Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / The-Cup-That-He-Drank-Part-3
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: There's a difference between believing in Jesus Christ and truly
- 0:12Speaker 1: following him. Most of us have made the first move.
- 0:16Speaker 1: But discipleship, that deep daily surrender of your own will,
- 0:20Speaker 1: that's another journey altogether, and it costs something.
- 0:25Speaker 2: Today.
- 0:25Speaker 1: On Insight for Living, Chuck Swindaul will identify four truths
- 0:29Speaker 1: every sincere follower Christ needs to hear. Truth's not learned
- 0:33Speaker 1: in a classroom, but in the crucible of real life.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Let's get started. As Chuck opens his Bible to John
- 0:40Speaker 1: chapter eighteen to present a message titled the Cup that
- 0:44Speaker 1: He Drank.
- 0:53Speaker 3: Turn to John chapter eighteen. Will you do that? John eighteen?
- 0:59Speaker 3: Now threatening situation here the setting verses one to three.
- 1:04Speaker 3: They've had the last meal together Jesus and his followers.
- 1:08Speaker 3: The upper room teaching is over. It's not included here.
- 1:13Speaker 3: In fact, it just says in verse one of when
- 1:16Speaker 3: Jesus had finished these words, no doubt, referring to his
- 1:21Speaker 3: teaching in that last Supper as well as his prayer
- 1:25Speaker 3: as he's on his way to the garden of gathsemone,
- 1:28Speaker 3: just before he's taken under arrest, his prayer to the
- 1:32Speaker 3: Father is completed. He and his eleven remain together, and
- 1:37Speaker 3: they're making their way to the garden of gathsemone verse four,
- 1:44Speaker 3: knowing all the things that were coming upon him. By
- 1:51Speaker 3: the way. In the distance, he can hear the clatter
- 1:55Speaker 3: of the swords and the chains, and the sight of
- 1:59Speaker 3: the torch is flickering in the darkness. Verse three concludes
- 2:04Speaker 3: they came with lanterns and torches and weapons. Why they
- 2:08Speaker 3: expected to fight? Look at the surprising surrender. Whom do
- 2:14Speaker 3: you seek? Look at this, they say, Jesus the Nazarene.
- 2:18Speaker 3: He said, I am he.
- 2:21Speaker 2: That's me.
- 2:24Speaker 3: Judas was also standing with them, and when he said
- 2:27Speaker 3: to them verse six, I am he, they drew back
- 2:30Speaker 3: and fell to the ground. He said to them, I
- 2:34Speaker 3: am he. And so they they're picking themselves up off
- 2:39Speaker 3: the ground. And so he says to them, helping them
- 2:42Speaker 3: back up, I mean, have you up there?
- 2:44Speaker 2: Who do you seek?
- 2:45Speaker 3: Jesus the Nazarene, I am he. I'm the one. And
- 2:53Speaker 3: since I'm the one, let these others go their way.
- 2:57Speaker 3: Release them now, Simon, Peter, don't you love these little
- 3:02Speaker 3: vid yettes? When Simon shows up, so.
- 3:07Speaker 2: And what he does.
- 3:08Speaker 3: He takes one of these little two edged swords, one
- 3:10Speaker 3: that appears on the front of the Bible. Here this
- 3:12Speaker 3: machira and lifts it over his head, comes down on
- 3:17Speaker 3: a helmet, and he severs an ear and Peter, don't
- 3:24Speaker 3: do that kind of thing. You know why he did it,
- 3:28Speaker 3: because he's not a disciple. You fight your own battles
- 3:32Speaker 3: in the flesh. You do things that are stupid, dumb things,
- 3:36Speaker 3: rash things, sometime improper things because you're not being led
- 3:44Speaker 3: deeply by the Lord. You're being led by your own will.
- 3:49Speaker 3: I mean, you love my illustrations about this, but when
- 3:52Speaker 3: we drive, it kicks in just automatically. You've been in
- 3:59Speaker 3: traffic and you want trying to get there, and then
- 4:01Speaker 3: some dude pulls in.
- 4:04Speaker 2: How few of us go, please, not a problem?
