He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh i know god's been good good to my soul mountain high valley low i'm gonna sing wherever i go oh my god he's not against me i will hold to the place he has for me [Music] when i'm broken he will fix me and i will call on the name of [Music] where i [Music] when the storms rise all around me i will call on the name of the lord oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] wherever i go [Applause] [Music] [Music] please be a weapon that silences the enemy let praise be a weapon that conquers our anxiety let it rise let praise arise we sing your name in the dark and it changes everything we sing with all we are and we claim your victory let it rise let's praise her right come on y'all we'll see you break down every wall we'll [Music] [Music] with we praise you [Applause] [Music] let fate be the song that calms the storm inside of me let it rise [Music] [Music] creation cry god we [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is what living looks like come on y'all this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven sounds like we praise you we praise you this is what living looks like this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven's gonna sound like we praise you we praise you this is what living looks like this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven sounds like we praise you we praise you this is what never looks like this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven sounds like we praise you we praise [Music] gonna watch all the giants we let you hide jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well good morning crossroads why don't you turn around and say good morning to your neighbor [Music] hey let's welcome everyone joining us on the radio today give them a hand this morning [Applause] [Music] i love you lord for your mercy never failed me all my days have been held in your hands from the moment that [Music] of the goodness of god [Music] and all my life you have been faithful all my life you have been so good [Music] of the goodness of god i love your voice [Music] [Music] i've known you as a father [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh i will see [Music] your goodness is is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] of the goodness of god [Music] you've been so good to me lord [Music] you have been so so good with every breath that i am oh come on giving praise today so good to us lord so worthy this morning lord captivate our hearts over these next few minutes draw us close to you jesus [Music] the rage [Music] jesus you make darkness jesus your silent fear jesus jesus you make the darkness jesus [Music] call [Music] will these jesus jesus jesus jesus you make the darkness jesus [Music] jesus jesus [Music] jesus [Music] jesus you make the darkness [Music] [Music] make the darkness triple jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] your day is is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus you make the darkness true jesus jesus [Music] jesus you make the darkness jesus sing jesus jesus you make the darkness [Music] jesus [Music] jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus as we're singing i just i just thought of this and i think i think we need to hear it sometimes but do you guys know that our heavenly father he loves to hear us sing he loves to hear you sing your voice is special to him and i'm telling you as i look out in the congregation today not not just the worship team university you killed it but there are a lot of worship leaders in our congregation and i just want to say thank you for leading us in praise and worship this morning as i look out over the whole congregation just saying wow just hit me like wow lord you love to hear us sing and it's just just let that sink in this morning i think that's just special thank you worship team thank you congregation you all may be seated it is great to worship with you and all those joining online i know i know there are some worship leaders at home right now online lifting their hands praising the lord with all they got so it is so great to worship with you too all those joining us online we do we do kind of consider the church as a family and and so it is great to worship as a family together with you and if you're new to our family if you're new maybe you've been coming a while or maybe this is your first time can i just encourage you to do one thing and the seat back in front of you is something called a connection card on that connection card you just fill it out that's just kind of a way of you saying hello uh and introducing yourself and and then we'll take over the rest we will reach out to you it's not a big pressure thing we just want to get to know you and kind of we help answer any question you might have we'd love to be praying with you so fill out that card and when you're done bring it to the welcome desk in the foyer if you could bring that to the welcome desk after service that helps us get a face with the name or if you're if you're running quick or something you can always set it in the the offering buckets on your way out there's these little black boxes next to the doors on your way out of the sanctuary you can just set it in there and we will then reach out to you this week just to get to know you a little bit better we are so glad that you're joining us for worship the other thing that's going on hey did anybody hear that school is starting back up yes school is starting back up and if you if you are 13 or older if you are like me i'm going to be honest with you high school can be tough high school can be tough and so you're kind of trying to figure out okay who am i going to sit at lunch with this year am i going to go with this group you need to get your posse together right you