August 29, 2021 - Sunday School Live

i'm going to need you to keep up um hopefully you all have been following along i want to give thanks to pastor jackie who has uh made my job a little easier this morning because part of her sermon is part of our sunday school lesson today so i am grateful to that i hope that you all are well and to those of you that are online we want to say thank you for tuning in we welcome you if this is your first time coming into our sunday school class i do encourage you to invite someone text someone call them let them know sunday school is live right now it's a family affair we are glad to have you here make sure you get your sons your nephews your nieces your grandchildren all of them bring them in we want to make sure that we reach out that not only for those of us who are regularly regularly attending but that if we have students across the states on college campuses we may have children young adults or adults in the military people everywhere that may need to get a word they can attend this bible study online if they're not already in the service we want to make sure that they're not already in the service let somebody know that alan temple has sunday school live this morning great how's everybody doing this morning you ought to be uplifted you ought to be feeling pretty good today i am i am very much so we're going to go ahead and move forward i'm going to open up with a word of prayer this morning heavenly father we say thank you for waking us thank you for giving us a new day thank you lord for allowing us to be able to assemble in your temple that we might study your word that we might equip ourselves a lot better to live according to your word lord and as you have commanded us to make disciples of men and women that we may believe that we can be better servants to the body of christ and to your kingdom we glorify you this morning lord we thank you for your word we thank you for your salvation for your saving grace and given us another day to try to get it right so in jesus name lord i ask that you speak this morning remove me off the way father i am just your servant here to do your will let your words speak to us let your word pierce our hearts let your word encourage us to continue moving forward in the name of jesus we pray amen amen as i stated a moment ago pastor jackie has helped us with uh scripture text this morning we are studying in the uh new i'm sorry not the new the uh international sunday school series which you saw on our screen a moment ago and we are in actually this is the last lesson of our summer quarter which is faith gives us hope our summer quarter theme was confident hope and if we recall at the time that the lesson was written meaning the text they didn't have any full evidence of what was to come and so why reason why i say that is because it was hope jesus work had not yet been complete but now that we have some evidence some experience i like to add the word faith gives us assurance because it's not just hoping for what we're not 100 sure what will happen we can look back not too far and know that our hope has some results because christ has not ever failed us and he will not neither will the word of god so that faith gives us hope and we can fairly and clearly say assurance today um so as we prepare to go into our lesson um i hope that you again have your bibles we are in uh we're gonna go to slide two our title this morning is hope eternal our lesson text is second corinthians we see from 416 going into chapter 5 verses 1 through 10. and as i mentioned earlier that background text if you want to study this and i strongly suggest that you do it is very applicable to the times in which we are living now although the text was written thousands of years ago as we know the bible has stories that sometimes seem they are older but we can pick from that and apply it to times that we see right now just like earlier she mentioned 56 years ago we were still fighting for what civil rights laws and here we are again today still fighting for the same thing the same message applies so that background text is second corinthians chapter four through verses i'm sorry through chapter five verse ten a reference scripture to try to get a mental application understanding the mind state the apostle paul at this time as we learn he has been beaten jailed imprisoned stoned on this journey prior to arriving in the church of corinth city of corinth where he founded those churches that reference is in romans chapter 7 verses 14 through 26. i'm gonna go to the next slide we see our memory verse here second corinthians chapter five verse one and i'm going to read that with you all it says for we know that if our earthly house this tent is destroyed we have a building from god not a house made with hands eternal in the heavens now another thing i mentioned at the time frame this was written he was talking to the church at congress giving them encouragement they had been very weary of the times that paul was preaching into uh an affluent city corinth was a city in between uh two cities where there was a port similar to what we have here our parts import export so it was a very uh wealthy city the people had their own way of living their own lifestyle and they weren't too happy about someone coming in preaching this jesus christ where one of their main streams of income was building idol gods and here comes paul talking about those gods are not good anymore they're not worth anything and that's messing with the people's money and they got a little upset not to mention he's preaching jesus is the only way and they had their gods that they were serving and their gods were what they worshipped and how they worshiped and here he comes with the message