- 4:09Speaker 3: Come on someone else? Yeah, yeah, come on, because if
- 4:13Speaker 3: you do that, the guy behind you gone on. Get
- 4:16Speaker 3: in the brain. Why because we want to stay in
- 4:19Speaker 3: the lane. I also think we'll almost give up our
- 4:21Speaker 3: lives for one space and traffic. Ly, it's unbelievable. Why
- 4:26Speaker 3: because we're selfish. Suddenly you've gotten into a real world stuff.
- 4:32Speaker 3: Multiply that by one hundred different examples, and you know
- 4:35Speaker 3: what I'm talking about. In life, Before we cluck our
- 4:40Speaker 3: tongues at Peter for cutting off his dude's ear. We've
- 4:43Speaker 3: got to realize we've cut off a lot of ears
- 4:45Speaker 3: in the fletish. We're good at that, and invariably, if
- 4:51Speaker 3: our heart is right, a little later, we regret it,
- 4:54Speaker 3: deeply regretted.
- 4:59Speaker 2: Jesus.
- 5:00Speaker 3: He spends all three and a half years mentoring Peter.
- 5:04Speaker 3: So he says to Peter, put the sword into the sheath.
- 5:11Speaker 3: Now I have the feeling forgive this if I'm out
- 5:13Speaker 3: of bounds here. I don't think he just said, Peter,
- 5:18Speaker 3: please put up the sword. I think he got a
- 5:24Speaker 3: little exercised. Shall we say, put the sword away? I
- 5:32Speaker 3: learned when I was growing up, and when my mother
- 5:33Speaker 3: gritted her teeth and called my middle name not a
- 5:40Speaker 3: good plant, not a good time to be alive. And
- 5:45Speaker 3: if Peter had a middle name, that's where he came
- 5:46Speaker 3: in right there. In fact, he uses it for the
- 5:51Speaker 3: great sentence, the question the cup the father has given me?
- 5:56Speaker 3: Look at that, not the one I came up with,
- 6:01Speaker 3: The cup which the Father has given me? Shall I
- 6:05Speaker 3: not drink it? The cup? The cup? Those are the
- 6:11Speaker 3: words of a surrendered will. Had a man say to
- 6:15Speaker 3: me following the first service today, for the first time,
- 6:19Speaker 3: and as long as I can remember, I'm putting the
- 6:21Speaker 3: sword in the sheath, and he cried. He described his
- 6:26Speaker 3: life very briefly, just succinctly, as he described a self
- 6:29Speaker 3: willed life. I'm tired of cutting off ears. Look at
- 6:36Speaker 3: Jesus' words. Put the sword in the sheep, the cup
- 6:41Speaker 3: and the sheath, the cup which the Father has given me.
- 6:44Speaker 3: Shall I not drink it? The cup the Father's will.
- 6:55Speaker 3: It means one thing to one person, something altogether different
- 6:57Speaker 3: to someone else. For me, it meant where I found
- 7:00Speaker 3: doing what I'm doing. For you, it means something altogether different,
- 7:05Speaker 3: you know what. All the way through our ministry lives,
- 7:07Speaker 3: Cynthia and I have had people telling us, as we
- 7:10Speaker 3: were getting ready to make a move to go somewhere else,
- 7:12Speaker 3: that we shouldn't be doing it. People are just loaded
- 7:15Speaker 3: with misinformation and they can be so logical. I remember
- 7:20Speaker 3: when we were leaving Irving to move to California, California.
- 7:26Speaker 3: I mean, are you ready for that? There are no
- 7:29Speaker 3: good families in California, There are no deep roots in California.
- 7:34Speaker 3: In fact, the last words we heard a lady put
- 7:36Speaker 3: her our elbows on the window beside my wife as
- 7:40Speaker 3: we're getting ready to back out of our driveway, and
- 7:41Speaker 3: she said, you know, the Lord gets blamed for a
- 7:43Speaker 3: lot of stuff he has nothing to do with. How's
- 7:46Speaker 3: that for a farewell? Have a great ministry? And we
- 7:51Speaker 3: got there and we didn't plan it. I went kicking
- 7:56Speaker 3: and screaming, that's exactly where we ought to have been
- 8:00Speaker 3: for as long as we should have been there. In fact,
- 8:02Speaker 3: we were there so long I was a part of
- 8:04Speaker 3: the woodwork. This is great, this is wonderful, this is easy.
