We are blessed this morning to have with us Perry Jones, who is the executive director of the Capital City Rescue Mission. It's been several years since we've had Perry with us. It was back in February of 2021 that he was here with us last. And we are grateful to have you with us, brother, again this morning. He's going to bring the word for us, as well as give us a little bit of update and description of the rescue mission for us. This is a work that, as a church, we have been wanting to support through the school supply drive that we've been doing these last several weeks. It's also a ministry we seek to support about once a quarter as we go down there and deliver a chapel message. But most of all, we are grateful for the work that's going down there in Albany to really reach the lost and, in many ways, the outcasts of society, knowing that the gospel is exactly for them. And one of the things I appreciate about the ministry that Perry heads there is that it is very focused on the gospel. They look to exhibit the mercy of Christ by providing physical, material things for those in need, but also to be emphasizing the need for the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin. And so we're grateful for that. When Perry was here last at our church, the church was a little bit different and dynamic, it was a little bit smaller, and so grateful to have him come and it was my chance to get to meet him. And looking at our church and seeing just how kind of small it was, after the service he was talking to me with such compassion, asking me, you know, are you doing okay? He was almost asking me, do you have enough to eat? And just the compassion that was there was evident that this is a man who needs to be directing the rescue mission. I assured him that I was well taken care of and doing just fine, but he was so bent on blessing our church that he donated one of the TVs that we have in the classrooms from the rescue mission to us so we could better serve our children. So he's been a blessing to our church. Invite him now to come and speak to us. Please welcome Perry Jones. We appreciate what you do as a church and your pastor coming down with others to bring the gospel to many, many. And some things you can be praying about for us before we go into the scriptures, being prayer for us for problem that we're having right now getting through city approvals in Albany we've for four and a half years have been trying to get permission to build a 30,000 square foot addition on our backyard a land that we already own and so They've decided they didn't want to Approve it so their way of not having it is just not doing anything with it and making us set through countless meetings where they wouldn't take it up and So you pray for us. We are working now with the lawyers, Christian lawyers, defending freedom, which is a, some of you know about those attorneys across the nation that handle cases that come against Christian organizations by municipalities, and so. We just know God is gonna answer, and so that attorney is not inexpensive, but we knew we needed him. We are involved with something called RLUPA law, which is a federal statute. It's not the courts of New York State or the courts local, but it's a federal court. Religious Land Use Law is what it's called, that those churches and organizations like us that are church related, can build on our own property without interference. But it has to go before the court, the federal court, not the local court. So pay for that. All I have to say is that we need that help. We have 100 and some people on the floor just about every night, as well as all the beds full. In the winter, we can have 320 in, but many of them are on the floor. It's very difficult to serve people on the floor. We do it because we don't want to send them out. And we are good neighbors to our city. We constantly clean up the neighborhoods all day long. We have some of our men that just go out all day long for five blocks and pick up everything, every cigarette butt, everything, trying to keep doing it. But I just am thankful for the people that are coming in. Some of the most broken people I've ever seen or met are coming in. And yet, I always tell them that Jesus loves them, and he has a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for them. I have, when I first came in 1982, I was the only staff member that they paid. And I thought, okay, well, I was a young seminary grad, I didn't really know a lot about what I was gonna do, you know, but we dealt with it, and we kept going, and the Lord kept building our staff, so we have just about 70 now on staff. And, uh... About 30 or 40, probably closer to 40% of the people who are on my paid staff came in as clients. You can come down and meet them. Some of my most powerful staff members came in dragging themselves in the front door. I call it life transformation. If you don't believe in life transformation as whoever you might be, you just