need to you need to you need to get the regulators together you need to create your posse right i'm totally ruining this because i'm not cool but here's the point i'm trying to make here's the point you if you're 13 years or older you should be in youth group you got to get your posse together you got to get your people together and that's what youth group is so wednesday nights come on out 6 30 13 and older they're going to be your support system they're going to encourage you and you're going to learn more about god so you come out wednesday night 6 30 here at the church okay get your posse together that was cool back in the day to call him your posse probably you say something else now um but but trust me on that you're just going to take my word on that one it probably wasn't even cool when i was in high school honestly now you tell me hey the other thing that that we always like to do is we always kind of consider well the scripture is very clear about this we consider our offering as a worshipful experience and so we're going to take up our offering and i do want to i do want to say we are going to have a song after the offering it's very special song we're going to sing it together and i just think it's neat that the offering is kind of coming before this time just to kind of remind us that as we give we are giving to the lord yes it covers the daily essentials of our church it is it is we are very grateful for that uh it is very important our giving but but this is an act of worship a sacrifice to the lord and so let's just prepare our hearts and our minds as we just pray over our offering and then we'll sing together dear heavenly father god you are a great god and it is so clear that you are worthy to be praised so we praise you with our whole heart we praise you with our mind you're bringing to mind right now we're remembering the many blessings of how good you are to us god we praise you with our heart praise you with our soul we just lift up all of our emotions all of our attention is directed at you lord jesus we praise you even in our finances they're a constant reminder of a constant reminder to us lord jesus of how you supply and you meet our needs that you're a father who gives good gifts so lord jesus receive this gift this morning be praised and glorified in our giving we love you jesus in jesus name we pray amen [Music] to my heart to sing thy grace streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise teach me some melodies tongues above frees the mountain fixed upon [Music] till you came and rescued me [Music] now my heart has found a home now your grace is always [Music] hear your pride to you we see [Music] heal your pride to you we see come down [Music] dead till the on comes straight to me they lit thy goodness like a feta by my wandering heart to me [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] come [Music] [Music] blessings [Music] i was lost i was thought under darkness till you came and rescued me i was bound by all my sin when your love came and set me free now my soul can sing a new song now my heart has found a hole now your embrace is always with me and i'll never [Music] well good to see everybody oh man we had a tremendous time here last week with uh pastor robert uh boy he just just brought us right into the throne of grace and we just had a great time of praise and magnifying the lord together and we're glad that you're here on this rainy uh holiday weekend we're going to jump into god's word together here in just a moment we're going to go old school old testament we're going to go back into the book of job but before we do i was kind of reminiscing a little bit this week i grew up the youngest of four kids in in our house and uh i spent much of my childhood kind of eagerly anticipating uh the things that my brothers and sisters were doing i was like i would say i can't wait till i grow up or i can't wait till i get big so i could do this i remember my brother he had a bicycle and when he had a bicycle i had a big wheel anyone remember big wheels didn't anyone else have a big wheel and you know the big wheel was cool but it wasn't near as cool as my brother on a bike and so i couldn't wait till i got big so i could get rid of the big wheel and get into a big boy bicycle and then by the time i hit a bicycle he got a motorcycle well this ain't fair his has a motor mine doesn't i have to pedal he doesn't so i was looking forward to the time i could you know get a motorcycle i remember when my my brothers and sister they got jobs and i thought that was really cool because they had you know quote their own money and i couldn't wait to get my first job and so at the age of 12 i actually went into business for myself i opened my own business at the age of 12. it was a paper route how many did that delivered papers it was like a business i mean i had to buy the papers from the paper company i had to deliver them to the customers i had to go and collect the the money it was either once a week or once a month i was amazon prime before amazon prime was amazon prime it's just you know just always going to be i always want to be bigger on facebook this week we asked a question when you were a child what was one thing you couldn't wait to do when you quote you know grew up and people would say work and it's garrett county so they would say own a gun have to be seven drive again it's garrett county got to be 11. stay up late some said get my own place most of us spend a lot of our childhood wanting to do things that would make us feel big now ironically now that we're grown it's many of those same things that we don't want to do right work again i worked last week i got to work again this week drive i don't want to drive i drive all week you drive like i would have never i would have never imagined that stay up late are