the king.
SPEAKER_00: There's no limits to what the Lord would do with you if you would just get rid of the weird baptism thing.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he devoted his life to pastoring a small church.
SPEAKER_00: He was often invited to go pray before Parliament, but people kept reaching, sending him olive branches, trying to bring him into the Anglican folds, but he just spent the rest of his life ministering to a small Baptist congregation.
SPEAKER_00: But he wrote a hymn that we still still sing to this day.
SPEAKER_00: On Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye.
SPEAKER_00: I just love the image of that.
SPEAKER_00: Standing on the river of death, and you cast the language, even the turn of phrase, cast a wishful eye.
SPEAKER_00: Your eyes are looking through death, looking over Jordan's stormy banks, because death will not be easy.
SPEAKER_00: To Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie.
SPEAKER_00: Everything of value.
SPEAKER_00: It's not here, it's in the next world.
SPEAKER_00: All over this wide, extended plains shines one eternal day.
SPEAKER_00: Their God, the sun, forever rains and scatters night away.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean by courage.
SPEAKER_00: To look at all the trials in this world is just a dark river, and your eye goes right through them, right through them, to the other side, to Canaan's fair and happy land, where your real life is.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing we see here is our preference, which is heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The second one, I'll be brief for this, is our purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Our purpose, our preference is heaven, and our purpose is to glorify Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see this in verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Whether we're at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if we're in this world or the next, we want to be pleasing to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He who prepared us for this very purpose is God.
SPEAKER_00: God worked in our lights, our life to make us ready for this purpose.
SPEAKER_00: That's up in back in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: He prepared us for this very thing is God.
SPEAKER_00: So this language prepared us.
SPEAKER_00: In eternity past, God prepared you for your life now to glorify him, and your life in eternity to glorify him.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one doing this.
SPEAKER_00: God in eternity past began this work at you.
SPEAKER_00: So in this life, your role to play in this in this life is verse 9, whether you are home or away, and we he's mixing his metaphor here, but it seems to be that home is with the Lord and away is, you know, here on this earth, we make it our aim to please him.
SPEAKER_00: He prepared you for a life of faithfulness, he prepared you for a life of service.
SPEAKER_00: This is why, by the way, you can believe all this and not commit suicide.
SPEAKER_00: You believe all this because you recognize that there is a purpose in your life here and now.
SPEAKER_00: This is again why the non-Christian has such a hard time with this kind of ethic, because they say if all that, if everything up to this point is true, then why not?
SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't Paul step in front of a bus?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is because there's no buses in Rome, silly.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: No, the answer is because God has a plan for your life now also.
SPEAKER_00: He has work for you to do here and now.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it's an easy decision.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Paul says this elsewhere in Philippians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_00: And you see Paul argue what he says here in just one verse.
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Corinthians, he just answers yes, heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But you see him working it out intellectually back in Philippians 1.
SPEAKER_00: If I live in the flesh, that's fruitful labor.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's like, I want to keep alive, I want to stay in this life because I want to keep working for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Yet I don't know which to choose.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard pressed between the two.
SPEAKER_00: He liked the Philippians more than he liked the Corinthians, you can tell.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, I kind of want to stay alive so I can work with you guys.
SPEAKER_00: I also want to go see Jesus, but I like you.
SPEAKER_00: With the Corinthians, he's like, this is easy.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven.
SPEAKER_00: My desire is to part, to depart and be with Christ, he says, for that's far better.
SPEAKER_00: But to remain in the flesh is necessary on your account.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you see him going back and forth.
SPEAKER_00: But he recognizes here that ultimately the choice isn't his to make.
SPEAKER_00: When you surrender your life to the sovereignty of God, how long you live is not up to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's up to him.
SPEAKER_00: And if you believe that, that gives you courage, and that also gives you perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: Perseverance in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another.
SPEAKER_00: There's this unity in this world where you're both fixing your eyes on heaven, everybody in the church, eyes on heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That gives you a working togetherness.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6 there, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When you have your eyes set on heaven, you labor side by side to glorify the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In this life.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about this life through your perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to tell the Corinthians chapter 6, verse 20, you've been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.
