Latest / Max Lucado Daily Sermons / Renewing Your Mind - Minister Max Lucado
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: I really appreciate this opportunity that you give me each
- 0:05Speaker 1: week to study the Bible and share ideas with you.
- 0:07Speaker 1: And we're tackling this whole theme of anxiety because I
- 0:11Speaker 1: really believe that we can win the war on worry.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Anxiety has its place, It comes with life, but it
- 0:21Speaker 1: doesn't have to run our lives. And God has a
- 0:23Speaker 1: prescription for worry. He has a solution and antidote for anxiety,
- 0:29Speaker 1: and it's in the Book of Philippians.
- 0:31Speaker 2: In the summer.
- 0:31Speaker 1: We're dissecting it phrase by phrase. The words are about
- 0:35Speaker 1: to appear on the screen. Many of you have memorized
- 0:37Speaker 1: the passage. If you'd like to look at the screen
- 0:41Speaker 1: for the words, you can. Let's all read it and
- 0:43Speaker 1: cite it together. And I want you to sit up straight,
- 0:46Speaker 1: put your shoulders back, and fill your lungs with hair
- 0:49Speaker 1: and your hearts with hope. Let's say it like we
- 0:52Speaker 1: mean it. Are you ready rejoice in the Lord always?
- 0:56Speaker 2: Again?
- 0:57Speaker 1: I say rejoice. Let your untilness be known to all men.
- 1:02Speaker 1: The Lord is at hand, be anxious for it, and
- 1:15Speaker 1: the peace of God will guard your Finally, brethren, there's
- 1:39Speaker 1: anything praiser. Meditate on these things, Yes, Lord, grant that
- 1:46Speaker 1: we could do just this. Would you please take the
- 1:49Speaker 1: anxiety out or place it Lord, with meditation on good things,
- 1:55Speaker 1: We would request this peace that passes understanding. We lift
- 2:00Speaker 1: up to you all of our requests, but we do
- 2:02Speaker 1: so with thanksgiving and gratitude for all the good that
- 2:05Speaker 1: you have.
- 2:05Speaker 2: Done for us. Forgive our speaker.
- 2:08Speaker 1: Today, his sins are many. Help us to see Christ,
- 2:11Speaker 1: just Christ. Through Christ, we pray and all the Church said.
- 2:18Speaker 1: You might consider adding to your summer reading a wonderful
- 2:21Speaker 1: book that just came out as called Called for Life,
- 2:26Speaker 1: authored by Kent and Amber Brantley. You may remember their
- 2:32Speaker 1: story this time last year, doctor Brantley's name was.
- 2:37Speaker 2: In the news.
- 2:38Speaker 1: In fact, it was on Wednesday evening July twenty third,
- 2:42Speaker 1: twenty and fourteen, that doctor Brantley took a seat on
- 2:46Speaker 1: his couch and he opened his journal and he needed
- 2:49Speaker 1: to collect his thoughts because he had spent the day
- 2:52Speaker 1: feeling the effects of an illness that he knew would
- 2:56Speaker 1: either be malaria or and he was praying for malaria.
- 3:05Speaker 1: He was a medical missionary in Liberia waging a war
- 3:08Speaker 1: on the cruelest.
- 3:10Speaker 2: Of viruses, ebola.
- 3:12Speaker 1: There was no sure cure the epidemic was killing people
- 3:16Speaker 1: by the thousands, and as much as any person in
- 3:20Speaker 1: the world, doctor Brantley knew the consequences of the disease.
- 3:24Speaker 1: He had treated dozens and dozens of cases. He knew
- 3:27Speaker 1: the symptoms, the soaring fevers, the severe diarrhea, the nausea.
- 3:32Speaker 1: He had seen the results of the virus, and yet
- 3:35Speaker 1: for the first time he was feeling them himself. His
- 3:39Speaker 1: colleagues had drawn blood and begun the tests, yet it
- 3:42Speaker 1: would be three days before anyone knew the results. Doctor
- 3:47Speaker 1: Brantley quarantined himself in his cinder blockhouse and he waited.