you kidding me i have to work tomorrow my god i better be i better be snow i better have my footy pjs on at nine if i'm gonna function this week right the things we look forward to now we don't we we just kind of resent them there is this strange dichotomy within us that on one hand we want to be big we want to be powerful we want to be in control of our own lives but on the other hand there's part of us that longs to know that we're not the most powerful force in the world that's the reason when we go on vacation where we go we go to the ocean and some of us we could just sit there for hours even if we don't get in the water we just sit there for hours and we watch the waves and we realize how big the sea is and how small we are there's there's something soothing about that there's something comforting to our souls to realize we're not it there's something else beyond us you know i say well preacher i hate the ocean i hate the sand i'm not going there okay maybe it's you it's it's mountains for you or maybe it's a big city our daughter mariah she just loves to go to a big city and so we'll we'll take her on a day trip to pittsburgh or something so she can see the big buildings but there's there's something therapeutic even for us adults that when we see that something is bigger than us we're not all that we're not all that great we're not all that powerful it helps us sometimes to feel small you see when we feel small and perhaps only when we feel small can we truly then see the bigness or the greatness of our god and this morning we're going to look at the life of a man that went from being the biggest man in town to the smallest and it happened to him in one day one day but through his suffering he discovered something that every christian if you're going to follow jesus at some point in your life you will need to have a revelation that means it's not just head knowledge but it's something you walk through a revelation of something we call the sovereignty of god i'm going to explain it let's go to the old testament job 1 in verse 1. there was a man in the land of us whose name was job and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared god and shunned evil now the bible is the most honest book ever written it shows us the good bad and ugly about the people who are in it even though it's it's it's supposed heroes it'll even show us the bad stuff about them so when the bible describes you as a blameless man upright man one who feared god and one who shunned evil we can take away from that job is a pretty good fellow somebody say amen now verse 2 says and he had seven sons and three daughters were born to him so we also know this about job he's mennonite he loved his kids he's a family man he's a good dad he loves his kids he's greatly concerned about their spiritual welfare he prays for them daily verse three also his possessions were seven thousand sheep three thousand camels five hundred yoke of oxen 500 female donkeys in a very large household so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east he's blameless he's wealthy he's blessed he's got a big family his life is going very well until one day his whole world crumbled job became the target of an attack of satan an unimaginable pain entered his life he received four visits from four messengers all in the at the same time they just one right after another before one could finish another one showed up and they began to deliver to him devastating news messenger number one comes and he says hey raiders have come in and they they killed your servants and they stole your oxen and your donkeys and while messenger number one was still speaking messenger number two showed up and delivered the news that fire had come and consumed his sheep and his shepherds and before he could finish his message messenger number three walked in and he said the chaldeans they've come and they've stolen your camels and they killed the servants that were tending to your camels and then finally messenger number four walks in and delivers unthinkable news job's seven sons and his three daughters had all gathered at the oldest son's house and a storm came through destroyed the house and they all perished in this storm can you imagine this i mean in one day job goes from being the man he's got everything to losing everyone and everything that's important to him now i seriously doubt that any of us have suffered the way job suffered but we probably all have had that day that day when a messenger showed up that day when the phone rang or a text came through or an email ding you've got mail and it changed your life unimaginable pain became your reality it took your breath away we've all if you've lived you've had one of those days this is where job is times a hundred and as i read his story again this week i was just amazed at job's response look at verse 20. this is after the four messengers have spoken and they've told him what has happened to all of his livestock which represented his wealth and his children look at what job did in verse 20. then job arose tore his robe shaved his head fell to the ground and worshiped what how can this be i mean i try to be a godly man but bro i ain't there if i do if if i receive that kind of news worship is is probably going to be the last thing on my mind but job knows god in such a way that he actually allows his pain to drive him to worship and if you're here this morning or maybe listening on the radio or watching online and you find yourself in a moment of tragedy you've gotten one of those texts you've gotten one of those phone calls you're dealing with that right now i i just want to say this i'm glad you're here you're in the right place this morning because our pain needs to drive us to a place of worship job knew something about worship that maybe i don't know job knew something