come down and meet and talk to them. We'd love to have you come and talk and see what God has done. My chief of staff, David, who just helps me without him, I got a call one day from a fire department, from a chaplain in a fire department, says, we have a man here that's been fired from his job as a fireman for 20 years, stripped of his pension. He was taking oxycontins because he got hurt in a fire. And that was 25 years ago, by the way, when that happened. And he got hurt in a fire, and he did not want to stop. They told him, take your pension and leave. He said, I'm a paramedic. I'm a fireman. That's what I want to be. There's no life. After he was hurt, he took Oxycontins, and then he took heroin. couldn't get enough Oxycontins. The pain was bad, but he did not want to stop. And they called us, and we brought him. They said, can you take him? He tried to commit suicide twice now, and almost did it the second time. He said, if I can't be a fireman, I don't want to live. Now, some of you might know what fireman. I've never been a fireman. But I know he was a paramedic on the busiest highway in Connecticut. So he was always the first on scene to some of the most horrific accidents that could take place. And his name is David Poach. And we brought him on. He went through the program. He went on my staff as a desk man. That's how humble this man became. And then after a while, I hired him as my chief of staff. He has revolutionized how we handle fire safety teams. He has just made us into one of the picture places in the world of 300 rescue missions in America that I help do inspections from. And I just thank God. but he's also a powerful man of God. And my staff, all of them looked at him. I'm thinking, Lord, you've transformed that man. He said, yes, I did. And many other stories, and I could tell you that. I'm thinking, you were transformed by Jesus, and you're not the same person. Now you're on my staff. He's been on my staff, by the way, 20 years. And he has just gotten stronger. And I have, most of my staff are all first responders, can use the defibrillation machines all over our mission. We save people, not just giving their souls over to the Lord, but we save people all the time. Because they come in with this horrific drug problem that's in our city. We see people coming in that have overdosed. They fall on the floor in front of our front desk. We don't need to ask what's wrong. We know they've had an overdose and will probably be dead if we don't do something. Our guys administer Narcan, but they also have been shown by him to take pulses that defibrillate. And I'll come in and it's not unusual for somebody to look at me, one of my staff, and these are guys who are on staff all over the place, they'll say, Pastor, I saved a man last night. And I know what he means. that without you, he'd be dead. So I'm just grateful for that type of thing going on. But you come down, and that's the kind of staff I have. And even my executive secretary came in as a woman who was dealing with drugs. and she is very, very gifted. I realized she had come from a magna cum laude position at one of our local universities, gone deep into the heroin thing, but now she's serving me with great, great help and skill. So praise the Lord for that. Keep praying for us. I think the city's gonna work with us, hopefully pretty soon. Five years is enough. I just like to get it going and get people off the floors. But if you've not been to the mission, we have a 10-building campus on three blocks. And everything is paid for. We have a policy, the board and I, that we will never take a loan, and we will never have a bill that we can't pay in 30 days. So you can see that when you have 10 buildings, and a lot of the buildings we've gathered, because when we came into what I would call kind of the ghetto in the South End, most every building around us was for sale. In fact, two buildings that were 50,000 square feet and another 50,000 square feet are both renovated and serving the Lord. So come down and see, it's just not, you know, the, I think, oh, there's a clock right there. I know I have a time limit here, so I wanna do it. So keep praying for us, it's working. There's just hundreds every year are coming to Faith in Christ, and many come to our program. And then when they come from the program, we have 50 apartments that we made out of some of these buildings. And when they finish that two to three year stint in the apartments, they're paying for their apartment, they're working, and we're just watching them. grow strong, and they're in those apartments as getting ready for full-blown relationships in the community, and that's what the Lord has bought. I just happened to be there for 43 years, and I didn't know what I'd be doing, and so now you just keep it moving. Oh Lord Jesus, I give him the praise and the honor and the glory. Recently a very high level official, I won't use their name, made fun of our gospel. publicly, you