- 8:09Speaker 3: And once the Lord heard the word easy, the cup
- 8:13Speaker 3: He's good with cups in just the right moment. So
- 8:16Speaker 3: I got a call from Dallas Seminary, thinking, there's no way,
- 8:20Speaker 3: are you kidding?
- 8:21Speaker 2: I've been out.
- 8:22Speaker 3: Here so long, man, they're gonna name a street after
- 8:24Speaker 3: me one of these days.
- 8:27Speaker 2: Easy.
- 8:28Speaker 3: I don't want you to be easy. I want you
- 8:31Speaker 3: to be where I want you to be. I mean
- 8:33Speaker 3: back to Dallas. They know me there, but I want
- 8:38Speaker 3: to go back to Dallas. You check the weather lately, Lord,
- 8:43Speaker 3: So I had people there say, wow on Earth, are
- 8:45Speaker 3: you going to really tell us what's the real reason?
- 8:51Speaker 3: Tell us? Yeah, people do that too, Like there's somebody
- 8:54Speaker 3: with a gun o here to tell me he's getting
- 8:56Speaker 3: ready to shoot you. Why are you going to do it?
- 9:00Speaker 3: That's part of doing the Father's will. So I get
- 9:04Speaker 3: here and it begins to come clear, Come clear, easy,
- 9:08Speaker 3: never once. I don't think there's been an easy day, right. Absolutely.
- 9:15Speaker 3: People see this and they see the growth and they think, boy, Chuck,
- 9:18Speaker 3: you must be so proud. Are you kidding? I am shocked.
- 9:24Speaker 3: I am surprised. I don't worry about empty seats. I'm
- 9:28Speaker 3: amazed there are filled seats. Why is this isn't about me?
- 9:35Speaker 3: You just happen to be witnessing a cup being drunk.
- 9:40Speaker 3: You're seeing a disciple live his life. Forgive the personal reference.
- 9:45Speaker 3: It's not meant out of pride. I guarantee it's not.
- 9:49Speaker 3: If you could know the whole story. You know what
- 9:51Speaker 3: I'm trying to say. I am in the place of
- 9:55Speaker 3: his appointment to do what he wishes, and I've learned
- 10:00Speaker 3: the hard way that if I fight it, I lose,
- 10:03Speaker 3: and I should. Now this is again about me. It's
- 10:07Speaker 3: about you, you who are fighting it. This message is
- 10:11Speaker 3: about drinking the cup the Father has given you. Let
- 10:17Speaker 3: me give you four statements that will be true throughout
- 10:21Speaker 3: the rest of your life. I've learned them by being crushed.
- 10:25Speaker 3: I learned them in the process of still being crushed.
- 10:28Speaker 3: I passed them on to you out of my own
- 10:32Speaker 3: world of hurt. If you will my own experiences. Get
- 10:36Speaker 3: your pen ready, all of you who want to keep
- 10:39Speaker 3: your sword in the sheath. Take them in very carefully,
- 10:44Speaker 3: write them down, put them where you'll read them later.
- 10:46Speaker 3: You'll need them. Number One, For every disciple, there is
- 10:51Speaker 3: a purpose to be fulfilled. For every disciple, there is
- 10:56Speaker 3: a purpose.
- 10:58Speaker 2: To be fulfilled.
- 11:00Speaker 3: When you move from the outer circle to the inner circle.
- 11:03Speaker 3: At that time there is a There are, if not one,
- 11:06Speaker 3: there are a few special purposes. God has the plan
- 11:12Speaker 3: for you. For Peter, it was the early formation of
- 11:16Speaker 3: the church. God wasn't through with him. Peter would come
- 11:20Speaker 3: to the place where he would finally be broken, having
- 11:25Speaker 3: denied his Lord in a public place. And that purpose
- 11:31Speaker 3: is a God given mission. It's a divine plan, it's
- 11:37Speaker 3: a mandate, it's a heaven sent assignment. That's why he
- 11:42Speaker 3: invites you to be a disciple until then you fight
- 11:46Speaker 3: the purpose. When you've broken through and you decide I
- 11:52Speaker 3: disclaim all lesser loyalties I'm not gonna do what my
- 11:55Speaker 3: neighbors think I ought to do. I'm not gonna do
- 11:57Speaker 3: what my church members are confident I ought to do.
