One of our elders, Matt VanderKooi, preached this message on July 21, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
Good morning.
So several months ago, Pastor Robert said he was going to be gone in July, and he asked if any of the elders would be willing to bring the message on one of the Sundays. I avoided eye contact. I felt like a kid in class that hadn’t done his homework. And I said, don’t ask me, don’t ask me, don’t ask me. But at the same time, I did feel a prodding of the Holy Spirit.
And I hate it when he prods me because often when that happens, I’m put into an uncomfortable position this morning. But I was convicted to bring this message to you this morning on finding hope and peace. And I struggle with these things. So you’re going to be hearing about things that I struggle with.
At our church, an elder may occasionally bring the message. An elder, according to Titus, must be able to teach sound doctrine. And that is what I will intend to do this morning. Would you pray with me briefly. Dear Lord, thank you for this morning and the privilege that we have of being here.
Thank you so much for your word. May I proclaim it truthfully. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you. Holy Spirit, please do your thing this morning. Jesus name.
Amen. All right, so we’ll be talking about hope and peace this morning. And you can reach me by the way if you have questions on this message. I put it really small in the font so you can’t read it. I see it so small.
It’s mattvdcoymail.com but so feel free to reach out to me if you have questions. Questions.
We are going to start out talking about the American Dream. You’re going to hear a lot about the American Dream over the next few months. You’re going to hear a ton about it and how you elect the right person, you can get it back. But the American Dream, we’re told that we can have it all. We do live in a great country.
We do have incredible opportunity here. It’s amazing, the opportunity that we have and the American Dream, there’s some good things about it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some good things. But when we take the American dream and we pursue that, our goal, our destination, because we are told that if you want it, you can have it. If you dream it, you can achieve it.
All you have to do is set your goals there, your sights there. You work hard enough and you can have it. The American dream, that new home place on the lake when you’re getting close to retirement, the new truck when you Save the down payment. The trailer and motorhome that you can travel around the country with in retirement. The Ronaldo physique.
You can achieve your athletic dreams. You can achieve what you want. If you work hard enough at it, you can do anything. The family, the Facebook family. You can have it.
The perfect wedding. You can have that, too. Yet we turn around. We’re told we can have it all by Madison Avenue. Yet we turn around and we see reality.
We see decay. We see the new home breaking down. We see injury, disease, divorce, estrangement, death. Who knew that the lake house could actually flow right into the Wisconsin river when Lake Dalton floods? Who would have thought that would ever happen, right?
That new truck, you drive it off the lot, sometimes it gets crashed, and sometimes you go to Walmart and you get that first door ding. The trailer can blow away. The ACL can get ruptured. All the athletic dreams can be gone in an instant. The perfect family.
You once thought you could have it. Now it seems so far away.
Being able to dance in high heels has now become a hard time walking with a walker in flats. We all see this. We see that we should be able to have the American dream, but we see this other thing happening. What is this other thing that’s happening? Well, it’s actually.
There’s actually a scientific law that describes it. That’s something called entropy. The second law of thermodynamics states that the universe is gradually moving to disorder. That’s enough to make somebody feel anxious, is it not? Everything is going to disorder.
Solomon sensed this tension. He wrote in Ecclesiastes, I denied myself nothing my eyes desire. I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward of my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to do and to achieve, everything was meaningless.
It was a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained after the sun. The pursuit of the temporal, it is chasing after the wind. He further goes on to say, I hated all my toil, seeing that I must leave it all to the man who will come after me. And then in chapter three, he says, he has made everything beautiful in his time, and he has put eternity into man’s heart.
We know that there’s something more than the temporal, than what we see. We feel it. We know that there’s something more. There has to be something more. And yet around us, we hear of wars, rumors of wars.
Then Jesus says, but see to it that you are not alarmed. How can we not be Alarmed. Such things must happen. But the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. And we’re not to be alarmed.