about suffering that maybe i don't know maybe he knows something about faith he's got a different kind of faith than me in one moment he's wealthy he's powerful he's the greatest man in his world and yet in one moment he's made small and look at what he says in verse 21 and he said naked i came from the mothers were from my mother's womb and naked i shall return the lord gave and the lord has taken away blessed be the name of the lord do you know how many songs the modern church sings today from that verse right there do you have any songs for thousands of years the church has been singing from what job wrote that kind of faith verse 22 in all this job did not send nor charge god with wrong he's a broken man but yet his response is blessed be the name of the lord you see we often measure the goodness of god by the amount of comfort and pleasure in our lives but for job he's using an entirely different measuring stick he doesn't believe that god owes him anything job's trials continue and just when you think things couldn't get worse satan decides to attack his physical body and the bible says that job is is afflicted with painful boils from the top of his head to the soles of his feet somebody say yuck i mean can you imagine and then he does he's got no way to to get any relief there's no dr pimple popper in his day come on somebody and so it says he takes pieces of pottery broken pottery and he actually scrapes his flesh and while job is over in the corner of his house or his room or wherever he is and he's in horrible pain and he's scraping these boils this is what the woman in his life says to him job 2 and verse 9 then his wife said to him do you still hold fast to your integrity curse god and die how many are married to a woman like job no don't raise your hand don't raise your hand she's the only thing he has left in his family the only one who could comfort him and she looks at him and says why don't you just curse god and die but look at what job says to her verse 10 but he said to her you speak as one of the foolish women speaks i have memorized this verse and i use it a lot because it's biblical it's man i'm trying to help you you can say it's in the bible but don't worry your wife will pull some out on you too look at what he says though to his wife shall we indeed accept good from god and shall we not accept adversity that's a good question isn't it that's a good question in all this job did not sin with his lips he's still holding fast to his integrity still holding fast to his faith now we don't have time to cover his whole story today but we'll summarize a little bit and in job chapter 3 he goes into a deep dark depression understandably so how many think i hey i understand that right and he does have some friends that show up to comfort him and in the beginning they are just there they give him the ministry of presence and this is something our church i hope our church knows and if we don't know it let's learn it when a friend when a loved one family member someone's going through tragedy just show up and just offer them your presence that's all you got to do just be there some people say well i didn't want to go see that person because i didn't know what to say you don't have to know what to say it's okay just be there cry with them sit there with them drink a cup of coffee just give them the ministry of presence and that's what his friends start off doing but before long one by one each of his friends begins to speculate as to why job is suffering they go so far to offer sin suggestions can you imagine this we're like kyle the reason you've gone through that is because you committed this sin ron the reason you've gone through that is because you committed that sin church never do that never do that when your friends are hurting shut your mouth open your arms and take them a pot of soup somebody say amen this morning that's all they need they need you and chili that's all they need so job is now he's kind of tormented by the very people who were supposed to be comforting him darkness surrounds his life from chapter 3 to chapter 37 and in this job does he his suffering gets him to the place where he begins to question god he he didn't turn his back on god he's letting his pain drive him to prayer but he begins to question him and one of the things that he says over and over again he says you know i would just like to have a conversation with god lord if you were here right now i'd like to ask you this lord if you're here right now i'd like to i'd like to address this i'd like to know why i've gone through what i've gone through i'd like to talk about my suffering and and for 34 chapters god is silent nothing but in chapter 38 god shows up but he does not show up with a bunch of answers to job's questions he actually shows up with a bunch of questions of his own look at job 38 in verse 1. then the lord answered job out of the whirlwind what was it that that took the life of his kids it was a whirlwind god is now speaking to him through that same pain out of the world when he says verse 2 who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge god says job you question me with your words but son you don't know what you're talking about that's that's what he's saying you're coming to me and you're just you're just throwing out these questions here but you have such a limited perspective you don't even know what you're talking about in verse 3 now prepare yourself like a man god reminds him who he is he's a man prepare yourself like a man i will question you and you shall answer me does that send chills down anyone else's spine other than mine you imagine god saying that to you now prepare yourself like a man i'm going to question you and i expect answers yikes verse 4 he starts god starts asking questions and depending on how you read it