which he has seen on his missionary journey now another thing about the timing of the text he says for we know that if our earthly house this tent is destroyed we very much can safely say not if but what when because it's not a matter of if our earthly house is destroyed we know that this life has an end date we see sunrise sunset we see birth date end date no one on earth is going to live forever so what does that tell the believer this whole lesson is about encouraging us to be able to withstand the pressures that we have not only physically because a lot of what we see in the text is speaking to the weariness of working in a society an environment that's not welcoming of the message there's opposition just imagine literally just imagine if we had to face that today and we do see it in some parts when we talked about january 6th we see that in various areas and it is getting crazier by the day where people are just rising up with their own ideologies their own crazy ideologies about what they think is right and as a christian believer trying to do right trying to live right being a law-abiding citizen following the word of god there's not much difference between someone saying you people talking about christians so we have to be mindful that just because it's not happening doesn't mean it can't does that make sense i think it does because we have to be very careful how we walk and talk now we're not going to bend or break we're going to stand firm on the word of god but we do have to be mindful about the environment in which we live which is why the lesson is so important today so going to our next slide thank you so much keeping up i have a question and i left one word out but i'm going to speak it today one question once you write this down if you can or take a note if you don't take a note it will be online for you to go back and research after the lesson after the class is over it says what does the bible teach believers about responding to physical illness what does the bible teach believers about responding to physical illness we'll get to that in a moment the reason why i use physical illness in this time is because as we get older our faculty start to slow down right things don't work as much as they used to as well as they used to um but if when not if and when a person gets sick that's when we start to worry and you know get a little scared a little fatigue depending on the severity of the illness so we want to ask that question now it says physical i want to also talk about the mental the emotional and the psychological these are all parts of our body and what is one of the most important capacities our spiritual health your spiritual health is vital as much as it is the physical and the emotional what does the bible teach believe is about physical illness and i want you to include each of those other aspects all because they all make up the human body question number two how can we offer comfort to each other's in the face of death or terminal illness or severe sickness how do we offer comfort how can we we all know what that's like but it seems to be a little different when the time comes we all know what it's like and i heard i forget the guy's name um he said we take health i think was kirk franklin he said we take health for granted until it's our health and we have to be very mindful of how we take care of our health today all right next slide please thank you this question is how does how should knowing christ change the way we respond to death think about that and those of you watching online you all ask yourselves that question and talk about it with your family members how should knowing christ change the way we respond to death now that doesn't mean it's easy to deal with it never is doesn't mean the sickness goes away it doesn't mean the pain is not going to be there it doesn't mean it hurts it won't hurt to see the person falling in demise or have a terminal illness having faith should make some type of a difference in how we respond because we will see as we go forward into our lesson that transitioning leaving this earth is not the last time it is not a separation indefinite it is a temporary separation because we are transitioning to our eternal home now again i'm going to go forward um won't give you the full background thank you again pastor jackie i appreciate the prelude but what i will do is carry on some of her sermon which is tying into our lesson as we see we're in the same scripture points a little bit more background biblically on bob paul as i mentioned he authored the book of first corinthians and the second corinthians he was the founder of the church at corinth this was on his second missionary journey okay he first traveled to corinth after spending time preaching in athens now upon arriving in karth you may know if you haven't read through it paul met aquila and priscilla who were actually tint makers makers church builders church planters in the area and that helped him so he paul lived and worked there with aquila and priscilla but because he was already on his missionary journey preaching and teaching what he did is carried on his regular fashion and he preached in the jewish synagogue each week now there were jews there that were listening and paying attention and some of them were converted and there were others as i mentioned earlier who were not very happy with that there were others who did not like paul's preaching and he preached as long as he could before there was a rocket so what happened and you could read about that in the book of acts chapter 17 and 18. he said okay fine i'll take my message to the gentiles because there were also gentiles in the area that were converted and following jesus christ so he took the message of