know, that we're just Jesus kind of freakish. And I'm thinking, no way. We are Jesus transforming. And he's there, powerful transformations. Sometimes people just don't know what they're saying. And that's OK, whether they're high level or low level officials. We just want to keep doing what we're doing, and then eventually someday they'll see, oh wow, I had that one wrong. Because Jesus is the reason why we have anything going on, and he gets the glory. And praise the Lord for that. We're going to be today in Philippians 4, 1 to 7. So if we have a slide, just seven slides, I think, so hopefully they're coming up. I can't see back there, but are they coming up? OK, good, good, good, good. Maintaining a heart of peace in tough times. We live in these tough times. As a rescue mission director, I see it up in front. And radical changes have taken over. They rob us of our peace in the United States. There's a whole lot of things going on that we're trying to get stopped the drug traffic in Albany is terrible I've never seen I've been there this long. I've been I'm on the streets all the time I'm not sitting in my office all the time, but I'm on the streets now I'm watching things happening, and I'm watching lives dissolve with the drug epidemic that's going on and the sexual trades that are out there right in front of our buildings, you know, there's just things going on that I know, thinking, Lord, these are tough times. And Paul was in tough times when he wrote the book of Philippians, by the way. He wrote four prison, we'll call them prison epistles, and Philippians is one of them. And he is writing, chained to a Praetorian guard. Actually, sometimes I have a chain with me this long with manacles on them. Paul was chained two full years at this point. to a Praetorian guard. The Praetorian guard were the elite forces of Rome. And they protected the emperor. They protected all the political officials. And they, because Paul was claimed to be a capital punishment case, because he was trying to destroy so-called the Israelite world, he was coming. They were going to do away with him, really, before he said, I want to see Caesar. I'm a citizen of Rome, and you have to give me, so they shipped him to Rome, and that's where he was, under these manacles, and he could not get away. He had to rent the house that he was in. You go to Acts chapter 28, and it'll tell you he rented the house, and then the Praetorian Guard had to be hooked to him until he went to the court of Nero. How would you like to be hooked to somebody on about a four-foot chain and you, 24 hours a day, you could not be? That was pretty tough. And that's what Paul was. The Praetorian guard would lose their heads if they lost him before he got to Nero's court. And so Paul is there. You think, that must be a miserable life. Every four hours, a Praetorian guard, by the way, they were the best military and trained police in all of the Roman Empire. And they were chained to Paul. But I always say after I read all that, who is chained to who and who is in jail and who isn't? Paul was not. But they had to listen to him all day long because Paphroditus and Timothy and Luke and all them could come and go. He could not be restricted who came to him. He could not be restricted when he talked to the Praetorian about Jesus. And people said, well, that must be tough. He said, no. Paul said, the whole Praetorian guard in chapter 1, verse 12. I've reached, he said, I'm in hog heaven. Man, I am ready to dance a jig. Why? Why, Paul? Because I am in the center of where the gospel needs to come from. I'm in Rome, Italy. and the top police officers of the day, paid sometimes two to three times with pensions bigger than anyone else, were listening to me talk about Jesus all day long and all night long, because 24 hours a day for two years. So I don't know if you'd like that duty, or I would like that duty. But I want to tell you, people were coming to faith at very high levels in Rome, which would someday point to the fact that Christianity went to where it needed to be, and that's in the center of the universe, all of Rome. And Paul is writing a prison epistle back to Philippi chained to a praetoria all the while he's doing it. And he talks to them about our citizenship is in heaven in this book. And he wants them to have a heart of peace in tough times. These are tough times we're living in at the city mission. If it wasn't for Jesus and his power, I think I'd run away. I'd say, okay, there's enough drugs, enough prostitution, enough all this other stuff, get me out of here. But now I look out there and I always see it through the lenses of Jesus Christ. I say, wow, that girl could be a real powerful transformed person if we get a hold of them, where these guys. because there's always somebody right outside my office that needs, I'm on the street, right on the corner. But what's it mean maintaining a heart of peace in these tough times? Because every one