Okay, everyone, now we're going to get started here with Sunday School lesson, and then we might have to abbreviate it. Hopefully we'll have a lot of people coming to church today. So I want you to turn to 1 John chapter 4, and you're going to find this verse, the 17th verse, 1 John 4.17. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world." Now, we spent a bit of time about the boldness that we have in the day of judgment. Boy, that's a powerful suggestion because how bold do you really think you're going to be or I'm going to be? We're standing before the King, the Maker of heaven and earth. It was Isaiah that stood before the Lord, and when he saw him, he said, I'm unclean. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. He said, mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts. So I don't think we'll fare much better than Isaiah. That said, we have boldness because Christ will be there as our advocate. Now, isn't that a good thing? But this last portion that we didn't take up in Sunday School last week I think is very intriguing because as he is, so are we in this world. Now what poor exemplars we are to the lost world. They see all of our flaws, our peccadillos, you know, they see all of our inconsistencies. But we are what God has as a witness to the rest of the world. And so let us all redouble our efforts to be our very best that we can be so that we can be shining for the Lord Jesus Christ. as Paul said, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, so among whom ye shine as lights. So we want to shine brightly. As he was, so are we in the world. Now that, of course, is an all-encompassing statement. So last week, remember, I took you to the 17th chapter of John where you had the great high priestly prayer, and I didn't finish off the thought, but there in the 18th verse, we'll see, as thou hast sent me. Now here, we have this very private conversation Matthew, Mark and Luke do not record this, so only John. You know, John knew the secrets. He was closer to the Lord than the rest. And he, if you remember at the Last Supper, it was he that leaned his head upon the breast of the Saviour, heard as it were the divine heartbeat, the immortal words of Christ, and Christ could whisper things and secrets to him that others did not have the revelation. Well, so later on we understand as he writes the Revelation he gets the final vision and puts the imprimatur on God's holy word. At any rate, it seems as though John here is privy to what Jesus was saying. You might recall there in the Garden of Gethsemane, and this we'll be discussing tonight in the church service we'll return to our studies of Matthew tonight, but you might remember that in the Garden Jesus comes and he takes Peter, James and John, you know that holy triumvirate, and he says to them, now you're going to watch and pray. And he goes, stones cast away from them. So how far can you cast a stone? Let's say a hundred yards. And so there they are, a hundred yards. Well, that's if I'm a football player. If I could throw a stone a hundred yards, I wouldn't be preaching, I'd be making $40 million a year for the Steelers. At any rate, a hundred feet away, how does that sound? So there they are, and I think they met well, but the Lord rebukes them. He comes back, he finds them asleep. And he says, could you not watch and pray for one hour? And then he used that expression that has almost become idiomatic to us, and that expression is, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I'm wondering, though, was John awake at least for a brief moment that he could capture the words of Jesus as he spoke at Gethsemane? And he's talking to the Heavenly Father in this intercessory prayer. It is one of the most sacred places in the Bible, that seventeenth chapter of John, and I don't pretend to be an expositor well enough to be able to plumb its depths. But you will all enjoy that 17th chapter. And what is Jesus saying here? He is kind of making this conclusion, the 18th verse. He says, Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. After his resurrection he meets them again and John alone gives us this detail. And they are in the upper room and Jesus breathes on them and he says, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit was with them but Jesus promised he would be in them and that he would not leave them comfortless. And so he gave them a preview of that and he breathed on them and he said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. And then he adds to this, So send I you. So in a sense there in the upper room at his resurrection night he actually gives them a preview of what's going to happen fifty days afterwards where they actually will be filled with the Holy Spirit in a permanent way and that they will go out from the upper room preaching the gospel to the ends of the Roman Empire. Well, of course, this passage that we're looking at, as he was, so are we in the world, I think that this is what it's about. It's all about us being a witness for Christ. We are his ensigns and we go out under his assignments. The Apostle Paul used the expression ambassadors, right, in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. So he said, now then you are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us in Christ's dead be you reconciled to God. So we're