- 12:01Speaker 3: I'm not gonna do necessarily what my wife is thinking
- 12:04Speaker 3: is the best thing to do. I'm counseling, I'm listening
- 12:06Speaker 3: to her, but I gotta do what I believe the
- 12:09Speaker 3: Father would.
- 12:09Speaker 2: Have me do.
- 12:11Speaker 3: That's a lonely place to be. Why there's a purpose there.
- 12:15Speaker 3: There's a purpose. And when you've got a mate in
- 12:18Speaker 3: life that sees that she or he doesn't resist it,
- 12:23Speaker 3: there's a god given mission. There's a divine plan, there's
- 12:26Speaker 3: a mandate, there's a heaven sent assignment. Horatio Bonar put
- 12:33Speaker 3: it this way. I dare not choose my lot. I
- 12:36Speaker 3: would not if I might choose Thou for me, my God.
- 12:40Speaker 3: So shall I walk right? Take now my cup, and.
- 12:45Speaker 2: It with joy or sorrow? Phil is best to thee.
- 12:49Speaker 3: May seem choose now my good or ill, not mine?
- 12:54Speaker 3: Not mine? The choice in things both great or small.
- 12:58Speaker 3: Be thou my guide, my drink, my wisdom, and my all.
- 13:03Speaker 2: Be that.
- 13:04Speaker 3: Lord, let your purpose be fulfilled. That's a man who's
- 13:09Speaker 3: taking his cup. I want your will, Lord, I want
- 13:12Speaker 3: the mate I choose from my life to.
- 13:14Speaker 2: Be your choice for me.
- 13:16Speaker 3: I don't want to be driven by just physical beauty
- 13:20Speaker 3: or the person's money or lust or a good pedigree.
- 13:27Speaker 3: I want your choice Lord. Until then I'll stay single.
- 13:31Speaker 3: I want your individual for my life. I want your way.
- 13:37Speaker 3: There's a purpose to be fulfilled. Here's the second. With
- 13:40Speaker 3: every purpose, there is a cup to be drunk. With
- 13:44Speaker 3: every purpose, there is a cup to be drunk. Maybe
- 13:48Speaker 3: a challenging obstacle, maybe a personal foreign in the flesh.
- 13:55Speaker 3: Paul had that it may be an individual who dogs
- 13:58Speaker 3: your steps, but there is a cup to be drunk.
- 14:02Speaker 3: There is a point where you, against even the logic
- 14:07Speaker 3: of your decision, will make that decision, knowing it's the
- 14:10Speaker 3: Father's plan. Why on earth would you go there. It
- 14:15Speaker 3: could be a personal foreign you have to endure. It
- 14:18Speaker 3: could be misunderstanding from others. It will require an attitude
- 14:23Speaker 3: of acceptance. And with every purpose, there's a cup to
- 14:27Speaker 3: be drunk.
- 14:28Speaker 2: And that cup.
- 14:29Speaker 3: Will taste bitter to you. It'll taste bitter at the time.
- 14:36Speaker 3: It'll be bitter. I'm not saying when you step into
- 14:40Speaker 3: his will. From then on, it's a downhill slide. I'm saying,
- 14:43Speaker 3: when you step into His will, that's when the meaning
- 14:46Speaker 3: of the cross takes new dimensions. At seminary, we lose
- 14:51Speaker 3: a baby.
- 14:54Speaker 2: We lose a.
- 14:54Speaker 3: Baby of all things.
- 14:59Speaker 2: We have a miscare. We wanted that baby.
- 15:04Speaker 3: The loss of the baby was a journey that I
- 15:08Speaker 3: have never shared with anyone. It's too personal. Five months along,
- 15:15Speaker 3: that little cord wrapped around her neck, still born. There's
- 15:22Speaker 3: a cup to be drunk. I could have said, why
- 15:24Speaker 3: on the earth am I? Here? Is this the thanks
- 15:26Speaker 3: I get for obeying? No, it's not like that. It
- 15:28Speaker 3: doesn't work like that.