- 3:52Speaker 1: His wife and family were across the ocean, his colleagues
- 3:57Speaker 1: were not permitted to enter the residence. Was quite literally
- 4:01Speaker 1: alone with his thoughts, and in that moment he opened
- 4:06Speaker 1: his Bible and he found a passage from the Book
- 4:11Speaker 1: of Hebrews and began to meditate on it. The passage reads,
- 4:15Speaker 1: the promise of entering his rest still stands, so let
- 4:18Speaker 1: us never give up. Let us therefore make every effort
- 4:22Speaker 1: to enter that rest. Brantley called to mind that phrase,
- 4:28Speaker 1: make every effort, and he circled it and decided, now,
- 4:31Speaker 1: that's exactly what I'm going to have to do.
- 4:34Speaker 2: He kept reading.
- 4:35Speaker 1: He paused in Hebrews, chapter four and verse sixteen, let
- 4:39Speaker 1: us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so
- 4:43Speaker 1: that we may receive mercy and grace to help us
- 4:46Speaker 1: in our time of need.
- 4:47Speaker 2: He wrote the.
- 4:48Speaker 1: Verse word for word in his journal, and when he
- 4:51Speaker 1: came to the word confidence, he wrote it in italics.
- 4:55Speaker 1: Then he closed the journal and waited.
- 5:00Speaker 2: The next three.
- 5:00Speaker 1: Days brought unspeakable discomfort, and then brought the news that
- 5:06Speaker 1: they feared he had indeed contracted ebola. Amber Kent's wife,
- 5:12Speaker 1: was across the ocean in her hometown of Abilene, Texas.
- 5:18Speaker 1: She received a call from Kent the following Saturday afternoon.
- 5:23Speaker 1: When the phone rang, she stepped into her bedroom to
- 5:26Speaker 1: receive it. She was actually at her parents' house, so
- 5:29Speaker 1: she stepped into her former bedroom and there Kent went
- 5:33Speaker 1: straight to the point over the phone. He said, the
- 5:36Speaker 1: test results came back.
- 5:38Speaker 2: It is positive.
- 5:40Speaker 1: She began to cry and they talked for a few
- 5:42Speaker 1: moments until Kent said he was too tired to talk anymore,
- 5:46Speaker 1: but he would call soon. Now it was up to
- 5:49Speaker 1: Amber to process the news. She told her parents. The
- 5:53Speaker 1: three sat on the edge of her bed, and they
- 5:56Speaker 1: wept for several minutes. After some time, Amber excused herself
- 6:01Speaker 1: and she went outside, and she walked across a large
- 6:04Speaker 1: field toward a mesquite tree that had a low hanging branch.
- 6:09Speaker 1: She sat on the branch. She tried to pray, but
- 6:12Speaker 1: she could. She found it difficult to put her concerns
- 6:16Speaker 1: in words, so she began to sing hymns that she
- 6:20Speaker 1: had learned as a young girl. She sang, there is
- 6:24Speaker 1: no shadow of turning with THEE. Thou changest, not that compassions.
- 6:28Speaker 1: They fail, not as thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
- 6:32Speaker 1: That lifted her spirits, and so she sang even louder,
- 6:35Speaker 1: I need THEE every hour, in joy or pain. Come
- 6:38Speaker 1: quickly and abide. Her life is in vain. I need THEE. Oh,
- 6:43Speaker 1: I need THEE every hour. I need THEE. Come and
- 6:46Speaker 1: bless me. Now, my Savior, I come to THEE. She
- 6:51Speaker 1: later wrote these words, I thought my husband was going
- 6:55Speaker 1: to die. I was in pain. I was afraid. Yet
- 6:58Speaker 1: through those hymns I was able to connect with God
- 7:02Speaker 1: in a meaningful way. Maybe you remember this story. Maybe
- 7:07Speaker 1: you remember watching the news reports of the Brantley family unfold.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Maybe you remember the decision of the caregivers to give
- 7:17Speaker 1: an untested treatment to Kent because they had no other option.