ambassadors. So some of you out here that have low esteem and you say, you know, I'm really nothing, and we all know that really, but I want to confer upon you a title. You now have a title and you are an ambassador. Now imagine that. I mean, ambassador. You've been commissioned now. So that makes you feel pretty good, right? Why, John in the back, John Slivka is always telling me, I need certifications and papers and whatever. Right, John? He's always worried about that. Well, John, I'm conferring upon you now at least a title. You're an ambassador for Christ. Isn't that something? And he and Linda are great ambassadors. They go to flea markets. Do you know what a flea market is? I've never been to one. Flea markets. And John and Linda go there and they wear T-shirts with the advertising Jesus, right? and they have caps with Jesus on it, and John's vehicle, everything you see on his vehicle, he has a camper and it's all about Jesus. Well, he's a billboard for Christ. And so I commend you, but now I give you a title, John. Now you have certification. I'll have to print up a special certificate. Well, there it is in 2 Corinthians 5, and not just John, but everybody in the room that knows Jesus, you are ambassadors for Christ. Well, ambassadors aren't always treated well as we remember the slaughter of the four ambassadors, you know, when Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State and they didn't send any support and let them be slaughtered. It was just terrible. A reprehensible act. And later she said, well, what's the difference now? What difference does it make? It makes all the difference. But ambassadors aren't always treated well. They go to foreign lands, in some cases hostile places. Well, we should all realize that, too, who here hasn't received at least some hostility for sharing the gospel and giving the good news out. It can be expected. They did it to the Master. He said, if they did it not to the Master, what will they do to you? So there's the Great Commission. There it is in Matthew chapter 28. Go ye therefore into, there it is, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. You know the last word, yes. That is how the Gospel ends there. So we will have a lot to say about this when we get to Matthew 28. We are now at Matthew 26 so we have another year to go. But we will be there before too long. The Great Commission. So Jesus sends them out, and so as I was, so are you now in the world. As he shined as a brilliant light to a lost generation, so likewise all of us must shine with the effulgence of the Almighty Spirit of God living in us now and shining through us, as it were. The light of the body is the eye, Jesus said. If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. So let's make sure that our light is shining and shining brightly. Well, the little ones will sing in Sunday school this morning, this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. So we are commissioned to go out and preach the gospel. All right, so back to 2 Corinthians, but this now the third chapter where Paul says to the Corinthians, ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Of course, the occasion for the writing of this is that the Corinthians had been influenced by Judaizers. They were legalists and they came behind Paul, wherever Paul preached, and said, now, now, now, you can't be listening to Paul. He's not giving you the whole truth. He's telling you partial truth because you can't really be saved, they told him, unless you become a Jew. And so telling Greeks and telling Romans that you have to be circumcised, you have to eat the dietary law, that sort of thing. And Paul was concerned about this, but the Corinthians later heard from those Judaizers that Paul wasn't official because he wasn't one of the Twelve, and as a result he was counterfeit. So he had to write a defense, and that's what 2 Corinthians is about. And they were demanding certification, that you were really an apostle. How do we know you're really an apostle? And the whole letter is pretty much devoted to that point of view. He defended himself and what he had been through. But here he says, well, he said, my certification, you want my papers, right? You are my certification. You are my epistle. And you are read of men. The fact that you came out of the dark, well, the lustful life of the Corinthians, And, I mean, these were Greeks that believed, they were in the school of the Epicurean. They believed in taking all the lusts of the flesh, you know, it was all about eating, drinking, and being merry, and fornicating, and all the rest. And now he said, now you've come out of that. Now you're, who brought them out but the Apostle Paul? So he said, look, you are my certification. The miracle that's been done in your life is evidence that I am a true apostle. But we can kind of extract something from this text and what I would like to extract is the notion that we're all epistles, we're all walking gospels, as it were, and we're a walking testament. Now people of the world won't read the Bible. Most of them say, oh, it's too hard to understand, it's too complicated. Most of them don't even try. So in the world they don't have the gospel and there's no salvation without it. Jesus said, He that heareth my word and believeth on them sent me everlasting life. So we're born again by the