the gospel more directly one key note i want you to think about at this time in paul's missionary journey he started devoting more of himself to the word of god he'd been preaching and traveling and working but at this point in his life he started devoting most of his time to preaching the word of god now mind you the atmosphere was becoming a little chaotic they were not welcoming of them possibly to be attacked and god came to paul in the vision you'll see that acts chapter 18 don't worry about anything i have people here they will not hurt you so just imagine you're on your missionary journey or you've been on your missionary journey or even here in oakland or wherever abroad we might be or we have relatives that are on missionary journeys and it's dangerous to go well it's dangerous here we might go in some communities they're not welcoming but god gives us assurance that i will protect you why we're being obedient to his will and doing what god has called us to do so take note like i mentioned corinth was a prosperous affluent society but they had a sinful lifestyle they wanted to do what they wanted to do and they didn't want anybody coming to tell them that what they were doing were wrong however even in the middle of such a sinful self-serving environment people were coming to christ think about that even in the middle of possibly being beaten jailed imprisoned and he kept forward just sharing the word of god following his assignment people were coming to christ so what does that tell us today that means that we don't have to hold our faith into the four walls that means we can share the gospel wherever we are and i've said this before i'll say it again sometimes you don't even have to say anything it could be a testimony of our what our lifestyle christ in us are to show just by how we're living you all know what i'm talking about all right moving forward all right next slide please so a lesson text as we saw i've suggested you read second corinthians chapter four verses one through 15. what it is is reassurance confirmation that those who are in the spirit pause identifies the afflictions of them uh in a matter-of-fact type of way he lets them know who we are whose we are and why we should continue serving the word of god we see verses 16 through 18 this encouragement was much needed the church this old house we have here there's another home and a new body in the image of jesus to help ease the pains and the afflictions remember the atmosphere was not welcoming let's look at that verse 16 so we do not lose heart we saw this earlier even though our outer nature is wasting away our inner nature is being renewed day by day now some morning you might get up and it'll be just fine another morning you might get up and it's rough okay if we're honest about time on the body which is why it's also critical and vital for us to take good care of our health it's very important that we take care of our health um there are some people who might be twice someone's age and they lapping you around the lake or wherever you're walking and you look and say wow but they've invested in their health and if even if not that just to be able to get out and walk a little bit take a little exercise maybe not eat that extra piece or something we've got to take care of our health and if you have a health condition whatever it may be we know the list we know the diseases that affect the african-american community we know the things that affect us by the intake of food we should also be mindful to be cautious about the intake and have a little bit of balance that's always saying because it does affect the health and when your physical health becomes ill other issues will be problematic for you and if you like me sometimes sometimes i'm not saying it all the time sometimes things get bad what we do we go eat and oftentimes not what we should but what that does is has a negative effect on our health so we want to be mindful of that but back to the text paul identifies the affliction and acknowledges the pains in a matter of fact type of way it says though our inner nature is being renewed day by day what does that mean our inner nature our spirit amen is your spirit being renewed each day that's a good question is your spirit being renewed and if yes be thankful for it continue doing that whatever you need to do to renew your spirit study read the word of god get in some positive information turn off the negativity someone brings you negativity shut the door on it you don't need that because as we know the minute you turn on the television or something there is constantly negative news and we heard it earlier every which way we turn there's turmoil but god is still in control and the believers must not lose faith we must continue to pray we must continue to lift each other up we must continue to check on one another we must continue to make that call and say hey sister hey brother how you doing i just was thinking about you and that one moment can be uplifted to someone else next slide please verse 17 for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond our measure this slight momentary affliction biblically he was speaking about their condition their weariness their tiredness their fatigue and it is an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure is what we're being prepared for so it's kind of like you see someone sick you see someone tired you look in the mirror and you're tired i'm tired i heard someone say i'm sick of coving we all are sick of cover but we would be rather be sick of covid than to be sick with covet right it's not welcoming at all by any site but at the same time what can we get out of this we got to be safe so in application to this text when we are ill we have to