- 15:30Speaker 2: It's not your will, is his will?
- 15:34Speaker 3: How perfect is the Father's plan? How perfect is the cross?
- 15:42Speaker 3: But it's the cup. It's perfect because you didn't have
- 15:46Speaker 3: to be nailed there with every purpose, there's a cup
- 15:50Speaker 3: to be drunk.
- 15:51Speaker 2: Third, in every cup, there is.
- 15:55Speaker 3: Pain to accept and endure. In every cup there is
- 16:02Speaker 3: pain to accept and endure. Some discomfort, some daily cross
- 16:08Speaker 3: that interferes and hurts, and affliction, the death of a dream,
- 16:16Speaker 3: physical ailment and limitations. It's all part of it. It's
- 16:22Speaker 3: doubtful God can use any of us greatly till he's
- 16:24Speaker 3: hurt us deeply. I love the Raymond Edmund's Little Book
- 16:29Speaker 3: where he mentions delay, the pain of delayed accomplishments part
- 16:35Speaker 3: of the cup, part of the pain. We like instant gratification,
- 16:42Speaker 3: like instant results, Disciples, there's nothing instant. In every cup.
- 16:49Speaker 3: There's pain to accept and endure. Number four. Through every pain,
- 16:53Speaker 3: there is victory to claim. Through every pain, there is
- 16:58Speaker 3: victory to claim.
- 17:00Speaker 2: Did you get them?
- 17:01Speaker 3: Because you're gonna need them? For every disciple, there's a
- 17:05Speaker 3: purpose to be fulfilled. With every purpose, there's a cup
- 17:09Speaker 3: to be drunk. In every cup, there is pain to
- 17:13Speaker 3: be endured. Through every pain, there is victory to claim.
- 17:18Speaker 3: I close with the writings in Life of George Matheson,
- 17:22Speaker 3: Please listen.
- 17:24Speaker 2: M ah E s o.
- 17:26Speaker 3: N wrote the hymn O Love that Will Not let
- 17:29Speaker 3: Me Go. Almost blind by the time he finished school,
- 17:34Speaker 3: completely blind by the time he entered ministry, and for
- 17:37Speaker 3: forty years he ministered totally blind. George Matheson he attracted
- 17:43Speaker 3: overflowing crowds who came to hear him preach, and especially
- 17:48Speaker 3: to hear him pray. For forty years, other fellow ministers
- 17:53Speaker 3: were afraid to hear his sermons because, as they put it,
- 17:57Speaker 3: they are so great, we are tempted to plagiarism. George
- 18:02Speaker 3: Matheson Blind not only preacher and a man of prayer,
- 18:07Speaker 3: but a writer of song in his wonderful work thoughts
- 18:12Speaker 3: for life's journey. My soul reject not the place of
- 18:16Speaker 3: thy prostration. It has ever been the robing room of royalty,
- 18:23Speaker 3: that beautiful wording, robing room of royalty. Ask the great
- 18:28Speaker 3: ones of the past, what has been the spot of
- 18:30Speaker 3: their prosperity?
- 18:31Speaker 2: They will say it was the.
- 18:32Speaker 3: Cold ground on which I once was lying. Ask Abraham,
- 18:38Speaker 3: he will point you to the sacrifice on Mariah. Ask Joseph,
- 18:43Speaker 3: he will direct you to his dungeon in Egypt. Ask Moses,
- 18:47Speaker 3: he will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile.
- 18:50Speaker 3: Ask Ruth, she will bid you build her monument in
- 18:54Speaker 3: the field of her toil. Ask David, he will tell
- 18:58Speaker 3: you that his psalms came in the night. Ask Job
- 19:03Speaker 3: he will remind you that God answered him out of
- 19:05Speaker 3: the whirlwind of loss. Ask Paul, he will attribute his
- 19:11Speaker 3: inspiration to the light that struck him blind. Ask one more,
- 19:18Speaker 3: the son of Man. He will answer from the cold
- 19:21Speaker 3: ground on which I was lying. Get semone ground I
- 19:26Speaker 3: receive my scepter. There. This is called the fellowship of
- 19:31Speaker 3: His sufferings, and there's everything within us to resist it.