and how you phrase it he asked job anywhere from 40 to 90 questions he starts here job verse 4 where were you when i laid the foundations of the earth tell me job if you have understanding job who determined its measurements surely you know joe who decided how big this planet would be were you there job or who stretched the line upon it to what were its foundations fastened job how does this planet not just spin out of control what's it fastened to job do you understand that or who laid its cornerstone verse seven when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of god shouted for joy were you there job or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth and issued from the womb when i made the clouds its garment in thick darkness its swaddling band when i fixed my limit for it and set bars and doors and when i said this far you may come but no farther and here your proud waves must stop god says when i commanded the seas to only come this far job were you standing beside me when i did that verse 12 have you commanded the mourning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place you know what god's saying there it's like hey job i don't know how old job is here but he's saying hey job how old were you when you started waking up every morning and commanding the sun to rise what's happening to job right now he's feeling really small right he's feeling really small and you might say wow what is god doing is he humiliating job no i don't think so he's revealing something to job he's trying to help him understand what we call the sovereignty of god verse 16 job have you entered the springs of the sea or have you walked in search of the depths he says job have you walked on the floor of the ocean because i have job verse 17 have the gates of death been revealed to you or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death have you comprehended the breadth of the earth tell me if you know all this job do you know what god is doing he is reminding job that god alone is god alone you ever had your kids sometimes my kids do a funny thing like this they'll walk in and they'll walk in just all proud they'll be like dad you owe me four dollars i'm like well how do i owe you four dollars well i went to the store with mom and she wanted to get some milk and bread and she didn't have any cash on her so i had four dollars and i gave him my four dollars so you owe me four dollars i usually have a job 38 moment and i'll say where were you when i made out the mortgage payment this month where were you when i paid the property taxes where were you when the house insurance was automatically deducted where were you when i spent a thousand dollars at devler's ice cream this summer where were you anyone ever had that conversation with your kids sometimes you just got to remind them that you are mom you are dead god is reminding job that he is merely a man and god is god all by himself [Applause] and he proceeds to ask job questions he asked him questions on everything from the sun and the stars in the oceans and then he asked him a question about the birthing habits of mountain goats it's in there it's in the bible but why because he's wanting him to see how big god really is and how small job really is job spends 34 questions questioning or 34 chapters questioning god about the suffering in his life but god he doesn't respond with an explanation he responds with questions of his own he knows that job can't answer these but he is revealing himself as the sovereign lord over everything and over these past 18 months i don't know what about you but there have there have been times like maybe four times a day at least where i feel like this world has gone totally crazy anyone else in the house anyone else here i i have felt like this world is nothing but chaos and that it's spinning out of control but as i re-read job's story this week and god's response to his suffering i am pleasantly reminded of the sovereignty of our god and i said well pastor what does that mean we don't use the word sovereign much in our day in our language and no we don't but when i say that god is sovereign what we're really saying is that god is lord over all he is lord over all all means all so right now even though the world looks like chaos it is still under his control you see we just happen to be living in a time where god is allowing us to see just how small we really are as i've watched the world try to respond to this pandemic it just reminds me of how powerless we truly are i mean we wear masks and we wash our hands and we social distance and i'm not opposed to those things but we've not been able to stop this virus we shame one another we blame one another we quote follow the science we virtue signal signal but the virus it race it just rages on we were told that the vaccine would be our answer but now we know that at its best it's going to minimize your symptoms i'm glad for that it's helping some people but you know what even if you've been vaccinated you can still get the virus you can still transmit the virus the point is of my message is not to make a statement on the vaccine the point of my message is to say we are not as smart or as powerful as we think we are and if the united states of america wants to find a cure to anything we ought to hit our knees and beg god for forgiveness and mercy for the things that we do in this nation over and over and over again that continually break his heart he owes us nothing you understand he owes us nothing he's god and we continually spit in his face and mock his name and then ask the lord to bless us if we want to be blessed we must repent just in the headlines of the past few weeks we've seen the u.s military the strongest fighting force on the planet but we find ourselves in a position where we have to ask permission of terrorists