realize that this is just temporary we don't know when the end of covet will be but whatever it is we know that after on that side and even when life comes to an end we have an eternal resting place so we don't get too caught up on what's happening here on earth all right next slide please thank you for that uh because we look not at what can be seen we saw this earlier but what cannot be seen for what can be seen is what temporary but what cannot be seen is eternal i'm going to pause here for just a moment this is not easy for many because what we see on a horizontal sometimes just takes us out and i'm being frankly honest some people just can't take it when they get ill it's beginning at the end i guess this is it for me the spirit takes a hard drive down and sometimes it's believers if we're honest which is why it's so important to check on one another right a healthy lifestyle i talked about that how can we offer comfort we have to remind each other that it's not just the horizontal we have an eternal home with our lord and savior jesus christ and that alone should be reassuring you know it's not going to be like this always and just that encouraging word one thing i want to caution us it's hard to sell somebody that's already on a decline and say don't do this or don't do that because what will happen is they're likely to do it but what we can do is encourage them on the positive side you know you if you're on your way out you're going to be with the lord you know this is not going to last forever just encouraging word of smile in the touch all right we want to make sure we are encouraging and reinforcing what the scripture says not that it's just coming from us our next slide please add a question one okay so that encouragement will stay right here take these scripture references down while i'm giving you this point we talked about question one and question one stated what does the bible teach believers about responding to physical illness it teaches us to look at the word of god we're going back to that question one i gave you earlier it teaches us to look at the word of god and remember that although this house is fading we have an eternal home and we also need to be reminded that god is a what a healer because once the body starts to fade we get a little tired we have to remind each other god is our healer question two came up and says how can we offer comfort to those in the face of death that's the encouragement of letting them know that even if this life should pass which it what will we know that we have a heavenly body that we can look forward to and that's something we need to be grateful of i'm glad that we have the ability to share that because we've passed this generation that they have the yolo moment and some of them are still uh living that way yolo y-o-l-o you only live once that's something the young people said and something a lot of them believe and it takes off like any trend but what it does it causes and breeds very chaotic self-destructive behavior from drug abuse to wild activities to experimenting with all types of substances and it's detrimental to the point they don't realize until it's almost too late not to mention the mental effects of that i want to say this right now to those of you in the room and anybody that's listening online you don't have to suffer in silence raise your hand tell somebody hey i'm not doing well because there's always help but if you're feeling overwhelmed with the pressures of life you can talk to somebody find somebody that you can talk to and even in this room because one encouraging word or just lifting a hand can help somebody overcome a pressure or a problem they may be thinking that they can't get through themselves okay this is why we make sure that we encourage one another in the face of death or someone who may seem a little off may be contemplating suicide maybe contemplating hurting themselves because what's happening with them is too much for them and we see people all the time who might look normal but we don't know what's going on inside okay so let us be conscious about that and also thank you god for that praying for that which we don't even know about as a believer we ought to have a prayer life that covers some that we don't even know who we're praying for but we pray that god's power can touch those that we don't even know need his touch all right next slide please thank you so much we are of the scripture references go to slide 10 please thank you okay so we're in our verse one and two for we know that if this earthly tent we live or destroy we have a building from god a house not made with hands eternal where in the heavens for in this tent we groan longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling what that means is in this tent this earthly tent we groan we grow weary we get tired we talked about that early but we have a building from god a house not made with hands what that means is once we leave earth when our soul leaves this earth we are immediately in our new body amen and that's something to be glad about this whole body will get weary this whole body is going to decay it's inevitable it's a part of life but it doesn't mean that that is the end it means that once i have left and my work is done here i have a father in heaven a savior my joy jesus christ and my body will be transformed now next slide what does that body look like it's in the image of christ look at verses three and four it says if indeed when we have taken it far we will not be found naked i'll tell you about that in a moment for while we are still in this tent this earthly tent we grown under our burden because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed so that what is moral that's this body may be swallowed