- 19:39Speaker 3: Accept the cup. That's the model. That's why the cross
- 19:46Speaker 3: continues to be that symbol for us. A bow with me,
- 19:50Speaker 3: will you please? I know that today I've been speaking
- 19:55Speaker 3: to a few impossible people. I know because I I
- 20:00Speaker 3: once was. I don't know how many times my mother
- 20:05Speaker 3: would say to me, son, you are impossible. I don't
- 20:09Speaker 3: know how many times my wife said to me early
- 20:12Speaker 3: in marriage, you are impossible. The shame of it all
- 20:17Speaker 3: is how many times God said to me, you think
- 20:21Speaker 3: you're impossible. But I have a cup for you. I
- 20:27Speaker 3: don't know what your cup is. It may be physical affliction,
- 20:30Speaker 3: maybe a loss of a dream, maybe a broken romance,
- 20:35Speaker 3: maybe a life of loneliness, feeling forgotten and obscure, and
- 20:41Speaker 3: maybe physical pain, maybe a mental breakdown, some heart breaking
- 20:48Speaker 3: something that God would use to deepen your commitment to him.
- 20:57Speaker 3: If you've never met the Savior, now's the time you
- 21:00Speaker 3: have played around with your faith. Now's the time to
- 21:05Speaker 3: move into the inner circle playground. Days are over Lord.
- 21:11Speaker 3: I pray that you'll use much of this in a
- 21:16Speaker 3: deep and abiding and significant way in all our lives.
- 21:22Speaker 3: Forgive us our father, for resisting the cup, for running
- 21:26Speaker 3: from the cross, for pursuing what we wanted and missing
- 21:33Speaker 3: altogether what it was you wanted, and then having stopped
- 21:38Speaker 3: us in our tracks. I pray that you will give
- 21:40Speaker 3: us sensitive spirits to hear what you're saying, and an
- 21:44Speaker 3: open willingness to do where you're leading, to go there,
- 21:51Speaker 3: to do it, and to rejoice in the victory of it. Now,
- 21:58Speaker 3: Lord dismiss us in this on a moment with the
- 22:01Speaker 3: realization that you are the one in charge, and if
- 22:06Speaker 3: we've learned nothing else, enable us to learn that from
- 22:10Speaker 3: this message. In the name of our submissive, matchless master,
- 22:18Speaker 3: pray everyone said. Amen.
- 22:30Speaker 1: What Chux Wendall has shared today cuts right to the
- 22:33Speaker 1: heart of what it means to walk with Jesus Christ.
- 22:36Speaker 1: Believing in him is the miracle of a moment, but
- 22:39Speaker 1: becoming a true disciple is the journey of a lifetime,
- 22:42Speaker 1: and that journey requires something most of us resist, surrendering
- 22:46Speaker 1: our will to his. So here's a question worth sitting
- 22:50Speaker 1: with today. Are you still fighting the cup the Father
- 22:53Speaker 1: has placed in your hand? If you're ready to go deeper,
- 22:56Speaker 1: we have resources to help you. In fact, Insight for
- 22:59Speaker 1: Living has a great bundle of resources for this twelve
- 23:02Speaker 1: part series called How Great is Our God? The bundle
- 23:06Speaker 1: includes the Searching the Scripture's Bible Study workbook and all
- 23:09Speaker 1: twelve audio messages in the series. You can find all
- 23:12Speaker 1: the details at insight dot org slash offer Well. Tomorrow,
- 23:18Speaker 1: June thirtieth is the day that Insight for Living closes
- 23:20Speaker 1: the accounting books on another ministry year, and on July first,
- 23:25Speaker 1: we'll step into our forty eighth year of ministry.
- 23:28Speaker 3: Chuck the first Monday in July nineteen seventy nine, that's
- 23:33Speaker 3: when Insight for Living aired its very first radio program.
- 23:39Speaker 3: I had no idea what was beginning that day.
- 23:42Speaker 2: None.