- 7:21Speaker 1: Maybe you remember watching his transport from Africa to Atlanta,
- 7:26Speaker 1: watching him as he climbed out of the back of
- 7:29Speaker 1: the van and was carefully walked into the hospital. We
- 7:32Speaker 1: celebrated at the news of his improved condition, and then
- 7:36Speaker 1: we thank God when we heard the news that Kent
- 7:39Speaker 1: was cured of ebola. But you know what, I think
- 7:44Speaker 1: we can celebrate the curing of yet another disease, a
- 7:48Speaker 1: virus that is every bit as contagious and every bit
- 7:53Speaker 1: is deadly, the unseen virus of anxiety. Kent in Amber
- 8:00Speaker 1: were prime candidates for worry. Yet they reacted to the
- 8:06Speaker 1: presence of anxiety with the same deliberate resolve that they
- 8:11Speaker 1: reacted to the presence of the Ebola virus. They went
- 8:15Speaker 1: on the offensive. They took control of their thoughts. Kent
- 8:20Speaker 1: opened his bible, Amber opened her heart. They pondered scriptures,
- 8:25Speaker 1: They meditated on hymns before anxiety could get a hold
- 8:29Speaker 1: of them.
- 8:30Speaker 2: They got a hold of.
- 8:30Speaker 1: The anxiety and they marched it out. They did exactly
- 8:34Speaker 1: what the Apostle prescribed in Philippians, chapter four and verse eight. Finally, Brethren,
- 8:40Speaker 1: whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things
- 8:44Speaker 1: are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely,
- 8:47Speaker 1: whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue,
- 8:51Speaker 1: if there is anything praiseworth, they meditate on these things.
- 8:57Speaker 1: If the Bible has a recommended diet for the mind,
- 9:03Speaker 1: this is it.
- 9:04Speaker 2: These are the green.
- 9:05Speaker 1: Vegetables for the soul. My wife, Dinlon likes green vegetables.
- 9:11Speaker 1: I don't, but she does, and she has a list.
- 9:15Speaker 2: Of vegetables that are good for the body.
- 9:18Speaker 1: It includes things like broccoli and asparagus and lettuce. As
- 9:22Speaker 1: I read over the list, I don't see anything that
- 9:25Speaker 1: I think is a health food. Donuts and barbecue, potato
- 9:29Speaker 1: chips and Oreo cookies and ice cream. But I don't
- 9:34Speaker 1: ask why. I know the answer. I've heard all the slogans.
- 9:41Speaker 1: What tastes good on the lips does not look good
- 9:44Speaker 1: on the How did you know that already? So if
- 9:49Speaker 1: you want to feel good tomorrow, then eat good today.
- 9:52Speaker 1: These are principles of a healthy diet, but they are
- 9:56Speaker 1: also principles of a healthy mind. It is good to
- 10:02Speaker 1: be a picky eater, it's equally good to be a
- 10:06Speaker 1: picky thinker. In the Apostle, Paul sets himself up here
- 10:12Speaker 1: as our thought dietitian, because just as not every food
- 10:18Speaker 1: qualifies to be eaten, not every thought qualifies.
- 10:23Speaker 2: To be thought.
- 10:24Speaker 1: It must meet a standard, and he gives us the
- 10:29Speaker 1: nine standards. First of all, it must be true. It
- 10:33Speaker 1: must be based on God's word. It must align itself
- 10:35Speaker 1: with scripture. It must be noble. The word here means
- 10:38Speaker 1: worthy of respect. Boy that eliminates everything that's immoral or inappropriate.