up by life that we will not be found naked this body is going to end and our spirit would not be empty would transfer from this earthly physical mortal body into our heavenly body and what the apostle paul is saying at this time to the church is that you don't want to think that you're just going to be empty and naked when your demise he's letting them know this is their hope the hope that he's giving them that you will be transferred into your heavenly body we're grown under our burden on my knees on my back all of the ailments i don't want to go down the list but we all have something my knees or the stairs or whatever it may be it's just a matter of time however as bad as it may gets when it gets to the point that we can't take it anymore and we are on our last leg i know that i've got a home and a new body remember that song that you say i got a new home over in glory in his mind my mind that's the song of conviction so look at what the scripture says for we wish not to be unclothed that's talking to the emotions of the people in the church in conflict again they were tired and the atmosphere was going very volatile to the point that they were getting weary and we saw that a few weeks back where paul was preaching again and the people in the area were not happy with the message and those who were with the new church this was in hebrews they didn't want to go out and worship anymore they thought it was going to be you know dangerous him to go outside so this has been going on all throughout his missionary journey what does he tell them to be further close to that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life meaning that once we leave this earth we'll be swallowed up by life and transformed next slide please i'm going to pause here for a moment and give you a note the sting of death encouraging ourselves the individuals who may be sick if it is us ourselves if it is someone that's just received a negative diagnosis it's devastating if we're honest it's scary because we only know what we hear and i heard uh pastor jackie said earlier about you know mom got the diagnosis in december she's still here and i recall several others who've gone on the glory that they had the same situation and one close to me was my own dad the same thing happened and sat right there in the room with the physician and says when god gets ready for me i'll take my hat and go and live probably six or seven months past his diagnosis so that faith on the inside that exceeds what the physician says is what we have to hold fast to we have to know that yes this is your prognosis and medically speaking you can even say that my medical experience my knowledge based on the science that i have here says i cannot do anything further for you that is an appropriate phrase it's not often used but basically the physician is telling us that i can do nothing further for you and the disease or whatever the illness is will take its course who is our ultimate physician god is who is our ultimate physician god is so he has the final say which why we have this point here our earthly house is what temporary but our heavenly body is eternal so even when point one goes off this earthly house is over thank god i have a heavenly body that i won't have any more pains i won't have any more aches i won't have any more groans because my heavenly body is going to be in the image of who jesus christ that's something to be glad about next slide please thank you all right we've got our scripture references slide 13 yes moving forward these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life it speaks directly to immediately after death for the believer i'd rather not suffer and struggle and wrestle with the pain of a slow death or a terminal illness but it happens the church at this time was growing weary as we said it from various sources what makes us tired today don't start calling out names i just want you to think the second part of that question was who makes you tired you know it can be a numerous amount of things but what i'm getting at is the weight of these pressures can cause us to grow weary now talking about the transition look at verse five it says god himself has prepared for us this and as a guarantee he has given us what his holy spirit is it a possibility no is it a question mark is it a maybe no it is a what it is a guarantee that the holy spirit is going to be with us jesus even said in matthew where she was leaving the holy comforter i'm sorry the comforter what come be with you the holy spirit is who the third person in the what the godhead the triune god and his role is more than what we can define because many times we have to just call on the holy spirit but also the holy spirit knows to come to us in our times of grief god himself has prepared this for us and i guarantee he has given us his holy spirit so we say this to let you know that when you're feeling weak when you're fading when you're on your last leg the holy spirit is our comforter and that is what will keep us in our time of bereavement thank you move to our next slide please love 14. thank you i hope this is helping you i hope it's making sense because it's something that we're all going to relate to now point two the holy spirit is a sufficient comforter third person in the triune god calling him scripture references john 14 16-26 john 14 16-26 john 16 and 7 matthew 5 and 4. a guarantee in the holy spirit a comforter believers i want to make sure i pound this home earthly death is our transition earth to heaven here's something we don't talk about enough we have this guarantee why not make the best of life on this side there's always going to be challenges there's always going to be trouble there's always going to be a few aches and