to evacuate our own citizens from afghanistan friends my point it's not about the pandemic it's not about the military the point is we need to see how small we really are we need to humble ourselves but in the same breath we need to reassure ourselves of how big our god is and there is nothing no thing not a thing happening on this planet right now that is not under the authority of the lord jesus christ nothing nothing i'm not saying that he causes our suffering i'm not saying this is a punishment to us but i just want to remind somebody this morning who is filled with worry i want to talk to somebody whose anxiety is through the roof i want to talk to someone else who is stressed out and i want to say to you that yes this world is in chaos but it's not out of control covet is real but it does not rule war is real but it does not rule fear is real but it does not rule jesus christ rules over all politicians are real unfortunately but even they do not have ultimate authority and god will even use chaos to accomplish his will you know what our problem is sometimes we have we are stuck we are plagued we are cursed with the man upstairs syndrome what am i saying i'm saying we've made god too small in our eyes we see god is just a little bit smarter than us we see him as just a little stronger than us we see him as just a little bigger than us we call him the man upstairs but can i remind you brother that god is not a man and he does not live in your attic he's god all by himself he's god he spoke the earth into existence that grew the trees that built your stairs and today he's not upstairs but he sits on a throne in the heavens and he props his feet up on the earth the earth is his footstool come on give him praise this morning you see some of us are so stressed out right now because of what we see in the news because of what we see on social media but i just want to remind you of another time that looked like it was out of control read our bibles there's a prayer meeting late at night somebody shows up some soldiers and some torches and they interrupt the late night prayer meeting and the guy whispers to the soldiers and he says the one i kiss on the cheek that's the christ apprehend him take him into custody and judas walks up and he he puts those evil lips on the cheek of jesus christ and chaos ensues or seemingly so and they take our lord into custody and they beat him and they falsely accuse him and they they go through this rigged trial and they whip him and they crucify him and in that hour he cries out to his father my god my god why have you forsaken me on that day the skies darkened his mother watched him die in horror his followers they hid in fear thinking they're going to be next and so friends on that friday it appears like the world is in chaos that the world is out of control it looked like god was dead on friday but on sunday there was a rumbling and the prince of peace the lord of glory came walking out of his tomb showing there is nothing that happens on this planet that he does not rule and reign over he is the god who is sovereign who rules over all give him thanks and praise today that you and i live in the palm of his hand on that day the roman torture rack became the old rugged cross it looks chaotic looked like god had lost but really he's just being god he's just being sovereign theologians define the sovereignty of god in many ways but i'm just a simple man and the best way i can understand is the words of a song i learned when i was five years old he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world some of us you know we need to do we need to turn off the news get up off the couch spend too much time there start walking around your house see he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world some of us need to get off of social media and remind ourselves he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands you just want to clap you like yes that's the sovereignty of god and he said this no one can snatch you out of my hands friends if you're suffering today i am sorry and i don't want you to walk away from this message with an idea that i'm saying that suffering was sent by god there's some there's some reasons for suffering in this world some suffering is an attack of satan that's what happened in job's life some suffering is a mystery we don't know why it happens but i do want you to be encouraged that god is big and i know you feel small in your time of suffering god is good even in bad times and we have a blessed assurance that he is ultimately working out his plan of redemption in every one of our lives at the end of god's 90 questions or so job concluded this john 42 and verse 1. then job answered the lord i want you to imagine god has just asked you 90 questions you can't answer and here's job's response i know god that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you you know what job's saying he's got the whole world in his hands that's what he's saying sometimes i talk to people and and they'll ask why why did this happen why did that happen again it's okay to ask why jesus asks why on the cross his darkest moment he asks why it's okay to ask why but but sometimes they'll say you know pastor when i get to heaven i'll understand and i always throw this in i say yeah or it won't matter because i believe when we stand in the presence of almighty god when we stand in the presence of the one who bled and died for us the one who redeemed us the one who bought us back out of sin the one who redeemed us from slavery purchased us by his own blood i believe when we stand before him nothing else will matter i read a quote from c.s lewis this week a pastor friend of mine posted it i thought boy that this is good it's written in 1948 and people were concerned because we were entering into this atomic