- 10:44Speaker 2: It must be just. It advocates fairness to all parties involved.
- 10:49Speaker 2: It must be pure. This is a call for high
- 10:52Speaker 2: and lofty thoughts. Must be lovely. Lovely thoughts focus.
- 10:57Speaker 1: On whatever beauty can be found in any situation. It
- 11:00Speaker 1: must be of good report, no need for slander or gossip.
- 11:04Speaker 2: It must be of good report. It must be of
- 11:06Speaker 2: good virtue. It must be praiseworthy.
- 11:09Speaker 1: So we welcome any ideas that promote the best of life,
- 11:13Speaker 1: high ethics, lofty goodness. We meditate on these things, and
- 11:19Speaker 1: as we turn our thoughts toward these things, a wonderful
- 11:23Speaker 1: thing happens.
- 11:24Speaker 2: We turn our backs on their opposites.
- 11:27Speaker 1: As we fill our minds with veggies, we avoid a
- 11:30Speaker 1: junk food diet of deceit, unsavory thoughts, ugly thoughts, dishonest
- 11:36Speaker 1: thoughts where you tend to rose that this will cannot grow.
- 11:41Speaker 1: We focus our thoughts on good things, so the weedy
- 11:44Speaker 1: thoughts do not have room.
- 11:46Speaker 2: So, just as some people are picky.
- 11:48Speaker 1: Eaters, we choose on purpose to be picky thinkers. The
- 11:53Speaker 1: big idea in this passage is simply this, meditate on
- 11:59Speaker 1: good things. Meditate on good things. You want to treat anxiety.
- 12:04Speaker 1: Turn your thoughts toward good things. This word in Greek.
- 12:09Speaker 2: As you know, the Bible was written in New Testament
- 12:11Speaker 2: was written in Greek. This word in Greek is a
- 12:14Speaker 2: great word. Look at it.
- 12:15Speaker 1: Logisomine, meditate, logismid Do you see an English word, the
- 12:19Speaker 1: roots of an English word inside that?
- 12:22Speaker 2: Anyone? Logic? Logic?
- 12:26Speaker 1: We meditate on good things. We treat our anxiety with
- 12:30Speaker 1: logical thinking, with clear thinking, with rational thinking. Easier said
- 12:37Speaker 1: than done. The consequence of anxiety for many is muddled
- 12:41Speaker 1: or unclear thinking if we think at all. In July
- 12:45Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, a British Army officer by the name
- 12:48Speaker 1: of Lionel Wygram studied the reaction of soldiers to intense battle.
- 12:54Speaker 1: He noted a predictable pattern.
- 12:56Speaker 2: He said, in a.
- 12:56Speaker 1: Typical platoon of twenty two men, there will be a
- 13:01Speaker 1: small number who respond in courage. There will be a
- 13:04Speaker 1: small number who respond in penning. The vast number of
- 13:08Speaker 1: the men will go into mental neutral He called them.
- 13:12Speaker 2: Sheep, bewildered sheep.
- 13:14Speaker 1: They will quit thinking. He writes, every platoon can be
- 13:17Speaker 1: analyzed as follows six men who will go anywhere.
- 13:21Speaker 2: Twelve sheep who will follow.
- 13:23Speaker 1: A short distance behind, and four to six men who
- 13:26Speaker 1: do not have what it takes. Another psychologist by the
- 13:30Speaker 1: name of John Leech has spent the last couple of
- 13:33Speaker 1: decades studying the human response to sudden stress like airplane
- 13:38Speaker 1: turbulencer or economic downfalls. According to his studies, about ten
- 13:43Speaker 1: to twenty percent of us remain cool and composed under stress,
- 13:48Speaker 1: another ten to fifteen percent freak out, but about seventy
- 13:53Speaker 1: to eighty percent of us become what he calls mentally paralyzed.
- 13:59Speaker 2: We stop thinking well.