We’re going to be talking this morning about a cure for the anxiousness that we all feel from time to time. Anxiousness. According to ChatGPT, which I like ChatGPT, it’s a state characterized by feelings of worry or nervousness or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. Everything in this world is an uncertain outcome, except for death. That is a very certain outcome.
We all feel it, right? We feel our bodies wasting away as we get older. And if we don’t know what’s going to happen when we die, that’s very scary thing. If that is uncertain. We’re going to be talking about this this morning.
What I’m not talking about this morning, though, is clinical anxiety disorder. I’m not talking about that God has victory over that. You can have victory over that as well. But I’m not talking about a chemical, physiological thing that happens for no reason. What I’m talking about is the worry, the doubt, the anxiety that we all fear that we all feel.
And we can have victory over finding hope and peace. I’m going to share a story with you this morning because I was encouraged to share this with you Friday when I was having coffee with a colleague of mine who was also a brother in Christ. He encouraged me to share this story as an example of how we can have peace. An example of peace that it can sometimes come dramatically. It can sometimes come simply with simply being able to sleep, but sometimes it can come dramatically.
And I’ll share with you a story about that in my life. And the other reason I want to share this for you is because I’m going to tell you this morning that your peace and your hope comes in something you can’t see. It’s not the temporal, it’s not around you. It’s not the physical, but it’s something you can’t see. And you may say, well, how can I trust and hope in something I can’t see?
I need a see. I need a see to believe. Well, you believe in air. Do you believe in gravity? Do you believe in the waves that allow your cell phone to work?
You believe in all the things that you can’t see, all those sound waves you can’t even hear. Do you believe that those things exist? God has put his evidence all around you. It’s all around you. His evidence is there, and his evidence is also in our lives.
His evidence is also sometimes in the little piece that he gives us. And I’m going to share you a story about that, because I see God working in my life, and I know you can see him, too. A couple years ago, I was coaching ski racing out at Cascade, and it’s something I do on the side. It’s one of my things I love to do. And I shattered my finger.
And that was on a Saturday. And the next Saturday, I was supposed to go to Michigan to ski with my son, Ian. I. And it’s something I love to do. I did not want to miss that.
It’s a special time for me and my son. And I was supposed to have surgery on Thursday to repair my finger. And I said to the doctor, and I knew that if I went under anesthesia, I wasn’t getting to Michigan because I don’t do well. So I said, can you do this under a local anesthetic? And he looked at me a little funny and said, sure.
Okay, I’ll do it. So he does it under a local. And I’m in the operating room, and I’ve seen the X rays of my shattered finger, and they’re starting to pull around my arm. I can’t feel what’s happening on my hand, but I can feel my arm getting pulled around. And I can hear what they’re doing.
I can hear them putting a plate and a bunch of screws in my finger. And I start to get freaked out. I mean, I just got really uncomfortable. Like, what did I do this for? I got really, really uncomfortable.
And I said, lord, please give me peace. Please give me peace. I felt a rush like I’ve never felt before. It was a whoosh. It was.
It was incredible. I’ve never felt anything like it. Never felt anything since. And it lasted for about a minute afterwards, I felt a normal peace. I just wasn’t nervous at all.
It was just that. That kind of peace. But it was just so incredible. And five minutes later in the surgery, I said, lord, can you give me that feeling again? That was so cool.
Can you do that again? He didn’t. He didn’t. But it was that kind of moment. Sometimes we have those kinds of moment moments, and sometimes it can simply be not worrying any more that he gives us.
But we’re going to get into our passage now. Matthew 6, 1934. We’re going to dig into this just a little bit. So Matthew 6, 1934. This is a section of the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is recorded in Matthew 5:7 and the Sermon on the Mount is to tell us what it’s like to. What it should be like to live in the kingdom of God and what our Christian life should be. And this particular section is a section that’s telling us not to doubt. That is the context of Matthew. And something else that’s fascinating about the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew has arranged the gospel in five parts. He’s taking Jesus teaching and put him in five different parts. This gospel is written primarily to a Jewish audience. And those five parts mirrors the first five books of the Bible. And Moses was the mediator of those first five books, the first covenant.