of us have to maintain to be at tranquility with the Lord as we serve. Have a firm heart. It's a slide by itself, but a firm heart. He says, therefore, in verse one, my brothers whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. Stand firm in the Lord. Paul, what does that mean, stand firm? Well, it's a soldier's command. He was, there were a lot of soldiers, he's chained to soldiers, and he tells the believers who are in Philippi, Greece, through this prison epistle, he says, stand firm. My mother's name was Sotira Nikolopoulos. My grandfather's name was Christos Nikolopoulos. I am a Corinthian Greek in many ways. That's where they were. Before they moved to America, they were Corinthian. That's what's wrong with me. I knew it was. But the fact of the matter is, there's a Greek term, and I teach it to the men when I'm in classes and so forth. It's the term shteko. Everybody can say shteko, shteko, shteko. Shteko means to hold your ground. It's a military term in the Greek language and it meant hold your ground. Now if you have ever been in the military and you're under fire or you're doing whatever is happening and your commander says, okay, hold your ground because Soldiers that ran, they gave them names. They called them deserters and other things. You don't cut and run. We have something in rescue mission work when I tell people, don't cut and run. Because it's easier for them to say, man, this is too hard. I mean, I'm making progress. I'm cutting and running, man. I'm going to take my losses and get out. I said, no, no, no, no. You stucco. You stucco. You hold your ground. Believers, we all have to hold our ground for Christ, because Satan is always trying to take away the ground from us. Hold your ground. Stand firm in the Lord, he says. Thank you. Hold your ground. Persecution would come. Paul was holding his ground. He was bringing Jesus Christ into the very gut, the inner workings of the greatest empire on earth at that time, into the Roman Empire. And he knew, he knew it. Moses, when Israel saw the army of Pharaoh approaching, and they were at the Red Sea, And the Red Sea was in front of them, and they looked behind them, and the whole army system of Rome had said, we let them go. We need those slaves back. Go get them. And between the sea and the vast armies of Pharaoh, including all that he could muster, they were now in trouble. It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians and die in the wilderness. That's what the people said. And Moses said to the people, fear not, stand firm, hold your ground. We're not going back to the enslavement of Egypt. He said, see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you. He stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back, and the people of Israel went in to the midst of the sea on dry ground. You know what that felt like for them? It's like, wow, this was a sea, now it's dry ground, and we're walking across. and the people of Israel went and the enemy was drowned as soon as God got his people across. What a powerful God we serve, have a firm heart. Stuff is gonna come against you and it's gonna come against me that will cause a temptation to kind of go back and desert, as it were, that which God wants us to do. And I said, Lord, I'd like to just quit this thing sometimes, here and there, whatever it is I'm up, but we won't. Have a firm heart, steckled, don't cut and run. Because those who do not cut and run, and the work that I'm in, are powerful, because as they make those decisions to stand up against it all, the world, the flesh, and the devil, those things are defeated. Second one, He is going to now, he's going to tell them to stand firm, but the Philippian church, this prison epistle that's being carried back by Epaphrodite, the pastor of the church at Philippi, he's going to take that back. There was some friction going on in the church. I'm sure the churches understand that somewhat. He says, I ask you, I entreat Euodia in verse two, and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord, that means live in harmony, and agree with each other. Agree in the Lord, agree with each other, NIV says. These two ladies, and it could have been two men, so men don't get all like, proud or anything. But two of the ladies in the church, and they had helped start the church when Paul came to Philippi and was beaten bad and was singing in prison, if you remember. He didn't cut and ran, he just sang a song in prison. I love Paul in prison at Philippi. I'm thinking, who's the prisoner here? You, Paul, or is it Philippi? And you know the answer to that. He says, I ask you too, companion, Susicus, he says, yoke fellow, help these women who have labored with me side and side. We don't know what it was, but it's not the first time in church, whether it be men or women, that one says, we're gonna go this direction. and this is the best direction, don't go any, then somebody says, no, no, I think we're gonna go in this