- 14:00Speaker 1: Long before this research, the apostle Paul was calling on
- 14:04Speaker 1: us to mind our minds in times in which we're
- 14:07Speaker 1: anxious to be careful.
- 14:08Speaker 2: What we think our.
- 14:10Speaker 1: Most valuable weapon against anxiety weighs two point seven pounds,
- 14:15Speaker 1: and it sits right here between our ears. This was
- 14:19Speaker 1: the point of Jesus and the most famous sermon ever
- 14:23Speaker 1: preached on the topic of anxiety. He begins the sermon
- 14:27Speaker 1: by telling us, quite bluntly, do not worry about your
- 14:31Speaker 1: life what you will eat, or what you will drink,
- 14:35Speaker 1: or about your body what you will put on. And
- 14:38Speaker 1: then he gives us two commands with which to fulfill.
- 14:41Speaker 1: The first, he says, look and consider. First of all,
- 14:47Speaker 1: he says, look, look at the birds of the air.
- 14:51Speaker 1: He invites us to go outside and just look at
- 14:53Speaker 1: the ravens, or look at the at the cardinals, look
- 14:56Speaker 1: at the birds. And when we do, we notice something.
- 14:59Speaker 1: They're not going umpy, they don't frown if they don't
- 15:05Speaker 1: look sleep deprived. They're not lonely. In fact, they appear
- 15:11Speaker 1: just the opposite. They're quite happy. They sing, they soar,
- 15:16Speaker 1: they whistle. And then Jesus says, they don't sow or
- 15:22Speaker 1: gather into barns. In other words, they don't work, they
- 15:27Speaker 1: don't save money, they don't get stressed out and occupations.
- 15:33Speaker 2: But they look happy.
- 15:35Speaker 1: And then he tells us to lower our gauge from
- 15:37Speaker 1: the birds and look out over the valley. He says,
- 15:41Speaker 1: consider what the lilies. Consider the lilies. Remember, he's helping
- 15:47Speaker 1: us treat anxiety. So he tells us to look at
- 15:50Speaker 1: the birds, and now consider the lilies. Same point. If
- 15:54Speaker 1: they don't look unhappy, they really are very beautiful. In fact,
- 15:59Speaker 1: Jesus Es says, even though their lifespan is short, they're
- 16:02Speaker 1: here today and tomorrow they're going to be thrown into
- 16:04Speaker 1: the fire. Even Solomon and all of his glory.
- 16:08Speaker 2: Was not dressed up like one of these.
- 16:10Speaker 1: He's the richest king in history. In the field of
- 16:13Speaker 1: lilies is prettier than he was. The point we disarm
- 16:17Speaker 1: anxiety by looking and by considering, by thinking, by processing.
- 16:23Speaker 2: We look at the birds, we look at the lilies.
- 16:27Speaker 2: We don't get lost.
- 16:28Speaker 1: In our negative downward spiral of thoughts, nor do we
- 16:32Speaker 1: get frozen in no thinking. We stop, we collect ourselves.
- 16:36Speaker 1: We look at the birds, We consider the lilies. We
- 16:39Speaker 1: manage anxiety by managing our thoughts. We manage anxiety by
- 16:45Speaker 1: managing our thoughts. Now, maybe you wanted something that was
- 16:48Speaker 1: a little more mystical, A little more supernatural, a little
- 16:53Speaker 1: more angelic, maybe some heavenly visitations or chariots of fire.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Maybe you thought that God treated anxiety through these supernatural visions.
- 17:04Speaker 1: Paul and Jesus would tell you otherwise. The key to
- 17:09Speaker 1: peace is not in the emotion you feel, but in
- 17:12Speaker 1: the thoughts you think. The key to peace is not
- 17:16Speaker 1: in the emotions you'll feel, but in the thoughts you think.