And Matthew is trying to show the Jewish audience that Jesus is this mediator of a brand new covenant, a better covenant. Jesus is a better mediator than Moses. And Jesus actually is the fulfillment of the prophecies in Deuteronomy. That’s what Matthew is going to show. So this gospel, the more you dig into the Bible, the more amazed you will be by it.
I just want to tell you that. So we’re going to dig now deeper into this passage about do not doubt. About not doubting. So Matthew 6:19 through 21 says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust and destroy. Thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Switch the next slide, please. Matthew. That’s the one. It feels good sometimes, right? I mean, the temporal thing, the promotions feel good.
The new car smells good. The accomplishments, the athletic accomplishments, they feel good. They feel good. And there’s nothing wrong with enjoying those things in their context. All these things, the American dreams things, they’re.
They’re gifts from God. They’re gifts, but they’re temporary. They don’t last. The dress gets stained with ketchup the first time you wear it. That driver dings your car.
There’s bad people all around. So we can’t just chase that good feeling again and again and again if we want peace. Solomon talks about that as the striving after wind. You’ll never catch it. But there’s treasures in heaven.
These things are eternal. Hebrews tells us that we have an enduring possession. So in the book of Hebrews it says, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession, an eternal thing. We can have an eternal thing. Treasures in heaven.
How do we store these things up? How do we store up treasures in heaven? The Gospel Coalition gave me some answers to this when I was Searching this out and storing up treasures in heaven is written about in Matthew 6 and 7, actually, which is pretty interesting. All the things there. When you’re humble and pure in heart, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, when you show mercy, when you make peace, when you’re light in the world, when you follow God’s command, when you resist anger, when you love your enemies, when you give to the needy discreetly, when you pray for God’s kingdom to come, when you forgive, when you fast, when you pray, when you come to church, when you’re not unfairly judgmental, all of these things are storing up treasures in heaven, things that are eternal.
Now let’s go to Matthew 6:22, 23. This part of the passage goes a little further and says, the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?
This is a little bit of a tough passage for me. Tough couple of verses. I really didn’t know what they meant, so I had to look into this a little further. Use Matthew Henry’s commentary, DA Carson’s commentary, my Reformation study Bible. All these things helped me understand this part of the passage.
And what the commentators are saying here is that if your eye or your heart is on heaven, your body will be full of light, good things, hope, peace.
But if your eye or your heart is on the world, the expectation then is darkness. Your whole body will be full of darkness, frustration, hopeless despair and anxiety. Another commentator stated that your eye sets the direction of your body. Where you look, your body will go. So if your eye is again on heaven, eternal things, again, your body will be full of light, peace and hope.
But if your eye, the direction of your body is going towards the world, your whole body will be full of darkness, frustration, hopelessness, despair and anxiety. Matthew 6:24. He takes this teaching and goes a little further into it. He’s gone from, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but treasures in heaven. Put your eye on things of light, not things of darkness.
And now he goes a step further and says, no one can serve two masters. Jesus says, for he either will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Many people think that they’re the master of their own domains. Again, just do whatever you want.
Whatever your dreams are, you follow those things. You can have it. You can have it all.
Luke 12:16 21 is the parable that Jesus taught about the rich man. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods, my boats, my trucks, my cars, my tractors. I added the last part. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.
You have an IRA, you have a 401k. You have stocks, bonds, mutual funds. I added that part too. Relax, eat, drink and be merry, the rich man says. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. God, who is your master serving success. Psalm 127:1 2. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stay awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. There’s a lot in there and anxiety in that little psalm, right?
If you’re just working for things of this world, God’s not watching over your house, over your labor. It’s all in vain. It’s all chasing after the wind. The result is anxiousness, lack of sleep.
This feeling of anxiety, this feeling, feeling of worry, this feeling of doubt. If you feel it may not necessarily be a bad thing, it may be telling you something, that something’s not right, something’s not right in your heart.
It may be telling you that you are pursuing things of this world, and you’re making those things your God. And if you are making those things, things in this world your God, it is a very big deal. In fact, it’s cosmic treason.