incorruptible seed, the Word of God. So the devil does everything he can to distract and get people away from the Bible and not reading it, not hearing it even. They don't even want to expose themselves to it. So now this passage says, well you're a walking epistle, aren't you? You are red of men. You're the epistle of God, red of men. So that wherever you go, they can read the gospel in your life. Well, let's hope that that's the case for all of us. And let us make sure that we are a genuine witness for Christ. All right, back to our text now. We'll go to the 18th verse. So here in chapter 4, as he's kind of coming down, he's closing down on his first epistle, And he brings this to light for he says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because feareth torment he that feareth is not made perfect in love. Now this is a genuinely wonderful verse because there are so many things to fear. We have the word phobic or phobia actually and it's a Greek root. But the notion of being afraid Well, I tell you, look, the news people will get you afraid. I can tell you that right now. If you tune into the news, you know right away it doesn't look good. They zero in on whoever it has to be at the news desk, and they're looking down, you know, grimly, and then they look up with this solemn poker face. And before they say a word, you say, this is not going to be good. I don't know what they're going to tell me, but it's not going to be good news. That's for sure. and they stoke up fear in people and that keeps you watching and so forth because also they give you instructions. On Friday night I was visiting some people and we were talking about this as a matter of fact and I said, they got you afraid of everything at this point. And I said, you watch the weather and they get you all worked up, don't they? They say there's a heat index. You don't want to go outside, you'll melt. I don't know what they're thinking. They tell you what to wear. Make sure you put a raincoat on. You better take an umbrella with you. It's a good thing we have them there. I don't even know how I survived without them. So there are some people that are completely married to this and we become robotic almost in our response and reaction. But the idea is to stoke fear in all of us and to get us all worked up and worried and then the government will come and bring the solution. We're not interested in your solutions because you can't run your own thing. So I do like what God offers for solutions and that is perfect love. Perfect love of Christ casts out all fear. Now, what's the king of terrors? It has to be death. And for some people it's public speaking, by the way. I've never understood that, by the way, but there are people that say, do not ever ask me to stand and speak. You know, scared to death of it and so forth. And I can see why. If you'd see the faces I have to look at, you'd understand. So there's no fear in love. because perfect love casts out all the fears. And I think that is a wonderful verse and it's a great and triumphant and victorious verse. So God's people don't have to be afraid. Jesus thankfully took all the fear away and he said, fear not him who can destroy your body, after this he hath nothing he can do, but fear him who can destroy your body and soul in hell. So, I mean, the only fear we have is the fear of Almighty God. Otherwise, other fears dispelled. So in our studies on Wednesday night, we've been in 2 Timothy, as a matter of fact. And when we're in the very first chapter, that seventh verse, I think all of you are familiar with this verse. It is a memory verse, isn't it? For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So there you have it. How wonderful that is. Now, I know we've got all these apprehensions. You say, what pastor? You know, we ought to be concerned about things. You know, I don't think we should be on a hammock somewhere and say, oh, it will all work out. I think, yeah, we're supposed to use our mind that God gave us and whatever abilities that we have to do what we're supposed to do. With that all said, though, at the end it's in the Lord's hands. God is the commissioner of our life. We gave up trying to control things. I don't know. You never did a very good job, frankly, did you? So you've ever seen that bumper sticker that God is my co-pilot? If that's the case, you're in the wrong seat. Get out of the cockpit. I said, I'll serve the peanuts and the ginger ale. You know what I mean? Let him fly the plane. God has not given us the spirit of fear, no. But he's given us something to displace fear. And that is love and power and a sound mind. Well, in the world you shall have tribulation, Jesus said, trouble. Man that is born of woman, says Job. Well, that's everybody, isn't it? Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. It's to be expected. We're living in very strange times, I have to say. immoral. Well, we could call it immorality, but it's really amorality. People have no morality anymore. People aren't decent anymore. And it's because we've given up on the Bible. We're not going to follow the Bible. We're going to follow the dictates of the lust of the flesh and what the devil tells us. Well, we've got that as trouble everywhere. There's trouble in the education. You call this education. They're brainwashing our children. They're teaching our children in first grade about being transgender. They just had a big stink about it here in a school board meeting and the parents came in and said they didn't realize what was going on and they found out what was the curriculum. You see the federal government says it's mandated. If you want to get money from us then this is what you have to teach and so it's just government brainwashing people and evil and evil. So don't watch the news. People tell me oh I just watch the news and go to bed. How do you do that? scary, isn't it? They got all kinds of scary things happening. World War, I think we're on the brink of World War III, aren't we? What a comfort it is to hear Jesus say, let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. So, that's a comforting passage, love the Lord, and He'll take care of all these events in the world. There'll be great distress, He says, what, there it is, Luke 21, for there shall be great distress in the land and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear and looking after those things which are coming on the earth, frightful days that we're living in. We have violent protests happening in the streets. We have earthquakes and tsunamis We have hurricanes, like we've just experienced. They say that Florida's a paradise. I don't know. Maybe it's a pair of dice. You roll and say, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow there, right? But they say it's paradise. I never thought so. I mean, when I was a kid in the 50s, we went down to see my grandparents lived in Orlando, Florida. So you say, oh, wow, you went for a summer vacation. You went to Orlando. Wait a minute. It's 1955, 56. There's no Disney World. All that is in Orlando is lakes, swamps, mosquitoes, sand fleas, and humidity. My dad was a teacher, so we went in August. So I have no good recollections about Florida. But I sure like to live there wondering if my home's going to be blown away in the next, you know, ten minutes. But trouble! And you know how merciful God is? You look at these major disasters and you think, you know, just in a sense a few people, it's sad for one person to die, but I'm saying comparative to what it could be, It truly is. We'd have to thank God. Everybody will say, well, where was God for these eleven people that died? Hey, where was God when the several hundred thousand people didn't die? But we don't take that into consideration. Oh, there's pestilence, world war, Islam threatening us, gang violence, mass shootings. Who would have ever thought we'd get to this level in our civilization? Well, we're acting like barbarians at this point. The famine, the drug culture is everywhere, atheism. Boy, that's enough to get you scared. Did I get you scared yet? I mean, really, there's enough here, I would have to say, But fear brings torment, doesn't it? When you sit on the edge of your seat and wonder what's going to happen next and all the different fears there are in the world. I've got a list of, in fact, here's different types of fears. In case you wanted one, you'd like to pick one out here. There's acrophobia, which is the fear of heights. Anybody have that one? Okay. Well, I'll put you up on a roof. There's area phobia with fear of flying. You don't want to get in an airplane. Anybody like that? Uh-oh, uh-oh, okay. Well, if one thing for sure, I don't fly the airplanes much, but I mean, I was on there one time and this lady was next to me and she's like this, holding on to the seat as we're about to take off. And I said, are you okay? She said, no, I hate takeoffs. I said, well, most accidents happen on the landing. I hate take-offs. So I said, well, I'm a minister. Maybe, could we pray? Oh! She said, would you? I said, sure. Lord, give us a nice safe take-off. Help us not to be afraid. We're about to go up and see the clouds that you created, right? So, I could go all the way through this. There's a lot of phobias, folks, if you don't know. If you'd like to choose one here, arachnophobia Margie has that, right? She doesn't even like to see the word up there. I made the mistake of putting a spider on the screen one day, that was it. She was ready to join the Catholic Church after that. All right, so what fear do you have? By the way, spiders are pretty friendly, most of them. They're not poisonous, just, you know. But they do look ugly, so just, that's all. Snap them. So God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. There's our passage again in 1 John 4.18. And here's another one in Psalm 46.2, Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried in the midst of the sea. That sounds pretty, that sounds like the end of the world. Though the mountains be carried in the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. And then he says, Selah, which means be at peace, rest, right? All is well. God knows what he's doing. He's got the whole world in his hands, right? You know that one? And yes, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. So, someone said that there are 365 times in the Bible that it says, fear not. And I preached that for years. I thought that was a good thing. And then I realized, did anybody ever really count how many times? So it's pretty simple to do. You've got a concordance. And when I looked up the word fear, and of course fear in the sense of fearing not, we're way over 