pains there's always going to be somebody getting on your nerves you ain't going to say no but it's the truth so what we do is we make the best of it we look up unto glory and you can just start talking about the lord and that will help you to get through the hard moment if you have those scripture references let's go to slide 15 please it gives us uh verses five and six we're almost done you guys we're always confident i was just saying that even though we know that while we are at home in this body now this is nrsv it says in the body here we are away from the lord for we walk by faith not by sight this is that matter of fact paul was talking about to the church at corinth trying to encourage him to say we are always confident not being negative even though we're at home in this body we are away from the lord in our earthly body we are away from the lord meaning not in our heavenly body but we are still what to the lord connected we are still with the lord as he is in us but we are not in his physical presence all right it says in the body we're away from the lord for we walk by what faith and not by sight why is that important why is it important to walk by faith because what we talked about earlier this horizontal what i see i don't know if i'm gonna make it i'm not gonna be able to take this i can't do it i can't do it that's the the mental when something that we see seems bigger than us but we almost instantly forget about what the power of god we have to make sure that we walk by faith knowing that god will not leave us knowing that this is all temporary god has not forsaken us next slide let's see what the next verse says right he gives a yes we do have confidence talking to the church encouraging them and this is where we can apply this to ourselves today and we would rather be away from the body groaning illness sickness pain and at home with the lord i don't want to do this anymore so what do we do verse 9 whether we are at home or away we make it our what aim to please him at home meaning with the lord or away here in this earthly temple we make it our aim our goal to please him how do we do that even in our afflictions we can give god glory not natural not the desired thing to do but even in our afflictions we can just give god thanks and sometimes just praising god whatever the issue might be or asking him to heal or move pain will just subside a little bit sing a little hymn say a little prayer and god will hear because he already knows what we're going through and i don't know about you i've had some nights where even the toothache was about to take me out and the medicine is not working and i'm rocking i'm like lord please just and eventually that pain would go down so there's people who have sciatica you know back page knee pains all types of things have to take tons of medication and sometimes that little prayer just helps get through it so he's talking about afflictions but when there's severe illness and we really don't feel like we can take it we aim to please him and that means you give honor and glory to god knowing that this is not gonna last next slide please live a pleasing life unto god point three despite our challenges we will all be judged by jesus for our deeds now i have to pause here for a moment if you need to change your thought process do it by the word of god it says we will be judged by jesus for our what deeds this is not related to our salvation a lot of people get this mixed up jesus he's not going to judge us for our salvation he paid the price for that our deeds on earth believers of christ know the word of god your deeds what we do with ourselves how we treat other people how we treat our bodies judged by jesus for our deeds live a life pleasing unto god what does that mean if you love god keep his what commandments we must make sure that we are mindful that we will be judged for how we live day to day got bad habits still love god you can change your ways leave church somebody cut you off you're liable to sleep with your mouth right change your ways because we want to make sure that we are living a life pleasing unto god and it's not about pleasing the people because nobody here or on earth is going to judge us too many times we live for the applause of people as believers and we don't realize we should be living for the uh reward of god earth the world is focused on self-gratification the world is focused on uh applause pat me on the back i call it the lame uh ministry look at me everybody you know but it's lame at the same time has no potency we want to make sure that we are living for christ even in our afflictions even in our hard circumstances realizing that we will be judged by jesus now just imagine y'all know what a gigantin is a guillotine but they used to cut people's head off just imagine if there was an image of that in the sky somewhere around the sun every day you woke up sounds crazy but i think people would just you know have that reminder don't need it because the fact that god gave us the son lets us know that he is there we also have his word sometimes people have to see trouble before they actually want to walk right you shouldn't have to do that as a believer you should know that god is not only a god of grace and mercy but he is a god of justice and judgment next slide please verse 10 for all of us what must appear before the judgment seat of christ so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body whether good or evil that is just what i was talking about as a believer of christ we are not perfect we are not going to be perfect but we have to make sure that we make a what a conscious effort to honor what god has commanded us to do love the lord god make disciples of men treat your neighbor as your what self