R.C. sproul described our sin as cosmic treason. It’s a rebellion against God. Do you all know what the first commandment is? Anyone know what the first commandment is?
You can say it if you know. It says, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Jesus, when asked to summarize the law in Mark, said, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
When we are searching after things of this world, and that’s our goal, that’s our pursuit, we are going after other Gods. And it is a very, very, very big deal.
We often in Christian circles can be disgusted about what we see happening in the world. We can be disgusted about the sexual stuff that’s going on out there, and we can focus on that and be rightly disgusted. But we can just look there and forget sometimes about what’s going on in our own lives and our own hearts and forget the fact that we in ourselves are being what James would call in four, four adulteress. Isn’t that interesting, James? Four, four.
He’s talking to God’s people here, and he says, you adulterous people, God’s covenant people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend, friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God. In the Old Testament, the prophets, they prophesied the people of God, God’s covenant community. They’re in a covenant relationship with God.
And they also describe what the people are doing as actually whoring, going after things that are not at all whole. The Bible is very interesting, how it uses marriage and how it talks about marriage. Marriage is described first in the book of Genesis, and it says a mother or a husband, a man or a woman. It says a man and woman should leave their father and mother, and the two should become one flesh, spiritually and physically. And it’s a holy covenant.
It’s a holy communion. And interestingly, in the New Testament, it uses marriage as a metaphor where Christ is the groom and the church, us, we are the bride. We are in a covenant relationship with God. And when we go after other gods, and that’s what it is when we chase things of this world as our primary priority, we are committing, metaphorically, adultery, breaking the covenant. So that’s a big deal.
The more I dug into this, the more I realized how big of a deal it is. And what’s the penalty of this cosmic treason? What’s the penalty of treason? What is it? In any country?
Any country, the penalty of treason is described in the first part of Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin. Sin is death. That’s a penalty for idolatry, for chasing after other gods. Fortunately for us, there’s good news which can fix all of our anxiety, all of our fears.
There’s a free gift of God. It’s eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a free gift, regardless of our sin, our idolatry. It’s free, absolutely free. You don’t have to do anything to earn it.
That’s craziness. That’s Awesomeness, that’s freedom from anxiety. And because of this Good news, Matthew 6:25 33, we should not be anxious. Jesus says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? Even your days on this earth are not in your control.
Your days are numbered. You will live as long as God wants you to live, we can rest in him. You have some control of your health span. How healthy you’re going to live, but not your lifespan. God will determine your days.
In Psalms 139, 1316 says, for you formed my inward parts you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. From womb to tomb, Jesus had you and he has you. And if you are in him, if you’ve accepted his gift, he has you for eternity.
Matthew 6:28 32 says, why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so loves hold on, I missed my spot here.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
Romans 8:15 says, we can cry out to God, abba, father, our Heavenly Father. This Abba, who we can call, that’s a relationship of a child to a daddy.
If we are in Christ, we can say, daddy, I’m struggling today, Daddy, I don’t know where I’m going to get my next meal. Daddy, I don’t know what work’s going to do. Daddy, I cannot handle this relationship. Daddy, help me. God says, my child, I have you wraps us right in his arms.
This passage says a lot about or material things, food, drink, clothing. Philippians 4, 6, 7 goes a little further it says, do not be anxious about what? Anything but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. When you pray to God, your problems may not necessarily go away, but that peace of God will be given to you.
It’s that peace. The tone of this passage in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not a tone. That is. Yeah, I get it, you’re anxious.
It’s okay to be a little anxious. Yeah, we’re all anxious sometimes. That’s not the tone in it, is it? It’s ou of little fear faith. Your heavenly Father knows you need them.
And it’s almost this, guys, if you’re being anxious, it’s ridiculous. I’ve got it.
But I told you earlier, I struggle with this. I know these things, I know these truths, but I still struggle with worry and doubt and anxiety.