- 23:43Speaker 3: If someone had pulled back the curtain and shown me
- 23:46Speaker 3: what God was about to do, I'm not sure my
- 23:49Speaker 3: heart could have held the thrill. We were naive, We
- 23:53Speaker 3: were stepping out in faith with a national program, and frankly,
- 23:57Speaker 3: we had no business being that bold. But we were,
- 24:02Speaker 3: and we did, and men and women responded in droves.
- 24:06Speaker 3: Not because we were clever, not because we had some
- 24:08Speaker 3: sophisticated strategy or a slick marketing plan. They responded because
- 24:14Speaker 3: we heralded the only thing that has ever actually changed
- 24:18Speaker 3: a human heart, the Cross. We proclaim. Nearly five decades later,
- 24:24Speaker 3: nothing has changed, not one thing that matters. Yes, the
- 24:28Speaker 3: reach has grown, the platforms have multiplied. We go places
- 24:33Speaker 3: now that would have seemed like science fiction in nineteen
- 24:38Speaker 3: seventy nine, into phones, into earbuds, into languages and nations
- 24:43Speaker 3: we could never have imagined on that first Monday morning,
- 24:46Speaker 3: But the message identical. It's the Cross, always the Cross.
- 24:52Speaker 3: Look around at the world around you, bodies, failing relationships,
- 24:57Speaker 3: fractured public discourse that sound more like a brawl than
- 25:01Speaker 3: a conversation, pain in every direction, and right in the
- 25:06Speaker 3: middle of all of it, we get to be dispensers
- 25:09Speaker 3: of truth, God's truth, the kind that doesn't shift with
- 25:14Speaker 3: the headlines or bend with the culture. That's an extraordinary privilege.
- 25:20Speaker 3: As we approach June thirtieth, nearly forty six years after
- 25:24Speaker 3: that very first broadcast, I want to invite you to
- 25:28Speaker 3: join what God is already doing. Your gift to insight
- 25:32Speaker 3: for living carries the light into dark corners we haven't
- 25:36Speaker 3: even reached yet from our very first day until now.
- 25:41Speaker 3: Let's keep going together.
- 25:44Speaker 1: As an expression of our Thanks for your gift, we'll
- 25:47Speaker 1: send you a brand new booklet from Chuck. It's called
- 25:50Speaker 1: The Cross. We proclaim. You know, we live in a
- 25:53Speaker 1: world that's obsessed with image, credentials and making impressions. In
- 25:58Speaker 1: his booklet, Chuck says there's a better way to live,
- 26:01Speaker 1: and it begins at the foot of the Cross, where
- 26:03Speaker 1: all the ground is level. By reading The Cross, we proclaim,
- 26:08Speaker 1: you'll find the freedom that comes when you stop managing
- 26:10Speaker 1: your reputation and start resting in what Christ accomplished. To
- 26:14Speaker 1: give a donation and request a copy of The Cross
- 26:17Speaker 1: We Proclaim, call us at eight hundred seven seven to
- 26:20Speaker 1: two eighty eight eighty eight, or to send a check
- 26:24Speaker 1: in the mail along with your request for the booklet,
- 26:26Speaker 1: just address the envelope to Insight for Living post Office
- 26:31Speaker 1: box five thousand, Frisco, Texas, seven five oh three four.
- 26:37Speaker 1: That's post office box five thousand, Frisco, Texas, seven five
- 26:41Speaker 1: oh three four. You can also call us at eight
- 26:45Speaker 1: hundred seven seven to two eighty eight eighty eight, or
- 26:48Speaker 1: go to Insight dot org slash donate. I'm Bill Meyer.
- 27:00Speaker 1: Join us again tomorrow when Chucks Wendall continues his series
- 27:03Speaker 1: called How great is our God right here on insight
- 27:08Speaker 1: for living. The preceding message, The Cup that He Drank
- 27:13Speaker 1: was copyrighted in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine,
- 27:16Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, twenty nineteen, and twenty twenty six, and the
- 27:20Speaker 1: sound recording was copyrighted in twenty twenty six by Charles R.
- 27:24Speaker 1: Swindall Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted
- 27:29Speaker 1: material for commercial use is strictly prohibited