this is what the lord has commanded us to do and with our bodies not abuse our bodies not fill our bodies full of volatile substances whether it be drugs alcohol or whatever or food you know you can overeat it say that's a sin too but take care of your body but because we'll be done whether good or evil the apostle paul writes this because it's also a reassurance i'll put this right away we're closing up having a likeness of christianity of god but not the power thereof going through the motions doing church nothing to god because if once you leave the building you're just like everybody else and acting in a manner that does not mirror god then that's a misrepresentation of who god is i said earlier if god is in us there ought to be somewhat some sign and the reminder is we have to appear before the judgment seat of christ now you guys might have heard uh i think a few months back the term church hurt was kind of popular in the music community in church everywhere everybody has had it at one point in time or another but maybe the individual possibly who hurt someone or the individual that was hurt may have been you know like well i think it was mother jackson saying are you on baby milk or are you eating food a little bit you want to make sure that you know the word enough to know well this is going to happen because if you own baby milk you know you're still growing but if you start eating a little bit of food meaning the word is in you a little bit you will know that someone acting outside of the will of god has just not matured in christ because even if you are just a little bit more mature you'll see things a little differently that's the word of god in us so those of you out there watching get off that milk and get on your food a little bit the food is the word of god which feeds us helps us understand how god wants us to be and treat our fellow neighbor with love and compassion amen i think since river charlotte we have one more slide and we'll be ending up if we go forward our summary this earthly life and body is temporary remember that temporary hard to swallow but temporary physical change is what inevitable death for the believer i said this earlier is a transition transition i'm leaving for one place going to the next we've all had some form of transition whether it be job work home relationship whatever we see our children grow up and they move and they transition some move to other states and things like that for our life it is a transition what does apostle paul say we must always keep our eyes on the heavenly prize that's just the encouragement that you need this morning if somebody is ill if and when you get here if you're in bereavement right now even we want to make sure we remind ourselves although that person is not here anymore they're with their lord and savior they're a believer and the good thing about that is we too have our date i don't know about y'all like we say all the time everybody talk about they want to heaven but don't nobody want to what go right now however however oh thank you lord however one of these days our time will come and you know what we will no longer be here but we'll be with our lord and savior jesus christ and that's something to be happy about so it says here keep our eyes on the heavenly prize of being with jesus christ eternal hope but i say it's eternal assurance because the bible tells us what in john 3 16 for god so loved the world that he gave his only son begotten son that what whosoever believeth him should not perish but have what everlasting life he says for god sent his son not unto the world that the world will be condemned but the world through him might be what saved that's good news that's good news one of these days our time on earth will end so let's live our life to the fullest that we can while we're on this side enduring the persecution enduring the craziness of this world but upholding the values of jesus christ that someone else might want to see him through we'll see him through us but might want to be saved amen amen and amen the spirit just told me to shut up i'ma leave it right there amen father god we thank you this morning for your holy word lord you know the world that we are living in it is turmoil on every side we are here to serve you and give you glory and honor for everything that you have done for us and if we are honest lord it's hard kovitz shook a lot of lives up took a lot of lives away families are still hurting people are still in bereavement but you are still an almighty omniscient omnipotent all-knowing god and we praise you for that right now and lord when we're weak sometimes just continue to strengthen us let your holy spirit comfort us father comfort the leaders lord touch them when they're weak those who are out there on the battlefield facing opposition lord be their strength and let us be mindful to walk in a manner that pleases you to walk in the manner that represents you if we have things within us that we need to change lord help us to see the wrong in us and correct ourselves that we might be a better example of you to someone that does not know you we don't know when our death date is lord but i know we're looking forward to one day when we're no longer here on this earth we'll be resting in glory with you and for that we say hallelujah thank you jesus glory to your name amen

Channel: Allen Temple Baptist Church

Views: 135

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Allen Temple Baptist Church, ministry, Oakland, community, Baptist Church, Christian Church, worship, gospel, preaching, prayer, praise, celebration, spiritual, Devotion, Sunday School, Bible Study

Id: gb_JCL8hP60

Length: 47min 10sec (2830 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 29 2021