- 17:19Speaker 1: Do you want to feel peace tomorrow, then think godly
- 17:22Speaker 1: thoughts today, meditate on good things. Years ago, a renowned
- 17:29Speaker 1: British pastor by the name of d. Martin Lloyd Jones
- 17:33Speaker 1: wrote these words about the passage in Matthew chapter six,
- 17:36Speaker 1: that we just looked at Faith, according to Our Lord's
- 17:41Speaker 1: teaching in this paragraph, is primarily thinking. And the whole
- 17:45Speaker 1: trouble with a man of little faith is that he
- 17:48Speaker 1: forgets to think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. The
- 17:53Speaker 1: way to avoid that, according to our Lord, is to think,
- 17:58Speaker 1: to look at the birds, to think about them, to
- 18:01Speaker 1: draw your deductions, to look at the grass, that the
- 18:03Speaker 1: lilies of the field consider them. The trouble with a
- 18:06Speaker 1: person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his
- 18:09Speaker 1: own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else,
- 18:13Speaker 1: and he goes round and round in circles. This is
- 18:16Speaker 1: the essence of worry. That is not thought. That is
- 18:21Speaker 1: the absence of thought, that is a failure to think.
- 18:26Speaker 1: Paul Elsewhere said, Kent, set your mind on things above,
- 18:31Speaker 1: not on things of the earth. There is a time
- 18:33Speaker 1: in which we intentionally and deliberately set our mind on
- 18:38Speaker 1: things above. That's what Kent Brandy did when he was
- 18:43Speaker 1: about to spend three days waiting on the results from
- 18:46Speaker 1: the Ebola test. He set his mind on things above.
- 18:49Speaker 1: That's what his wife Amber did when she got news
- 18:53Speaker 1: of her husband's positive diagnosis. As she didn't panic. It
- 18:58Speaker 1: was not easy, but she did deliberate things. She took
- 19:02Speaker 1: deliberate steps to set her mind on good things. I
- 19:07Speaker 1: did something like this once, and it had to do
- 19:11Speaker 1: with a little lemon and a little phrase that was
- 19:16Speaker 1: written on the lemon that I had attached to the
- 19:19Speaker 1: dashboard of my car. One of the most difficult days
- 19:23Speaker 1: of my life happened when I was nineteen years old
- 19:27Speaker 1: and I was in a town called Dalton in the
- 19:30Speaker 1: state of Georgia. I had never been to Dalton. I
- 19:35Speaker 1: didn't know anyone in Georgia. And I wondered what in
- 19:39Speaker 1: the world had happened. I was nineteen years of age.
- 19:43Speaker 1: This was the summer of my first year in college.
- 19:48Speaker 1: I found myself sleeping in the Salvation Army because it
- 19:51Speaker 1: was cheap, and the night before a person who had
- 19:56Speaker 1: had too much to drink rolled over in his bunkle
- 20:00Speaker 1: above mine and vomited right down on the floor. I
- 20:04Speaker 1: was so homesick. If homesickness was water, I was soaked.
- 20:10Speaker 1: What had I gotten myself into?
- 20:13Speaker 2: Well?
- 20:14Speaker 1: On the promise of some fast cash and some new science,
- 20:20Speaker 1: I had joined up with two buddies and signed on
- 20:23Speaker 1: to sell books door to door.
- 20:27Speaker 2: We went to sales school.
- 20:29Speaker 1: My friends went home during sales school left me to
- 20:32Speaker 1: go to Georgia all by myself. I went to the
- 20:36Speaker 1: field after sales school, and the first day I discovered something.