direction. Now, hopefully, in your church, that's not where you're going, and then all of a sudden you got, that's not good. And Euodia was going one way and Syntyche was going another way, and they were out of harmony, and Paul, says have the same mind that Jesus Christ had, work together. And he has this guy named Sousakos in the Greek language, but it really means, I think it was his name. I don't know if I'd want that name. Who are you, Sousakos? But Sousakos was helping, he says help these women and get together, we gotta get this thing going. And, cause it was hurting the church at Philippi. You can't, it's only so many of us. I remember when I went to Bible college in Florida so long ago, I can't even count how long ago, but we get in the dorms and we'd be talking about ministry and when you get out and when you're, and I hadn't even got to seminary, I had so much time, but it was there. we talk about what churches do and how does your church do. A lot of the guys that I went to Bible college with, because it was a Southern Bible college, they were from Georgia and other places. I had never been with much Southern boys, but I looked at them and I said, you know, our church, I came from a church that had a lot of splits. didn't like it, so they split, and then this one, they didn't like that, they didn't work it out, they just split. And I said, so how do you guys work out stuff down there in Georgia? He said, well, we get together and we try to solve it. The men, the elders and the deacons, they get together. He said, but sometimes we can't solve it that way. I said, well, what do you do? He said, we go out in the parking lot and solve it. I said, wow, really? My eyes got real big. I said, you go? And he said, we solve it. I said, you Georgia boys, you should know what's going on. We're going to solve it in the parking lot. But that's not how Paul told them to solve this. He said, just get together. We've got to get past this. There's got to be harmony in the believer's life. Oh, Lord. Swindoll says that these ladies have made a pit out of a pothole, and God can do it. But when we all look, no matter, every one of us, it's not this lady, it's me, when I get to a low point, and the Lord says, well, Perry, then let's do it with a unity in Christ. And all of a sudden, it's all a harmonious heart. The next one is a glad heart. Rejoice in the Lord. Always and again I will say rejoice. This is the official, this is the epistle of joy. That's what it's called throughout Christian history. Paul 16 times has said rejoice, be joyful, you know, kind of like we'd say be happy. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. We can choose to be gloomy and we can choose to be joyful. express His joy, because it's our strength. We don't know this always, but you know, you want to be really duke hard, you really want to be fast and ready to go, you gotta have joy in Christ. And you gotta let that be, and we sang some beautiful songs today, by the way, I love those songs. Jesus shall reign, ooh. Paul was in prison, yet he was rejoicing. He was saved and serving. He had a great savior. He eagerly awaited him. He was living in joy, and he was thankful to be saved, and God had supplied all his need, and I don't think there was, out of the 9,000 Praetorian Guard that were employed by Rome, most of them knew who this man was. I can imagine them going back to the barracks when they came out of their barracks, and said, you know, this is weird. This guy told me about, you know, I'm chained to him four foot. I'm listening to him. He's writing letters to Philippi and, you know, other letters here and there, and they're being carried. He said, I don't understand. I don't understand this man. And praise the Lord that Paul had such an impact. He was living the life. But he had joy. It wasn't a drudgery. I love it when Christians get together and sing like you did this morning. I think it just shows the love of God and it's the joy of the Lord being our strength. So keep doing it. Because joy is not only a result of circumstance, but looks beyond circumstance what the provisions of the Lord are. Sometimes we can be joyful when the rest of the world is weeping out of frustration, and they just don't know. They say, well, the Lord is still helping me. God is blessing. I can be happy. I can sing songs. I can worship. Germany, the 1600s. The Black Plague came through, the bubonic plague. And people were dying left and right. Thousands and thousands and thousands were dying. And a pastor there buried 4,500 people in one year. because most of the pastors were gone. They had died from the plague. And Martin Rinkert was the only one in that town of Saxony area, and he was called upon to bury everybody. How would you like that job? It would be a tough one, wouldn't it? Pastors and other 25 families that need you to buried there. Pastors, there's 50 more that need you. They've died of the plague. But he did it, and he loved to do it, but he wrote this song. It's a hymn. Now thank we all our God. with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, and whom this world rejoices. Where in the world did you get that mindset? You've just buried 4,500 people, and you're thanking God, and you're lifting your hands and your heart, and you're saying, God, you're wonderful. We rejoice because you're here. Martin Rinker, you've sung that in different churches, maybe you've seen, you know, now thank we all our God. You know, that's a beautiful song. Lord, make me glad, and when I'm bad, just make me glad again, right? Next one, number four, we don't have much more to go, but a big heart. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Reasonableness, this sweet reasonableness, this epikeikes. Forget about the Greek term. It just means sweet reasonableness. It means big heart. It means there's room in my heart for you. There's room in my heart to do things for you, to love you, to be somebody that is going to help you. Because that's what God does. When you don't think you have enough to give out any, the Lord says, no, no, I have somebody that I want you to give to. There's somebody I need you to help. There's somebody I need you to reach out to. And that's how the Christian world, our great captain, our Captain Jesus sends us out in ways that we have a big enough heart for people. It's sometimes called sweet reasonableness, forbearance, yieldedness, clemency, mercy, goodwill, and mercy towards others. Your sweet reasonableness. We have to not be demanding our just deserts or our rights, but we need to yield to God's wonderful command to reach out to others. President Jefferson was president for a while, and he had four of his men on horseback, and they came to a swollen river. But they were on horseback, and they would just plow right through with their horses to get across. But there was a man standing on the side of the stream. And he looked up and he looked at the president. He said, I don't have a horse in this water. I'll drown if I try to go through it. Could you give me a ride on the back of your horse? And Jefferson said, yes, come on up. Yep, I got room. And they all got across. And then the chief of staff that was with Jefferson came over to him and he said, you know, you have a lot of nerve. You just asked the president of the United States of America to give you a ride on the back of his horse. And he kind of looked a little fearful. He said, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was the president. All I knew was he's the only one of you that had a yes face. You know what a yes face is? He says, yeah, come on in. I was like, oh, come on, man. We're closed here. Close this line. Beat it. And we can all have a beat it face, or we can have this beautiful big hearted face that says, no, come on, because you can go in. to a place where you need to see somebody at a window, like at the bank, or you're going into a store, and you kind of scope around and say, I wonder which one of these people has a yes face. Or one that says, don't you even come over here, man, I will beat you to a... I'm not doing anything. Closed, even though the window says open, these eyes say, I'm not open. Oh Lord, this gentleness is Jesus Christ, and thank God that God gives you a big heart for the people. I remember a biography I read by a woman named Lottie Moon. She is almost a patron saint of the Southern Baptist movement. Because in the 1800s, she went to China to help start churches with pastors and to just get things done. But she noticed that whenever they had a famine, the little kids died. In the Southern Baptist world, the Southern Baptist women's organizations all over the South sent money to Lottie Moon to make sure she'd eat, that she wouldn't have a problem, and that she would be able to carry on the work. But every time she got money, she looked at these little starving Chinese kids. And she just bought them food and gave it away. And she ate nothing. You say, well, that's kind of irresponsible. I don't know. I don't think so. She just said she couldn't. By the time she got a bit older, gave away like that, she came back to America on a freighter. And she died of malnutrition. Now, you can say, well, she didn't take care of herself. But when you have thousands of kids that you can't even feed and they're dying. But that wasn't the end of the story, because the Southern Baptist world saw that the big hearted woman, tiny four foot eight woman who brought power to the Chinese so that their children didn't die and the gospel was planted. They made an offering every year, once a year, it's called the Lottie Moon Offerings of the Southern Baptist world. They have raised billions of dollars in that time. Billions and billions. All by a four foot eight woman who had a big heart. Just at the mission when I feel like I can't help anymore. And the Lord said, no, no, no, you can. You just bring him in and we'll deal with