In 2002, my wife Ann and I felt called to start a physical therapy private practice. We had a one year old at home. We had a second one on the way. We had all the bills and all that kind of stuff. We took a second mortgage on our home and we got a small business loan and we had six months of business expenses and six months of living expense expenses.
And after that we were either bankrupt or making it. I had this Philippians passage up on the wall in the place we rented. And I could tell you stories about how God worked on this business. The start of it was amazing. But I had this passage up on the wall I meditated on every day.
I was not worried, I was not anxious, I felt very little doubt. And. And yet 20 years later, God has sustained the business. It’s grown, the debt is paid off and there’s times I feel more anxious. Now I’m like, what?
I get so frustrated, right? I mean, it’s so frustrating. We know better, but. But that is who we are, right? We get anxious.
Jesus knows that, so he gives us this command and tells us that, okay, that’s ridiculous to be anxious. But I know you’re going to struggle, so I’m going to tell you all not to struggle and I’m going to Continue. In Matthew 6:33 and in Matthew 6:33 it talks about seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. That’s the promise. These things will be added to you.
If we seek first his kingdom and we seek first his. His righteousness Then all these things will be added to us. Then we won’t have the peace. Then we will have the peace. We won’t have the anxiety the Lord will provide.
But if you want the peace, you have to seek what is seeking In Hebrew, this word that is used is search out by any method. That was from Christianity.com. it’s a. It’s an advancing, it’s a pressing, it’s a driving forward, it’s a quest. That’s what seeking is.
It’s focusing there with single mindedness. And what should we be seeking? The Kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? What is that?
It’s where God is sovereign and where he reigns. God’s kingdom was begun. His messianic kingdom came down. It started with the first coming of Christ. The messianic reign here on earth came with the first coming of Christ.
It was inaugurated the coming of the kingdom of God. It will be consummated and completed on his second coming. So we haven’t already the kingdom has come and we have a not yet. When it is not brought to its full completion. That’s the time we are living in now.
Mark 1:15 says, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So Jesus was saying, I am the kingdom here. I am. I am here now.
Revelations 11:15 talks about when the kingdom will be finally fulfilled. The messianic reign will be perfect. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. So seek this kingdom. That’s where we need to be focused.
Some interesting things about the church. I want to just touch on this a little bit in regards to the Kingdom of God. We are in a time in history described as a great de churching by some. So many people are leaving the church. In the Western world, the church has a very important purpose.
One of the things that’s awesome about church is when we come to church, we just come in and rest. All the world’s out there. We’re here. The kingdom of God.
The kingdom creates the church. It is the fellowship of the kingdom of God today. That’s why we can come in here and just breathe and rest. It’s our break from the world. The church is a witness to the kingdom.
The church is the instrument of the kingdom of God. The church is the custodian of the kingdom. For the church has been given the keys of the kingdom. Of heaven. Matthew 16:19.
Wayne Grudem has described all this in his Systematic Theology book, and he also says, the kingdom manifests itself through the church, and thereby the future reign of God breaks into the present. It’s pretty awesome. The church is pretty awesome. What a gift. We have to be here.
What are you seeking? The kingdom. Other things. You’re told to seek the kingdom, but also Christ’s righteousness. We’re supposed to seek his righteousness.
Now, when you read that, what does that mean, to seek his righteousness? It does not mean try hard to be better. It does not mean try harder to not be anxious. Nowhere are you told here that you can just do this on your own. Seeking his righteousness is not about trying harder.
Seeking his righteousness is this. Isaiah 61:10 says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has cle. Clothed me with the garments of salvation. What are the garments of salvation?
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.
So that’s interesting. That’s his righteousness. Romans 3:21, 22. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, that’s the free gift.
The righteousness of God through faith for all who believe, there is no distinction. 2nd Corinthians 5:21. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
So all these things in our sin. And we are guilty, all of us, of sin. We are all guilty, every one of us, of idolatry at one point or another in our lives. We’ve all been guilty of having other gods before our God, our Jehovah God. We’re all guilty of it.