age and you know nuclear weapons and all this and and they asked him they said how are we to live in an atomic age he said i'm tempted to reply why do you ask this question you should live as as people lived in the 16th century when the plague visited london almost every year or when if you had lived in a viking age when raiders from scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night or indeed as you have already lived in the age of cancer or the age of chronic pain or of paralysis or an age of rare air raids or an age of railway accidents or motor vehicle accidents in other words do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation saying church america this is not the first time we've faced hard times believe me dear sir matter madam you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented and quite a high percentage of us will die in unpleasant ways it is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of a painful and premature death to a world which already is brittled or bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all but a certainty he says here's his last words of advice the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together if we're going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb let the bomb come when it finds us doing sensible and human things like praying working teaching reading listening to music bathing the children playing tennis chatting to our friends over a pint of sweet tea and a game of darts not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about death they may break our bodies a microbe can do that but they need not dominate our minds why he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands will you stand with me today c.s lewis quote says death is certain it is it is some churches has become unpopular to talk about what happens after we die it's become offensive to even mention the word hell [Music] but i don't know who was all in the room this morning i don't know where you're at where you've come from i don't know what your background is i don't know what you know i don't know what you believe but here's what the bible teaches that all of us are going to live forever somewhere and i don't bring up hell to scare somebody into heaven because i don't think you get scared into heaven but i'm telling you if a loving god who stepped into our world took on human flesh was betrayed beaten crucified tortured to pay the price for our sin if he did all that and then he said i go to prepare a place for you and he describes this place as beautiful and awesome it's a family of god it's a house of god if he did all that for you and you have a choice to make heaven your eternal home or hell brother choose heaven amen sister choose heaven right that's just not a matter it's not a matter of fear it's a matter of faith that's a matter of love god loves you into his kingdom god loves me into his eternity and if you're with us this morning and you don't have a personal relationship with jesus christ today is your day you can start right now i don't care where you've been what you've done i don't care what you did last night i don't care what you looked at this morning i'm telling you right now the blood of jesus is available for you and you can begin again you can start over today you can be born again yes will you pray with me if you're here today and you don't have that personal relationship and you need to start it right now is your moment say lord jesus forgive me of my sin cleanse me of my past lord i want to know you i want to do life with you i want my life to matter i want to use the gifts you've given me to serve you i want to spend eternity with you just express your heart to the lord he'll never turn you away i'm going to ask my wife to come and pray over the message today that god will help each of us to truly have a revelation of his sovereignty to truly understand that we live in the palm of his hand lord we surrender we surrender our lives to you we surrender every decision that we make right now to you god we ask you to forgive us forgive us for every time that we thought that we could control what is going on forgive us for every time that we opened our mouth when we should have closed it forgive us for every time that we moved our feet when our feet should have been planted firmly your word says your word says that you are the giver of life we are not there is no ability within us to create life it comes from you you breathe life so god right now we ask you to forgive us for thinking that we could control what is going on around us and we ask you lord we ask you to take our lives every single one of us each and every day we ask you to take our lives take the mess that we have take all the suffering that we have all the pain all the sorrow all the sickness all the disease take what is going on in our lives that we cannot control and create something beautiful something miraculous out of it just like you take that baby in the womb and you give it a heartbeat that's something that we can't do we can't do that god we ask you to take what we have in our hands and make something beautiful out of it god in this upcoming week as we step out of our homes as we step into schools as we step into jobs and businesses as we go about our daily lives help us to remember that we are just here to minister to who you have in front of us give us the words to say give us a heart for people that we would see them as lost and hurting souls that we would remember to ask you to guide our steps we thank you for all that you're doing in our lives in jesus name amen church have a good week we'll see you back here next week [Music] you

Channel: Crossroads Church

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Length: 77min 28sec (4648 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021