SPEAKER_00: Your body was made to glorify the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a natural desire for us to stay in the world because we recognize that our body has a purpose to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a shell for our soul.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have some kind of dualism where the physical world is bad and the spiritual world is good, the physical world is corrupting, the spiritual world is glorious.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have that kind of dualism.
SPEAKER_00: We recognize that in our physical body, God has work to glorify Him.
SPEAKER_00: Our body is capable of glorifying the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So the battle is all about affections.
SPEAKER_00: Where is your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Is your heart in this world or is your heart in the next?
SPEAKER_00: And you need to train your heart to be in the next world.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be materialistic.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to love this world so much that you want to avoid heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And the things we have in this world are gifts from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Your material possessions are a gift from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Don't love them so much that you don't want to go to heaven to be with the one who gave them to you.
SPEAKER_00: Your family is a gift from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It is great.
SPEAKER_00: It's a blessing, the scriptures say, to watch your grandchildren grow up.
SPEAKER_00: That's a blessing given to you by God.
SPEAKER_00: But do not let that blessing keep your heart here on this world rather than wanting to be with the one who gave you that blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a boss.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that you're a landscaper and you get hired by company.
SPEAKER_00: The boss himself chooses you, the boss himself hires you, and he gives you a project, and you're out there working.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to take you a while, and you're working.
SPEAKER_00: You get paid every Friday at five o'clock, you get paid.
SPEAKER_00: And you're liking your job, but it's hard work.
SPEAKER_00: And then one Thursday afternoon, the boss drives by the field and sees you sitting under a tree.
SPEAKER_00: This is not break time either.
SPEAKER_00: You got no excuse in this one.
SPEAKER_00: You're sitting under a tree drinking lemonade on your phone.
SPEAKER_00: And so he asks you, hey, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: How do you answer that question?
SPEAKER_00: What do you say?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm kind of over this whole work thing.
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, to be quite honest, I'm over it.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just waiting for Friday afternoon to come so I get paid.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not going to be a good answer.
SPEAKER_00: You're not a good worker, and you have no respect for your boss if that's your attitude.
SPEAKER_00: That's the attitude of the person who contemplates suicide.
SPEAKER_00: That's the attitude of the person who gives up on working for this life and just wants to run out the clock for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You have to recognize that your life has power and a purpose in it to glorify the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: As long as you have a physical body, God has given you the ability to glorify him.
SPEAKER_00: What about the person who says, I just want off of this field, boss?
SPEAKER_00: I want off this field.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be promoted.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to the office.
SPEAKER_00: I want to work in the air conditioned office because I love you so much.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be next to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about the air conditioning, it's a nice perk, though.
SPEAKER_00: And the boss might say, You're working hard.
SPEAKER_00: That's in your future.
SPEAKER_00: Keep working until I come and get you.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good conversation right there.
SPEAKER_00: Although loafing is not gonna work well for you and your desire for promotion.
SPEAKER_00: The boss comes back a few days later and says, All right, I'm gonna promote you.
SPEAKER_00: You're working hard.
SPEAKER_00: And what if then you said, nah, I don't want to go anymore?
SPEAKER_00: I like it out here in the field, I don't wanna be with you, I don't wanna be in your office.
SPEAKER_00: I like it in the field.
SPEAKER_00: I planted flowers last spring.
SPEAKER_00: I want to see them grow.
SPEAKER_00: And the boss says, Hey, if you come in the office, you can see flowers grow all over the all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: Not just this field.
SPEAKER_00: You'll be over supervising flowers everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Like, ah no, these flowers, though, boss, these flowers.
SPEAKER_00: I like this field right here, these flowers.
SPEAKER_00: At this point, you have become insubordinate.
SPEAKER_00: You're demonstrating you don't care about the company, you don't care about the boss, you care about your own flowers that he gave you the seeds to plant to begin with.
SPEAKER_00: This is our life.
SPEAKER_00: God has given us work to do.
SPEAKER_00: And when our work is done, he will get us off of the field and bring us home to him.
SPEAKER_00: And by avoiding, unnecessarily avoiding death, running from death, having a lack of courage to face death, you are fleeing from your boss's promotion.
SPEAKER_00: And he won't help but take it personally.
SPEAKER_00: You want to see the flowers grow, you want to see your family grow, you want to see what happens with your possessions.
SPEAKER_00: Those are fine, those are good things, but understand that heaven doesn't undo those things, heaven fulfills those things.
SPEAKER_00: This passage is written to a beleaguered and afraid people.
SPEAKER_00: If you are beleaguered and afraid this morning, if you feel worn down by this life, if you feel afraid of death this morning, what you need is courage, not safety.
SPEAKER_00: What will help you with your fears is not being safer.
SPEAKER_00: What will help you with your fears is being more courageous.
SPEAKER_00: Understand what you are afraid of is dying, it's not death.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a believer, you're not afraid of death.
SPEAKER_00: You're afraid of the dying part.
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're going to be honest here, the dying part happens on the life side of the divide, right?
SPEAKER_00: If life, death, and the dying part is hard, the dying part is on the living side of the equation.
SPEAKER_00: The sufferings in death, it's not on the death side.
SPEAKER_00: The sufferings in your last moments, the sufferings of anguish as you go out of this world, that's on the life side.
SPEAKER_00: And every single person will go through them.
SPEAKER_00: There is no avoiding them.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you're Enoch or Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Or the rapture.
SPEAKER_00: Those are your ways of avoiding it.
SPEAKER_00: So pray hard for the Lord to come if you don't want the dying part.
SPEAKER_00: You think of the end of the pilgrim's life in the Christian's progress in the pilgrim's progress, Christian's life in the pilgrim's progress.
SPEAKER_00: He gets to the river of death, and the river of death is tumultuous, and he is afraid of it.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks to his friend hopeful.
SPEAKER_00: And remember when he tells Hopeful, hey, that river's for you, because you always have hope.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going in.
SPEAKER_00: And Hopeful says, Oh no, this river is for you, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, how deep is it?
SPEAKER_00: And everybody who's standing there, they just watch people die all the time.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Hey, it's deep depending on your faith.
SPEAKER_00: If your faith is strong, you will walk right across it.
SPEAKER_00: And if your faith is weak, the waves will grow over your head and they will buffet you and you'll be terrified.
SPEAKER_00: And Christian goes in, and if you've read The Pilgrim's Progress, you know what happens.
SPEAKER_00: His faith was not strong.
SPEAKER_00: He did not walk across the bottom of the, he felt like he was drowning.
SPEAKER_00: He was reminded of all of his sins, how much he loved this life.
SPEAKER_00: And he was choking on the water.
SPEAKER_00: And then he remembered the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: When the waters go over your head, then I am with you.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord pulled him through.
SPEAKER_00: That's the future for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: All of us will die unless the Lord returns.
SPEAKER_00: What causes people in the world so much dread should only cause courage for believers.
SPEAKER_00: Our fortitude is firm, our demeanor is demanding, and we have the courage to lead a courageous life.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful for you.
SPEAKER_00: You're our example of courage.
SPEAKER_00: You went before us in this world.
SPEAKER_00: You set your face towards the cross, and you did not run from death.
SPEAKER_00: You marched towards it, knowing the purpose of the Lord in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for each person here at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that we would be marked as a courageous church.
SPEAKER_00: Courage seen in the decisions and how we raise our children, courage seen in refusing to compromise to the materialism of this world, courage seen in the ethical stands we take with our family, the ability to speak out against unrighteousness and speak out against sin in the world, the ability to evangelize those that don't want to hear us.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, Lord, the ability to choose and prefer death over this life.
SPEAKER_00: We know that suicide is a sin, and I pray there would be nobody in this congregation that comes before you with their hands drenched in their own blood, assaulting your sovereignty over life.
SPEAKER_00: But I also pray on the other side of that equation, there's no one here who runs.
SPEAKER_00: No one here who runs from death.
SPEAKER_00: It awaits us all.
SPEAKER_00: And we receive it as our own mortality being swallowed up by life.
SPEAKER_00: We know ultimately, because of your resurrection, death has no victory, and the grave has no sting.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is the victory and the sting of death he received at the cross in our place.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks for that in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.
SPEAKER_00: It's my prayer that if you live in the DC area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.