If we come to God in our sin, we will be destroyed. Burned up, totally destroyed. Moses wanted to see God’s face in the Old Testament. God said, you cannot see my face and live. Why?
Because he’s in his sin. God said, you can see my back. In our sin, we have no chance. But if we’re covered with the robe of righteousness, if we come to God wrapped up in that, and that’s something called imputation. If we’re wrapped up in that, and we will be, if we believe in the last day, God will see you, and he will say, child, come into my presence.
And we can rush into his arms then. And we can rush into his arms now.
That is amazing. That is good news. Jesus took all of our sin. He took it all. If we believe.
Acts 16:30, 31 says, and this was Paul and Silas with the jailer. The jailer said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? What can I do to not be burned up? What can I do to get away from all this anxiety, all this stuff? And he said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
You and your household believe in the Lord Jesus. How do you believe? What does it mean to believe? What does it mean? You have to know the facts.
The facts are, you are a sinner, I am a sinner by birth and by choice that deserves death. But Jesus came, lived a perfect life in our place. He died on the cross. He took all of our sins, paid for all of them, defeated sin, rose from the dead on the third day. He’s given us victory over sin and eternal life.
If we believe in that, we have to know those facts. We have to believe those facts are true. And we have to trust them for our salvation. Not in our own works, not in what we do. We have to trust in what Jesus did.
That’s it. That’s it. Free gift.
If we focus on that, that’s seeking Christ’s righteousness as we do that, all of our anxieties will go away.
They can all be one. We can defeat them all.
Matthew 6:34 says, Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for this day is its own trouble. In John 6:33, Jesus said, I tell you these things so you may have peace. We may have peace.
He didn’t say, all the things go away. He goes on further. He said, because in this world you will have trouble, tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.
That is the good news I mentioned. Friday morning I was in a coffee shop having coffee with my Christian brother and finished that great time. It was just awesome. I thought we were going to talk about business. We end up talking about Jesus for an hour and a half, two hours.
It’s awesome. I was thinking about this message and I was also thinking a little bit about that. You know, this is coming up here is a bit unnerving for me. So I was thinking about this and I was thinking that desperately we need to seek God’s kingdom. Desperately we need Jesus.
We desperately need him. And going to share something with you. I’m an 80s child. I was a rocker, 80s child. I love driving guitar loud.
Okay. So just know that. Okay. And my current bands, I like Skillet. I like Cutlass.
I like all of those loud ones. I was walking to the car and I said, lord, I probably shouldn’t ask this, but, God, it would be really, really cool. And you could show me that you’re with me if you wanted to do this. It would be really, really cool that if I get in the car and I start the radio and I put it on, if you could just play this song next, that would be really cool. You show me that you’re really with me and it would really help with me and my anxiousness.
And the words of this song are, desperately I need you, Jesus, Desperately I want you Desperately I need you. Desperately I need a love that stands through it all. So I start my playlist and it’s finishing up the previous song. And then all of a sudden I hear this.
That’s my song right there. It starts playing, it starts rocking, and it was awesome. And I said, God, you are so cool. But again, he does that for us. He does that for us.
He’s done it for me again and again. And I still forget. I still need to come back here. I still need to read it all the time, pray about it, be in church. I need all these things because I forget.
But it’s there for us all because we have a peace, we have a hope. And Revelations 21:1 4, this is my favorite passage in all the Bible says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eye, Wipe it away and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away. Through it all, we have this hope. Seek it the kingdom of God.
Seek it his righteousness. It’s there for you. If you’re a believer, come back and just rest in it. If you’re not a believer, please, please put. Please believe this hope and this peace is here for you.
Please pray with me.
God. You are an awesome God. Your holiness, your majesty, what you’ve created, we see your power all around us. You are so awesome, so huge, so holy. And you, yet you love us so much.
You love us so much that you gave us your son to die for us so that we could live eternally with you. You gave us hope. And you gave us a peace. And you have shown us how we can have it here today.
Thank you for what you’ve done in us. Please bless us in the upcoming week that we may live in your peace and your hope in Jesus.