- 20:40Speaker 1: People don't like door to door salesmen. They don't, not
- 20:46Speaker 1: even when they're a nice kid from West Texas. That
- 20:50Speaker 1: first day was terrible. Hello, I'm Max Slam. Hello, I'm
- 20:58Speaker 1: Max Slam. Hello, I'm Max Slam. The second day was
- 21:04Speaker 1: just as bad. I didn't know if I was going
- 21:07Speaker 1: to make it. I couldn't envision going through a whole
- 21:10Speaker 1: summer like that. So I ended up at that diner
- 21:14Speaker 1: for lunch and I ordered a hamburger and I treated
- 21:18Speaker 1: my bruised ego. And as I was paying for my
- 21:22Speaker 1: burger checking out at the cash register, I noticed that
- 21:26Speaker 1: to the right of the cash register there was this display,
- 21:30Speaker 1: And upon this display was a collection of rubberized magnetized truisms,
- 21:39Speaker 1: the kind that you stick on a refrigerator door.
- 21:42Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm talking about? Little statements?
- 21:45Speaker 1: And there was one of them that was shaped like
- 21:48Speaker 1: a lemon, and on that rubberized lemon, these words appeared.
- 21:56Speaker 2: I bet you know what I'm about to say.
- 21:59Speaker 1: When lie gives you a lemon, make lemonade.
- 22:08Speaker 2: Well it's old, it's a.
- 22:09Speaker 1: Chop worn, it's corny. But I'd never heard that before,
- 22:15Speaker 1: and that was exactly what I needed. That little slogan
- 22:19Speaker 1: told me that my problem was not my problems. My
- 22:23Speaker 1: problem was the way I was looking at my problems,
- 22:26Speaker 1: and it was just enough to convince me to stay
- 22:29Speaker 1: on the job. I bought that little thing and I
- 22:33Speaker 1: took it out to my plymouth duster. My plymouth duster
- 22:37Speaker 1: had a metal strip on the dashboard, and I stuck
- 22:40Speaker 1: that magnetized lemon on that metal strip, and every day,
- 22:46Speaker 1: at least a dozen times I would reach up and
- 22:48Speaker 1: I rubbed my thumb across that, and I think, Okay,
- 22:55Speaker 1: I can either be miserable or I can make some lemonade.
- 23:00Speaker 1: I survived the summer. That's been forty years. Much has happened,
- 23:09Speaker 1: much has changed, but friends, this much has not. Life
- 23:16Speaker 1: still gives lemons.
- 23:21Speaker 2: It does.
- 23:23Speaker 1: In my prospects of a miserable summer are nothing compared
- 23:27Speaker 1: to the lemons that some of you have received. Just
- 23:32Speaker 1: a few days ago, I found myself in a conversation
- 23:35Speaker 1: with an elderly lady whose husband has been diagnosed with
- 23:39Speaker 1: dementia and she's gonna have to tell him he can
- 23:46Speaker 1: no longer drive. And she was telling me how she
- 23:48Speaker 1: was gonna have to take the car keys away. Life
- 23:50Speaker 1: has given her a lemon. I found myself in a
- 23:54Speaker 1: conversation with a young mom. She already has one child,
- 23:57Speaker 1: and now she has a new born. It seems like
- 24:00Speaker 1: she can't remember the last time she had a good
- 24:02Speaker 1: night sleep, and she's really worried if she'll be a
- 24:07Speaker 1: good parent. I had lunch not too long ago with
- 24:11Speaker 1: a fella who's trying to get through a very, very
- 24:16Speaker 1: difficult divorce. He underestimated the damage it would do, and
- 24:22Speaker 1: he's worried about his kids. He's worried about himself, if
- 24:25Speaker 1: he'll ever be happy again. Life gives lemons, doesn't it
- 24:30Speaker 1: has life given you a lemon?
- 24:32Speaker 2: Lately?
- 24:35Speaker 1: Life gives lemons to good people. Life gives lemons to
- 24:38Speaker 1: bad people. Life gives lemons to old people. Life gives
- 24:42Speaker 1: lemons to young people. Life gives lemons to medical missionaries.
- 24:48Speaker 1: Life comes with lemons, but we don't.
- 24:52Speaker 2: Have to suck on.