365. There's four or five hundred at least where it might not say fear not, it might say something about not fearing, you know, using a cognitive fear, whatever it was. And I said, well, there you go. But it's still right to say you've got three hundred. You've got one for – you might even have two for every day, fear not. How does that sound? Thou shalt not be afraid. Well, I love this one in Isaiah 41. It means everything to me. Fear not, I am with thee. Be not dismayed, I am thy God. And then it says, I will strengthen thee somewhere. I will strengthen thee. So I always give the story, I stroked 11 years ago, and when I stroked, I lost everything on my left side and thought, this is terrible. And they rushed me into the hospital, and they were doing an MRI, and they strapped you into that MRI. And they had a helmet on me so my head couldn't move. And you go in there. The MRI machine comes like two inches from your nose, and you feel like you're in your own coffin. That's enough to be afraid of, I guess. I know people that, well, they're claustrophobia, right? They can't go in a place like that. Patrick's got his hand up. But when you have an MRI, you just kind of relax. And they're taking me in there. But this first came to my heart. And it was my saving verse there through that whole event as to what was going to happen. And I could hear it, you know, when you know it and that, you know, you have a promise like this and it sits in your heart. It's there and you have access to it anytime you need it. Fear not. Fear not. He said, I'm with thee. And he is with thee. Right? Bob, you hit the deer, didn't you? You hit a deer last week. Did you total your car? Did you get totaled? No. No, see, so God spared Bob, right? Now the deer, that's a different matter, right? The deer, he went to the Rainbow Bridge. But I don't know. Fear not, for I am with thee. Right? Be not dismayed, I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. See that word? So that's what I needed. I needed strength back in the left side of my body. I needed strength. Lord, I will strengthen thee. Yeah, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. And so I ruminated on that verse through the whole process. They pulled me out of the machine. The doc came. They had this high dose of blood thinner you have to sign for because it can kill you. But they said it helps the stroke victim. If you have stroke symptoms, you should get to the hospital immediately. And they can give you that shot, thin the blood, and get rid of the blood clot. So they're ready to give it to me and the neurologist she came in she said now here squeeze my fingers I squeezed them so hard her eyes popped out of the socket. Well not that hard. She said we're not going to. She said we're not. We're going to wait here because I think you're coming out of it and I did. I thank the Lord that came out of it without any any. Maybe that's what happened to my left ear. Eleven years later what do you think. No. But, so we have these wonderful moments where God comes to us. I call them crystal moments, by the way. Have you had one? Where you can say, you know the Lord was with you. And you normally would be sweating bullets, but the Lord just gave you a calm about it. It's inexplicable. And it happens, you say, you feel the presence of the Lord. Now, you know, you all have guardian angels. Hebrews 1.14 says that they are there to minister to the heirs of righteousness. And what are they doing? They are protectors. And the angel shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Satan knew the promise, didn't he, in Psalm 91. But that's a promise for believers. The angel, and it says angels plural, So in other words, we speak of a guardian angel singularly. Maybe there's one that's just particularly in charge of your life. And in this diurnal journey up and back from heaven to earth, they get their orders from the Almighty and God sends them down. And God says, now you protect those that are mine. Protect them. And they're going to do some foolish things today, right? And I don't think we know the half of it, folks. I think when we get to heaven, One of the, we're going to have to deal with our guardian angels who's going to say, do you know what you put me through? You know how many times? Because you made stupid decisions. I have so many stories of my stupidity. But God's grace, God's mercy. So he delivers us, wonderfully delivers us. Fear not, he says, fear not. The rest of the verse says, For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand. Now that's personal, isn't it? Saying unto thee, fear not, I will help thee. It's a repetition, isn't it? Don't call this like theologians speak of tautology, you know, it's just repetitive. These are great repetitions. We need to hear them again. Fear not, I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm, Jacob. Oh, the modernists don't like that idea. Don't call us a worm. Well, that's how… What do you think you are? Thank God, you know, that God has mercy on worms. If I told you what kind of worm, you'd really be insulted. This is a maggot. Well, look it up if you want. A maggot. And God says, if you're not worm, Jacob… Don't you remember he changed his name though, didn't he? Worm Jacob was changed to Israel, the prince of God. That's what happens when you get born again. So, yeah, we're