it. Because you've got to have a big heart, no matter what you do. And in your field, whatever it is, I don't know all of you, but it's that big heart that says, Lord, I have got room to help. I've got room. I can do that. She's, by the way, one of the, when I get home, I want to meet Lottie Moon when I get to heaven. Thank you. Thank you, Lottie. Yeah, you died of malnutrition, really starvation on your way back to America, but wow, what you did for Christ. A big heart, Lord, thank you, because he watches. So the next time you're on, and I'm speaking to myself too, you're on 787, barreling down on two cars that are acting like Mario Andretti's in both of them. And then you come to the ramp, and you figure, who's going to go first? Just say, you go ahead, you go ahead. That's what I need. I'm learning these same lessons. I don't always have it right. The last thing is a trusting heart. Because without this, you can't do any of the rest. And we only have just a few moments. But do not be anxious about anything, Paul said to the believers at Philippi. But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, Let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, it will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Yes, Paul said these are tough times. But God will put around you his sentry duty. And that's really what he's saying. His soldiers, the spirit of the living God, will be around you. And you can trust the Lord with that. You don't need to get worrisome, but pray and thanks, pray and thanks, pray and thanks. Hallelujah. And God will send a guard over you. There'll be like sentry duties. Paul knew what that meant because he's chained, he's chained to Praetorian guard every four hours for two full years without one four-hour period off. Then he would see Nero. He would be given the opportunity to go out and preach some more because he was found not guilty of that. But then he went out and preached and went on his last missionary journey and then was rearrested and then died from that. But he was all right. He told Timothy, time of my departure is at hand. I'm going home. And he knew he wouldn't be released from that second imprisonment in Rome. But he didn't need to be. I can't even imagine what it's like to talk to Paul. But we'll all get that chance if you know him. The Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord. Stop worrying. We worry about everything in this culture. 40% never happens, a study said. 30% is in the past, you can't change it. 12% is criticism that doesn't even have value. And 8% of what we worry about is kind of real. But even that, God is going to cast, we're going to cast our cares upon him. and his peace will do sentry duty around my mind. Sometimes I get so worrisome and I feel like, Lord, how do we break through this? And then he says, well, just talk to me. My peace is going to be on guard duty around your mind all the time. And he gave them these promises, a firm heart, stand your ground, no cut and run, a harmonious heart that says, hey, Lord, I'm ready to just live in harmony with other believers as we get things done and we forgive each other and trust each other. And so he says, I need that harmonious heart. I need a glad heart. When I do it, I want to not whistle while I work, but I want to praise while I work. I want to praise the Lord. Sometimes I'm on Sunday morning, I've turned on whatever that guy is, all the music, all the big music guy, and that's on, and my truck is gone, just jiggling around, and I'm thinking, thank you, Lord. But that's because I have serious radio. I can get that enlightenment radio going. It just goes and goes. Oh Lord, give us that heart that's a glad heart, a big heart that says, yeah, there's room for me to help you. No, there's room. I can come back and I will have a big heart for you for Christ. And then a guard that goes over around me as God's peace is around me. Praise the Lord for that. And I just thank you, I hope I haven't gone over, but what I would say to you is we have a great God. Those issues, maintaining a heart of peace in troubled times, Paul had troubled times and we do too. Father, we thank you. There may be one person in this room that came in that they haven't taken advantage of the fact that Jesus Christ died for their sins on Calvary's cross. He paid the price that they now just turn from your sin and say, Jesus, come into my heart and save my soul. Yes, many and most might know you here, Lord Jesus, but if you don't, just say, Jesus, I need to be forgiven before I die. I need to trust you. You paid the price for all my sin and gladly and freely will forgive me, and right now I reach out and say, Jesus, save my soul, and give me eternal life as a gift. I want to serve you with a big heart, a harmonious heart, a joyful heart. I want to be the servant you want me to be. We thank you for this church, dear Lord. Use them for your glory here in Rensselaer County and beyond. In Christ's name, amen.