- 25:03Speaker 1: This is the point of the Apostle Paul. You can
- 25:07Speaker 1: read your Bible from beginning to end. You can capitalize
- 25:11Speaker 1: every letter in the epistles of Paul, and you will
- 25:14Speaker 1: never find a promise that says fall a Christ, and
- 25:17Speaker 1: you'll have no lemons.
- 25:18Speaker 2: It's just not there.
- 25:21Speaker 1: But there is this promise that when life gives you
- 25:25Speaker 1: a lemon, God will show you how to respond to it,
- 25:30Speaker 1: how to handle it. When life gives you a bucketful
- 25:35Speaker 1: of anxiety, Christ will show you a way to respond
- 25:40Speaker 1: to that anxiety so that that anxiety does not get
- 25:45Speaker 1: to you. This is the promise that God gives that
- 25:50Speaker 1: you can cast all your cares upon him, because he
- 25:52Speaker 1: cares about you. That you can be anxious for nothing,
- 25:55Speaker 1: but in everything, by prayer and supplication, you can make
- 25:59Speaker 1: your request known to God. Life comes with a bushel
- 26:02Speaker 1: full of limits, but if you're sucking on them, they're
- 26:08Speaker 1: gonna make you sour. But you can respond to them
- 26:13Speaker 1: in a better way. Meditate on good things the passage
- 26:17Speaker 1: one more time. Read it out loud with me as
- 26:19Speaker 1: the words appear.
- 26:20Speaker 2: On the screen.
- 26:22Speaker 1: Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things
- 26:27Speaker 1: are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely,
- 26:32Speaker 1: whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue,
- 26:36Speaker 1: and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.
- 26:42Speaker 2: Lord, would you grant us to say.
- 27:02Speaker 1: A A.
- 29:13Speaker 3: Loving you alone feels so beautiful, and yet.
- 29:24Speaker 2: It hurts the most.
- 29:29Speaker 4: You became my quiet sunrise, the dream I never dared
- 29:34Speaker 4: to say. Every smile you gave so.
- 29:38Speaker 3: Freely took my breath a little away.
- 29:43Speaker 2: I held this love like.
- 29:45Speaker 3: Fragile glass, so precious, soft and true, But every being
- 29:51Speaker 3: inside my heart was only reaching out to you.
- 29:57Speaker 4: Unspoken, this sweet and painful, like.
- 30:02Speaker 5: Coneye mixed with rain.
- 30:05Speaker 4: Let's end the whole bial so sadly while it slowly
- 30:10Speaker 4: breaks me loving you from just one side.
- 30:14Speaker 5: Now leave my soul in silent blue. Because the deeper
- 30:20Speaker 5: that I follow along, the lonelier I do.
- 30:28Speaker 4: I can't blame my heart for choosing someone it could
- 30:33Speaker 4: never keep, so I smiled through hidden heartache. Hell love
- 30:39Speaker 4: you quietly spoke in.
- 30:42Speaker 5: Love is sweet and painful, like Connie mixed with rain.
- 30:49Speaker 6: Let's end the whole bial so tightly whalle it slowly
- 30:55Speaker 6: breaks me loving you from just one side.
- 30:59Speaker 1: Now leave.
- 31:00Speaker 3: It's my soul in silence.
- 31:02Speaker 5: Boom because the people that I follow long the only
- 31:09Speaker 5: I do.
- 31:26Speaker 1: Maybe loving you in.
- 31:28Speaker 6: Silence it's the closest darknsting, though leaves behind the sorrow
- 31:36Speaker 6: that may never fat away.
- 31:43Speaker 5: I spoken love is sweet and painful to lie.
- 31:48Speaker 3: Honey mixed with rain.
- 31:51Speaker 4: A tender whole biles so tightly, wald slowly.
- 31:56Speaker 5: Breaks me loving you from just I'm shut. Now leave
- 32:01Speaker 5: my soul in silence, because the deeper that I follow love.
- 32:10Speaker 1: The lorly
- 32:13Speaker 2: Her to