sinful people that get regenerated by the blood of Christ. And now we become joint heirs with Christ. We'll inherit the earth. We'll be kings and priests unto our God, Revelation 1 and 5. All right. So this idea that John is sharing with us is this perfect love that casts out fear, gives us hope in the midst of trouble and tribulation. We have hope. Boy, we see people, I just, I don't know what they call it now. It was Manner Care, and then they changed the name to Genesis, and they've changed it about 50 times, so I don't even know what the name is. But we go there, we've been ministering for years there. And, you know, one of my old members is there. I'm talking about back in the 70s. She's 92, and she's there. Her name is Lady. That was her nickname. And I'm so excited to see her. She's excited to see me. And we talk about old times, you know, when she was at the old church, the old chapel, and so forth. But there they are. They're gathered in that room. And there they are in various postures, some of them afflicted by stroke, some of them are amputees, one lady in the front blind from birth and various situations. It is a sad picture indeed. We're ambassadors for Christ. We bring light and life. We bring hope, don't we? And in the midst of that which is a dismal picture and the prospects of their life is limited and it's been that way for years for them. So I want to bring them hope. But what's the hope? I'm not going to give them a false hope that God's going to heal you. God could heal you. He can do anything he wants to do. But he doesn't often. He expects us to walk by faith. He expects us to endure afflictions. He said, many are the afflictions of the righteous in Psalm 34. But the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He's going to do it. The day is coming and we won't be in this situation forever. So He expects us to endure it with hope. And that hope, it's a wonderful hope. Now some of the mockers of the world, the skeptics of the world, those that demand evidence, these people that say, you know, what kind of a God lets famine happen? What kind of a God lets hurricanes happen? And so on. And they don't take into account that this is the result of sin. This is the result of a cursed world. This is a world that is askew from the laws of God. And so God has to come down. And when he comes down, he'll fix it. He'll fix it. It'll all be well. Our hope is the blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he comes, when his kingdom comes, what a difference. So you've not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. You've received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Romans 8, what a passage, right? Even we ourselves groan within ourselves. I've heard you groaning when you sat down. You'll really groan when you stand up, right? You've been sitting for two hours, boy. You groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption. To wit, or in other words, to what end? To wit, the redemption of your body. What's that? The hope. Ah, it's a glorious hope in what the Lord does for us. So people in various states of affliction. I saw a fellow on Thursday, and he's telling me about his afflictions and pains. And he has pain, and he can hardly walk. He's hobbling and so on. And he said it's depressing. And I imagine it is. I don't know, because I have minor afflictions. I have problems. Everybody has them. I said to him, you don't want to get depressed. No, God's people shouldn't be depressed. We have hope. So I took him to Psalm 42. As the heart panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul, longeth the God, yea, the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night as they continually say unto me, where is your God? Where is thy God? The skeptics all say, well, you're in a wheelchair. What kind of a God is this? You say you believe in him and so on. Where is your God? The skeptic loves to say that. And we can get depressed about the matter, but instead, where is my God? He says, when I remember these things, I pour out my spirit. For I have gone with a multitude. I went with them to the house of God. with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. What a powerful thought it is. Why are you cast down? And all this has come upon you, all these afflictions. Why are you cast down? Come to the house of God. Learn again of the hope. That's why believers have to come to church. You have to be in church. You have to be nourished in the truth. You know, you don't skip meals. So, but people skip church and they think they can get away with it. You're not going to get away with it, as a matter of fact. You'll get weakened. The devil, he's just softening you up for a blow. And you'll get depressed to some degree. And that's why the house of God, well, we go with the multitude of those that sing the joy and the praise as we will in just a few minutes here while we get all excited about. the house of the Lord and the hope of God. And why art thou cast down? We're saying, why am I cast down? Hope thou in God and how he lifts the countenance, you know. I mentioned while we've been preaching there at this place and I said, no, no, no, I said I want everybody to smile for a minute here, you know, because everybody's kind of like this, you know. I want everybody to smile. I said we can smile again. And I told one of my famous jokes You know I remember Tom Ivanko said you know I told your jokes to people nobody laughs. But when you tell them everybody laughs. I said Tom it's in the delivery. It's in the delivery. But joy unspeakable full of glory because God's people have hope. You know the second chapter of Ephesians is descriptive of the people that are without God, and one of the many descriptions there is no hope in this world. Can you imagine living that way? What we all did for a season, and our hope was in something else, what was it? Whatever it was, it was temporary, wasn't it? So people think, well, you know, my joy is in my job. Well, that doesn't last for very long. How excited people are, they say, oh, I got the job. And three years later, they're complaining and saying how hard it is, and you do all the work, and there's a bunch of loafers, and they're getting promoted, and you're not getting any. You know, you hear this all the time. And you think, it's not what you thought it was going to be, right? No, not what you thought it was going to be. People say, oh, I'm in love, pastor. We're in love. We're going to get married. Oh, wonderful. I said, well, that's great. And you ought to have the joy of Christ together, but you know what'll happen. The devil gets in there and you start bickering and complaining and picking at each other and giving orders to each other and so forth. And after a while, oh, why did I marry this guy? He's impossible to live with, that sort of thing. Well, with Christ we have great hope. And it's not going to be what it... If our hope is in this world, we're of all men. most miserable, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. All right. Well, let's go here, 19, we want to kind of focus in here, kind of a microcosmic look. So he says, we love him because he first loved us. Does this sound familiar? Well, it ought to because John just said it in the 18th verse, or one of the verses at any rate, the importance of reiteration. So where is it? Up in the 13th verse, somewhere up there. He says the exact same thing, now he repeats it. So why does he repeat it? What's the point? Well, the point is there's power in repetition and reiteration. I do not ask for anybody's forgiveness because I repeat myself. It's a good thing. And I'm quite aware of it. Now I'm not talking about when you get old. when you get old and you start repeating yourself and you're saying the same thing twice within about three minutes or so forth. I'm not that. We go to a memory impairment place and I preach there. Every time I go there, the lady says, now where is your church? And I said, well, it's in Wilkins Township. It's not far from Churchill and Turtle Creek. Oh, she said, five minutes later, she says, now where is your church? Now we have to keep telling her the same thing over and over again. Now, that's fine for me, because I leave in an hour. Imagine working there. And those aides have to hear it day and night, the same thing. What is your name again? They start that stuff. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the importance of reiterating a truth and propounding the truth, so that the truth actually takes root in the heart and the soul, how very valuable it is. So don't complain if you say, I've heard that lesson before. I've heard that. That pastor said that before. I might have said it last week even. Now I know that I'm repeating myself, but Jesus did as a matter of fact. He told those same parables in different contexts. Even the Sermon on the Mount you'll see is different in Luke's gospel than Matthew's gospel. And why is it different? People say conflict. You say, no, there's no conflict. He spoke at one place here, emphasized this truth. Spoken in another place, said this truth and so on. And that's the way repetition should work, reiteration. So we love him because he first loved us. So I want to begin just kind of a departure from the text and get into the matter of this great initiator. that God initiates love. The calling is what the Bible speaks of, God calling. And this wonderful expression in Matthew 11, 28, he says, Come unto me all ye that labor. What's he doing? He's calling us, isn't he? He was the initiator. He said, Come unto me all ye that labor and heavy laden. He's talking about sin, isn't he? Because sin is a great load. It's very heavy, very difficult. And it's awkward, as a matter of fact, but oh, how very valuable it is. We begin to come to Jesus and he says, now I'm going to take all of this heaviness. I'm going to take that away. He said, I'm going to put something in its place now. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Keep all of that in mind. How very valuable indeed. All right, listen, we're going to cut our lesson a little short because it's, well, it's my golden anniversary. I've preached enough. but we've got more people coming in. So Lord, give us your blessings here. Thank you for the group that comes to get the extra teaching. Sunday school is valuable and so valuable and so is the morning message. So let us get as much as we can today. Lord, thank you for your goodness to all of us. Lord, no matter what we celebrate today, what age we might be, we all have to admit that thou has done great things in our life. Lord, thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen.