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How not to let things rattle us · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:35
  Welcome to Faith Is.
• 0:37
  I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and did you know this weekend is a wonderful weekend to go to church?
• 0:45
  Now, if you've heard me talk, you probably know that I would say every weekend is a great weekend to go to church.
• 0:53
  But if you needed an excuse, and I don't know why you would, because shouldn't we all want to meet with God and his people?
• 1:03
  We sometimes think church is just church.
• 1:06
  No, it's life and death.
• 1:08
  It's meeting with the living God.
• 1:11
  He is there when you are gathered with his people.
• 1:15
  So it's a great weekend every weekend, every Lord's Day is an opportunity to go to church.
• 1:23
  But if you need an excuse outside of that, or an explanation or a reason or whatever, this is in our country, Mother's Day weekend, and so Sunday is Mother's Day, and so go with your mother to church, or take her to church.
• 1:40
  If neither one of you go to church, find a church and go.
• 1:43
  Now, how do you find a church?
• 1:45
  You find a church that's closest to the Bible.
• 1:50
  That's what you want to look for.
• 1:51
  So on this Mother's Day, go to church.
• 1:56
  Honor your mother.
• 1:58
  That's what the Bible says.
• 1:59
  Honor your mother.
• 2:01
  It doesn't say if you have a good one, honor her.
• 2:04
  And if you have a bad one, don't.
• 2:06
  It says honor your mother.
• 2:09
  So I hope you will.
• 2:10
  Well, maybe a little more about that in a little bit.
• 2:13
  But it came to my attention, and I didn't see this.
• 2:17
  I want to be absolutely clear about this.
• 2:20
  I didn't hear what Tucker Carlson said.
• 2:23
  I was told about it by people that I believe are reliable, and so I trust them.
• 2:29
  I don't typically listen to Tucker Carlson.
• 2:33
  Uh not any particular reason until lately when I've heard so many people disparage him and criticize what he has said, and so I've thought, why do I need to bother if that's where he's going?
• 2:46
  It's it's curious to me.
• 2:49
  A couple of years ago, I heard Tucker Carlson speak in person, and it was a remarkable remarkable speech.
• 2:56
  I mean, the stories he told, the the very robust and distinctive Christian witness was just compelling and encouraging, and I was really not expecting that from him.
• 3:10
  I didn't really know what the depth of his Christian commitments were, but I was really quite impressed by that.
• 3:17
  So I've been really disappointed and and uh don't hardly know what to say by the things that I've been hearing about him.
• 3:24
  But I want to talk about three things that I was told he was saying recently, and that are simply not true, and I know they are not true because I have firsthand experience.
• 3:38
  I am a firsthand witness to the events, and I know that what he was reported to have said is not true.
• 3:49
  So apparently he was talking about the ambassador summit that I had a thousand pastors attended back in December of last year, the first week of December in Israel.
• 3:59
  We traveled to Israel.
• 4:01
  We stayed at a hotel in Jerusalem.
• 4:04
  We traveled to a number of sites around the country, including the site of the music festival where the horrible attack from Hamas took place.
• 4:26
  We visited ancient Shiloh, uh absolutely holy ground, where when Israel, and you can read this in the old testament, where Israel entered the promised land finally, and they set up the tabernacle there.
• 4:41
  It's where Samuel was dedicated to God, and where God spoke to Samuel.
• 4:46
  You can see that, you can walk that ground.
• 4:49
  Absolutely.
• 4:53
  But anyway, the the long and the short of it is I was there for the ambassador summit.
• 4:58
  I received the communications ahead of time that gave us the instructions of how to prepare and what to expect.
• 5:06
  Uh, all of the things like passports and other permission um documents, I guess I'd say you have to have what to expect, how to manage all of that.
• 5:16
  It was not anything unusual.
• 5:19
  It was kind of routine, I guess not as routine for me because I'm not a world traveler, but nonetheless, it was nothing particularly out of the ordinary, and the the trip and the the whole experience was absolutely thrilling and encouraging and moving, and I still talk about it to this day.
• 5:37
  I'm talking about it this day because of the attack, apparently, or at least the the misstatements or outright falsehoods, however, the intent was, I don't know.
• 5:49
  But apparently Tucker Carlson said three things about the summit that I want to simply explain to you were not and are provably not true.
• 5:58
  I was an eyewitness, I was there, I know this accusations, this did not happen.
• 6:05
  So the first thing was this that pastors were commissioned as ambassadors for Israel, not Jesus.
• 6:14
  Well, that is simply preposterous.
• 6:17
  There was absolutely no effort to recruit us or commission us to represent the country of Israel.
• 6:26
  Absolutely, positively none.
• 6:30
  We were never encouraged to be ambassadors for Israel.
• 6:35
  We were encouraged, like I would encourage you to speak up for the truth, to tell people what we saw and what we experienced, so that people would understand better what goes on in the stresses and strains of the Middle East.
• 6:56
  Do I understand it fully and perfectly?
• 6:58
  No.
• 6:59
  It's far too complex to understand on one trip.
• 7:00
  Far too complex to understand on one trip, and based on the things we were exposed to, you just could not understand everything.
• 7:02
  And based on the the things we were exposed to, you just could not understand everything.
• 7:07
  I I recognize that.
• 7:07
  I I recognize that.
• 7:09
  But to get a grasp or a sense of it in a deeper way, yes.
• 7:09
  But to get a grasp or a sense of it in a deeper way, yes.
• 7:14
  To realize how complicated things are, yes.
• 7:14
  To realize how complicated things are, yes.
• 7:18
  But we were never commissioned to represent Israel.
• 7:18
  But we were never commissioned to represent Israel.
• 7:23
  I've I feel fully free to represent what I saw and what I experienced and to explain how I.
• 7:23
  I feel fully free to represent what I saw and what I experienced and to explain how I understand the dynamics of the Middle East and particularly of Israel, but we were never commissioned to represent Israel.
• 7:37
  In fact, I was in the room.
• 7:39
  I remember sitting there and listening to Ambassador Mike Huckabee say this to us.
• 7:47
  Now, Ambassador Huckabee is the United States ambassador to Israel.
• 7:52
  He is involved in that political world.
• 7:55
  He's also an ordained minister.
• 7:57
  You're probably aware of that.
• 7:59
  So he walks into that how would you say political nightmare or complication or whatever.
• 8:08
  And he's very adept at handling that.
• 8:12
  There seems to be little doubt about that.
• 8:14
  But he was part of commissioning us, and here's what he said.
• 8:19
  This is a quote.
• 8:20
  I remember I sat there, I heard him say this.
• 8:23
  I was thrilled to hear it, and I agreed with it wholeheartedly, still do.
• 8:28
  Here's what Ambassador Mike Huckabee said to all of us.
• 8:31
  As you receive the official commissioning today, as an ambassador, you're not an ambassador for the state of Israel.
• 8:40
  Nobody's asking you to take on a political role.
• 8:44
  In fact, I don't recommend it.
• 8:47
  You got enough trouble being a pastor.
• 8:49
  You sure don't need to get into this business.
• 8:53
  No, I would say you're an ambassador for Christ, his kingdom, and his words.
• 8:59
  That's who you are an ambassador for.
• 9:03
  End of quote.
• 9:04
  That's what he said.
• 9:06
  Straight up, we are not representing, I do not represent Israel, could never speak for them.
• 9:14
  All I can tell you is what I understand, what I experienced, what makes better sense to me today because of being there, but I am not an ambassador for the country of Israel.
• 9:26
  I will speak up in defense of God's people.
• 9:30
  Absolutely.
• 9:30
  I think that the Bible expects that of me.
• 9:34
  Now, lots of people struggle with what does it mean to be God's people.
• 9:39
  All I can explain to you is what I understand from the Bible.
• 9:42
  When you go back to Genesis chapter 15, and God invited Abraham into covenant relationship, Abraham's tribe, all of his descendants became partners in that covenant.
• 9:56
  They became, along with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God's people.
• 10:00
  That later was extended to the church, the people that follow Jesus, and so we together, the descendants of Abraham and the people of God who follow Christ, we are God's people.
• 10:13
  And I will speak up in defense of God's people and their historic and biblical right to that land.
• 10:22
  It's as simple as that.
• 10:24
  That's not a political statement.
• 10:26
  That's a conviction statement from the Bible.
• 10:30
  That's a biblical statement.
• 10:32
  God gave his people that land, and he didn't change his mind, and he didn't step back from his covenant promises.
• 10:41
  Yes, there's lots of evidence that God's people have violated their covenant responsibilities to God.
• 10:48
  We call that sin.
• 10:51
  The Bible says we've all sinned.
• 10:53
  But God never withdrew his promise to his people, and he never failed to keep his covenant with them.
• 11:02
  And that includes to today when God has given the land to his people.
• 11:10
  Now, you might struggle with some of that because of the historical and political dynamics that go on today.
• 11:18
  I get that.
• 11:18
  You can struggle that out.
• 11:20
  But you cannot deny, if you're willing to take the Bible as God's word to us that God gave that land to Israel and to his people, and he gave it to them forever.
• 11:34
  Now you're also going to struggle when you begin to realize that the country of Israel is not fully run by the country of Israel.
• 11:45
  There are so many competing interests that complicate the situation there.
• 11:53
  It is very complicated.
• 11:55
  Let me just say you enough tell you one thing to help you understand the complications.
• 12:00
  So imagine that you are a citizen of the country of Israel, but there are places in the country of Israel that you are not allowed to go because of the complications created by other competing interest groups.
• 12:15
  Well, that's just one example of some of the problems that go on there.
• 12:19
  So that was one thing.
• 12:21
  I said a lot to say that it was it's completely false that we were commissioned as ambassadors for Israel.
• 12:28
  We were not.
• 12:30
  Second thing that was reported that was said by Tucker Carlson was that pastors were told not to speak the name of Jesus.
• 12:38
  And again, I read the communications that were sent to us.
• 12:42
  I read the information they asked us to read in advance.
• 12:45
  I prepared as they asked us to prepare.
• 12:55
  And there was never anything ever written, text message to us, spoken to us, either from a platform or privately as a small group.
• 13:08
  Nothing was ever said that we should not speak the name of Jesus.
• 13:15
  Our Israeli guides, who were not, are not, as far as I know today, Christians.
• 13:24
  They talked about Jesus, and they talked about the impact of Jesus.
• 13:35
  Is it the garden tomb which we visited?
• 13:38
  Is it the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which we visited?
• 13:41
  We talked openly about those things.
• 13:43
  They had no difficulty talking about that, and we were never ever restricted.
• 13:50
  In fact, when we had our large group meetings and even some of our smaller group meetings, the name of Jesus was continually front and center in our thoughts and our expressions.
• 14:00
  Our thoughts and our expressions.
• 14:02
  So for people to say that we were told not to speak the name of Jesus is absolutely a complete fabrication and misrepresentation.
• 14:02
  So for people to say that we were told not to speak the name of Jesus is absolutely a complete fabrication and misrepresentation.
• 14:11
  All right, so that's the second thing.
• 14:11
  All right, so that's the second thing.
• 14:13
  Third thing was, and this one just I scratched my head.
• 14:13
  Third thing was, and and this one just I scratch my head.
• 14:16
  I I cannot believe why this was said or what's the significance of it.
• 14:16
  I I cannot believe why this was said or what's the significance of it.
• 14:22
  But the third thing that was reported to me that was said on the on the program with Tucker Carlson was that none of
• 14:22
  But the third thing that was reported to me that was said on the on the program with Tucker Carlson was that none of the pastors stepped afoot in a Christian church.
• 14:34
  Now I'm not sure what the significance of that would have been.
• 14:39
  What if we hadn't?
• 14:40
  So what does that what does that mean?
• 14:42
  I mean, I mean, really, why is that a thing?
• 14:46
  Now, I can tell you, because I was there, I went to the events, I participated in all of them, and we most certainly gathered in places that were not Christian churches.
• 15:00
  We had a gathering at the site of the Nova Music Festival.
• 15:05
  They had set up chairs and a platform.
• 15:07
  We had a gathering there.
• 15:08
  We had a couple of other gatherings, one at ancient Shiloh and one on the Mount of Olives.
• 15:15
  Some others, we had a gathering on the South Steps of the Temple Mount, the steps that Jesus would have walked up to go to the temple during his time on earth.
• 15:26
  Well, we gathered a lot of those places.
• 15:28
  Some of the reasons we gathered where we did was because of the size of the group, and so you had to have a venue that would be appropriate for that.
• 15:36
  And so that's what we did.
• 15:38
  But here's the other side of it.
• 15:41
  One of the days, and I don't know if you count this as a Christian church, I think of it that way.
• 15:47
  We had lunch at the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center.
• 15:52
  Now, I'm sure you don't know Jerusalem very well.
• 15:55
  I don't know it very well in terms of getting around.
• 15:58
  I I know a little bit because of having been there, but right across from the old city of Jerusalem is this huge what do they call it?
• 16:10
  Jerusalem Center, hospitality center, I think they call it.
• 16:13
  And so they had prepared lunch for us.
• 16:16
  So one of the days they provided our lunch.
• 16:19
  So we walked from the old city where we had been seeing some things over across the street, really, is about all it amounted to the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, a Roman Catholic center, but they invite all Christian groups to use the facilities, and they were very cordial.
• 16:37
  It was a great lunch.
• 16:39
  I mean, really spectacular what they had prepared.
• 16:43
  Does that count as a Christian church?
• 16:45
  Well, some people say maybe not.
• 16:47
  It did have a chapel.
• 16:48
  I didn't get to see the chapel, but they have a chapel there, and it's clearly a Christian facility.
• 16:53
  So if you want to count that, that's fine.
• 16:55
  But we all visited a Christian church called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 17:02
  That is a Christian church.
• 17:04
  There is no question about it.
• 17:06
  And we visited there.
• 17:08
  So for anybody to say that we didn't set foot in a Christian church, it's just simply uh doesn't know what happened.
• 17:15
  We walked into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 17:18
  I remember it from my first visit to Jerusalem.
• 17:21
  And I remember the spot in the church where some people believe was the cross was lowered into the hole that is there in the ground.
• 17:32
  And you can see that, and you can touch it.
• 17:50
  That stone is there, and then you walk a little ways to the site of what many people believe is the actual burial tomb of Jesus that's there in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 18:04
  Now you might, if when you go to Israel, and I hope you will, you might go into that church and say, Wow, this is odd.
• 18:10
  Why did they build a church around all of this that would have been open air before?
• 18:14
  Well, I don't know all the reasons for that, but many of the sites in Israel are venerated that way or preserved that way by building churches over them, and that's just what's been done over time.
• 18:26
  It's a meant meant to preserve and to honor that location.
• 18:31
  So those are three things that were said, and I just want to make sure that you hear it from someone who was there who I, as an eyewitness, I know what happened, and I know that we were commissioned as ambassadors for Christ to represent him and his people.
• 18:50
  We were there, and we were never restricted in any way of what we could talk about, who we could talk to.
• 18:57
  We were fully free to express our interest in our worship of all of the things related to Jesus.
• 19:08
  In fact, we were at we were honoring the Lord on Sunday morning at an open air service on the Mount of Olives, looking out across the Kidron Valley to the Temple Mount.
• 19:20
  So it's really quite remarkable, and all of the things then go in, go through our minds that we can see the places.
• 19:26
  We could see the dome from the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 19:30
  We could see the city of David.
• 19:32
  We knew what was going on there, and it was certainly representative of the life of Christ, and and we were not restricted in the singing or the preaching that took place there at that early morning service.
• 19:47
  And I already said we did visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, so we were in at least one Christian facility, two, if you want to count the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center.
• 19:58
  So I don't know where these things come from.
• 20:00
  I don't know why it was important for it to be mentioned by someone like Tucker Carlson.
• 20:05
  I don't I don't understand the significance.
• 20:08
  Well, who was he trying to convince and what was he trying to convince them of?
• 20:12
  I don't know.
• 20:13
  But I know what the truth was, and I wanted you to have a chance to hear the truth.
• 20:19
  And that's the truth.
• 20:20
  That's just the truth, the whole truth, and as they say, nothing but the truth.
• 20:26
  Well, a word about mothers on Mother's Day before we get into uh a portion of the Bible that I find very fascinating, and then we'll look at this scripture this week and probably next week some as well.
• 20:38
  But um I came across a quote and I thought it was really quite interesting.
• 20:43
  It says, Motherhood is the exquisite inconvenience of being another person's everything.
• 20:51
  And I thought in a creative way, and and it nobody knows who said that apparently because the source where I found it says it's an unknown quotation.
• 21:00
  But motherhood is the exquisite inconvenience of being another person's everything.
• 21:00
  But motherhood is the exquisite inconvenience of being another person's everything.
• 21:07
  And you know, we've lived through some times, and maybe it's still true for too many people today that being a mother has not been honored.
• 21:07
  And you know, we've lived through some times, and maybe it's still true for too many people today that that being a mother has not been honored.
• 21:15
  It's been considered an inconvenience by some people, but not an inconvenience the way this quote describes it.
• 21:15
  It's been considered an inconvenience by some people, but not an inconvenience the way this quote describes it.
• 21:21
  This is a positive inconvenience because yes, mothers know better than I do the inconvenience of of being available.
• 21:21
  This is a positive inconvenience because, yes, mothers know better than I do the inconvenience of being available to children all the time, and of being something that they need almost all their lives.
• 21:37
  So we understand the the um challenges of being a mother.
• 21:43
  It's a it's a daunting challenge.
• 21:45
  But it's not it's not a negative inconvenience, it's a positive inconvenience.
• 21:51
  And it's a little hard for me, I'll be honest to wrap my head around the people that want to talk about being a mother and having children as being some kind of second class life.
• 22:03
  It just it just isn't.
• 22:05
  And we have to push back against that with all that we've got.
• 22:09
  Now, maybe I was influenced that that way, and it helped me early on.
• 22:13
  I remember, I cannot remember the reason that was said, but you know, every now and then you you realize you remember things that your mother said that you can't escape.
• 22:23
  And this one was really quite interesting, and I have never really unpacked what exactly what that meant or had any reason to ask her about it.
• 22:32
  I just remember it being said, and and I it got my attention and and I took it to heart, and that was that.
• 22:39
  But my mother one day said that she never aspired in her life to anything more than being a wife and mother.
• 22:49
  And that did not strike me as odd at all.
• 22:53
  Now, to some people these days, that does seem a little unusual to them.
• 22:57
  Uh I was too small for for any other sense of that.
• 23:01
  I understand that.
• 23:03
  But at the same time, it was never anything but her complete life satisfaction that she had two children, myself and my sister, and she was delighted that to spend her life being a wife and a mother.
• 23:22
  And and I think today we forget how valuable that is.
• 23:26
  You know, I don't know what it's like not to grow up and have mom at home all day, every day.
• 23:32
  Now, later, when I was in school, um, quite a bit later, she worked part-time as a school bus driver to supplement the family income.
• 23:41
  But in all my growing up years, all through the ins and outs of going to school and coming home and playing outside all summer long, she was there.
• 23:51
  And if I needed anything, like the day I got badly stung by a bunch of bumblebees, she was there.
• 23:56
  And I never had to think about what would I do if I needed something and she wasn't there.
• 24:02
  And that probably made more difference to me than I even realized today.
• 24:07
  But I want to remind us, just by my uh random recollections, if you will, that we should not devalue the role, the investment of being a mother.
• 24:21
  And I I admire the challenges of motherhood today.
• 24:26
  I am glad I am past the stage in my life where I have to be concerned about the raising and shaping of children.
• 24:34
  I realize it's a daunting challenge.
• 24:37
  Every generation faces new challenges, but I so much appreciate those mothers who give themselves to raising and shaping their children.
• 24:46
  And I want to challenge and remind all of us that whether our mothers are still with us or if they're with the Lord, we have a responsibility to honor them.
• 24:57
  And remember, whether your mother was a good mother or whether you wish she had been something she could not have been, you still have an obligation to honor your mother.
• 25:08
  The Bible doesn't say honor your mother if you want to.
• 25:11
  It doesn't say honor your mother if she was everything you wanted her to be.
• 25:15
  It doesn't say honor your mother if she always gave you your way.
• 25:19
  It says, honor your mother.
• 25:23
  No matter who she was or what she was, you find a way to honor your mother and speak well of her and speak of her good qualities and overlook shortcomings, like we all need on FastRoy.
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• 28:57
  Let's get real.
• 28:58
  Let's get loud on America Loud Talk Radio.
• 29:00
  This is a McCullough Report, and I'm Dr.
• 29:01
  Peter McCullough.
• 29:02
  But I want to put in a word about the bear bar.
• 29:06
  The bear bar, and we feature bear bar products on the America Out Loud Shop website.
• 29:11
  So go to America Out Loud Shop and get your discount.
• 29:14
  You are going to want to try the bear bar.
• 29:16
  Get a whole box.
• 29:18
  The flavors include uh the original, turmeric, spicy, and herb.
• 29:23
  Now, these are all natural, uh, no GMOs, no artificial ingredients whatsoever.
• 29:30
  They're carefully baked and made uh in a facility in San Diego, California, under the watch of uh Brian Bowers, who I personally know.
• 29:40
  So these are in a sense handcrafted.
• 29:43
  Uh they have great ingredients and all the natural ingredients uh that your body is gonna want.
• 29:49
  Now they're not a sweet bar.
• 29:51
  Uh they are savory.
• 29:53
  Meaning when you eat them, you get a great sense of satisfaction.
• 29:57
  I told Malcolm on our last show, uh, you you get a sense of uh a feeling healthy when you eat the bear bar.
• 30:04
  Um I think one of the best applications is crumble it up and you can put it on uh a salad, for instance, probably the best salad topper I think I've uh ever had.
• 30:14
  And uh, but you certainly can eat it as a snack.
• 30:17
  Uh Malcolm likes to eat them right before I come on our show.
• 30:20
  No wonder he's in uh such a good mood when he comes on with me on America Out Loud Pulse.
• 30:26
  So when you eat a bear bar, this is not like any other energy or power bar.
• 30:31
  This is uh healthy.
• 30:33
  Check them out, go to America Out Loud shop, uh, and then search for the bear bar.
• 30:38
  Order a box.
• 30:39
  I I'd suggest order a box for each one of the flavors now so you get a uh sense of uh what they are, non-GMO, gluten free, that's important for me.
• 30:50
  I'm gluten free.
• 30:51
  I know I can have any one of the bear bars.
• 30:53
  So let's get real.
• 30:54
  Let's get loud on America Loud Talk Radio.
• 30:58
  Well, never before has our American cultural, economic, spiritual, and political fabric been more threatening.
• 31:06
  Well, the America most of us have grown up with law under a relentless and pernicious siege from those carrying the banners of socialism, Congress, and Marxism.
• 31:17
  America Rotloud.news is the antidote to these poison history.
• 31:24
  America out loud.news is that place to awaken your heart, soul, and mind to the outloud truth.
• 31:37
  Welcome back to Faith Is.
• 31:38
  I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and this is the place where faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 31:46
  And we're gonna talk about that really specifically in just a minute, but we want to start with a mother's story.
• 31:54
  That seems fitting on this Mother's Day weekend, doesn't it?
• 31:57
  I remember reading this story many years ago, and and I the source where I found it, I believe it was a true story.
• 32:04
  It doesn't take much to imagine that it would have been.
• 32:07
  But there was a mother who had several children, and if you're a mother, you understand what that can mean.
• 32:14
  I found out from my sister, who had three children, and she said, it's very much different when you have the third child because you discover you only have two hands.
• 32:25
  And I thought that was really good wisdom because it kind of puts into perspective the challenges that moms go through, and some days kids are bouncing off the walls, and some days they're as well behaved as you ever could have imagined them.
• 32:39
  Well, this was one of those days that apparently in the household, things were a little bit more chaotic than usual.
• 32:47
  And so this mother bundled up her children and said, Come on, kids, we're going for a walk.
• 32:53
  And so they went out for a walk.
• 32:55
  They lived in a rural setting, and so they went out across the field and up a little hill.
• 33:00
  And on the way, one of the older kids kind of wondered what was going on, because this was a little bit unusual behavior for mom.
• 33:07
  And so asked mom, what are we doing?
• 33:10
  And mom says, We're going to look for perspective.
• 33:14
  And I thought that was so insightful.
• 33:17
  She was aware enough to know that some days just are what they are.
• 33:23
  And so she needed to get out of the house, get the kids out of the house, and re set her perspective.
• 33:29
  And so she was gonna go up that hill and look for perspective.
• 33:33
  And I'm pretty sure she found it.
• 33:35
  Well, it's perspective that I hope we can get today on a subject that.
• 33:42
  Well, some people say it's risky to bring up.
• 33:45
  I understand that, but we're gonna bring it up anyway, because the Bible does.
• 33:49
  But I want to help us have some perspective on the subject of anxiety.
• 33:54
  You may have heard a lot about that these days.
• 33:56
  Some people have called this the age of anxiety.
• 33:58
  I've heard it called the age of several things, but certainly anxiety is a problem in our day, and certainly the Bible indicates that we were going to have some struggles with anxiety.
• 34:11
  So I did a little looking, not very much, and not too much in depth because I'm taking my thinking from the Bible today, not from other research, but I discovered that 19% of adults report anxiety of some kind.
• 34:27
  That's what the research says.
• 34:28
  19%.
• 34:30
  That's a lot.
• 34:32
  That's a pretty significant percent of our population.
• 34:36
  What got my attention even more was that 31% of teens report anxiety.
• 34:42
  Think about that.
• 34:43
  This is our children.
• 34:44
  Now I don't mean disrespect of teens by calling them children, but I know, and you do too if you've lived through your teenage years, that you really weren't as grown up as you wanted to be or thought you were.
• 34:56
  And so we who are the grown ups in the room now have to recognize these are our kids struggling with anxiety.
• 35:00
  Recognize these are our kids struggling with anxiety.
• 35:05
  Now, I think, as I said a moment ago, that Jesus realized that this could be a problem and would be a problem, and so he gave us a statement in John chapter 14, verse 1, to help us with that.
• 35:05
  Now, I think, as I said a moment ago, that Jesus realized that this could be a problem and would be a problem, and so he gave us a statement in John chapter 14, verse one, to help us with that.
• 35:19
  Now, at first glance, some of you are going to say, yikes!
• 35:19
  Now, at first glance, some of you are gonna say, Yikes!
• 35:22
  What's he talking about?
• 35:22
  What's he talking about?
• 35:23
  But let me tell you what he starts out with.
• 35:23
  But let me tell you what he starts out with.
• 35:24
  One sentence Jesus says to his followers, he's talking to them, and he says,
• 35:25
  One sentence.
• 35:25
  Jesus says to his followers.
• 35:33
  Or don't let your heart be in distress, is another way to think of that.
• 35:38
  Don't let your heart be troubled.
• 35:41
  I don't know, you may have heard it a popular television personality.
• 35:45
  I think he probably used it on the radio too, but I don't know because I haven't listened for a very long time.
• 35:51
  But used to say regularly, let not your heart be troubled.
• 35:54
  And you probably recognize that as coming out of the King James version of this same verse.
• 36:00
  Now, other English translations remind us in other places, don't worry about anything.
• 36:07
  So we hear this message from the Bible, and in fact, the New International Version of John 14 says it straight up, do not be anxious about anything.
• 36:17
  And yet we live in a time when people struggle with anxiety.
• 36:21
  So we need to think about this, and we need to think about well, if we're not supposed to be anxious, what do we do about our anxiety?
• 36:29
  What do we do when we're the kind of person that I heard my mother describe one time as this person would be worried if she didn't have anything to worry about?
• 36:38
  Well, we all kind of laugh when we hear that, and we understand that some people get kind of caught up with that, but we don't want to be that.
• 36:45
  Now I'm not talking about the garden variety worries of life, okay, or the things that you might have a passing concern about.
• 36:55
  So for example, I don't have any problem with uh typically worrying at all about what I'm going to wear to an event.
• 37:03
  For men, it's relatively easy.
• 37:05
  We just don't have to worry about that.
• 37:07
  Women have a little different concern, but that's not the anxiety I'm talking about.
• 37:12
  Uh I don't I don't worry about you know what I'm going to eat particularly.
• 37:17
  Uh I mean I'm happy to eat well, and I appreciate that, but I don't worry about it.
• 37:22
  I know sometimes I'm responsible for what I'm going to have, so I have to think about it, but I'm not worried about it.
• 37:28
  But well, maybe for me, it's better for me to explain it this way.
• 37:32
  Uh, every Monday I know that Sunday's coming.
• 37:38
  As a pastor, we all know that.
• 37:40
  And so that causes me a little bit of anxiety through a week.
• 37:44
  What am I going to say on Sunday?
• 37:46
  I can't get up there unprepared.
• 37:49
  I have to be prepared.
• 37:50
  Well, even that's not the anxiety I'm talking about.
• 37:54
  I don't think that's the anxiety Jesus is talking about.
• 37:57
  Jesus is talking about that.
• 37:58
  I believe the Bible is talking to us about what we would call a chronic anxiety that makes us in distress all the time about many things.
• 38:10
  And so we want to talk about what does it mean for us to hear the words of Jesus when he says, Don't let your heart be troubled.
• 38:18
  How do we cope with that?
• 38:22
  Being troubled.
• 38:23
  He goes on to say in John 14, verse 1, believe in God, believe also in me.
• 38:29
  So here's the contrast.
• 38:30
  Jesus is saying, you can live in anxious concern, you can have a heart in distress, or you can believe in me.
• 38:40
  So obviously he's talking about more than what we might wear to the event next week, if that's a concern to us.
• 38:48
  It's not to me, but anyway, I digress.
• 38:52
  He's saying to us, you don't need to live in this continuing state of anxious concern.
• 38:58
  And that's important for us to take to heart because we need to say, okay, if we hear the words of Jesus telling us that, then he must be telling us we don't have to live in anxious concern.
• 39:12
  I began to think about that a little bit more, and I happened to hear a couple of weeks ago a man who is running for governor in the state of Colorado named Victor Marks, quite a remarkable man, a faithful follower of Jesus with remarkable testimony and remarkable life experience.
• 39:30
  Uh you can check you can check him out if you want.
• 39:33
  He's the guy that he and his wife have gone into ISIS refugee camps to bring relief to people.
• 39:40
  He and his team, including his wife, have actually rescued kidnapped women from ISIS control.
• 39:48
  And I don't know all the details of that, but I know that's what he was up to.
• 39:51
  Well, when he spoke, and I heard him speak to a large group of us, he said that one of the things that he's observed is that the church has two big problems.
• 40:00
  One is fear and one is unforgiveness.
• 40:03
  And so maybe that's part of why so many of us have trouble with anxiety, is we're afraid of too many things, and the Bible again says, Don't be afraid.
• 40:16
  And the unforgiveness part of that, well, that's real.
• 40:20
  People struggle with that.
• 40:22
  How can I forgive if you only knew what they did?
• 40:24
  Well, this is not an attempt to deal with unforgiveness, but it is an attempt to say to you that if you're trying to manage anxiety or let not your heart be troubled, and you're struggling with unforgiveness, you may need to deal with that before you get over the anxious concern.
• 40:44
  So let's let's plunge in a little bit and see if we can give ourselves some perspective on this idea of anxiety.
• 40:51
  Now, there's a lot of ways to think about it.
• 40:54
  There's a lot of things we might say about it.
• 40:57
  But one of the things I want to bring to our attention is a hymn that I guess has fallen out of use.
• 41:04
  I don't think a lot of people know it.
• 41:05
  I'm not quite sure why it has stuck in my mind, but for some reason it seems like I've always known this hymn.
• 41:13
  It's in our church's hymnal, it probably is in yours.
• 41:16
  But the title is all your anxiety, or if you look it up, you might look it up under the first phrase, first line.
• 41:23
  Sometimes hymnals have an index by first line.
• 41:26
  But here's here's how it goes.
• 41:29
  Is there a heart or bound by sorrow?
• 41:32
  Is there a life weighed down by care?
• 41:36
  Come to the cross, each burden bearing, all your anxiety, leave it there.
• 41:42
  All your anxiety, all your care, bring to the mercy seat, leave it there.
• 41:48
  Never a burden, he cannot bear.
• 41:51
  Never a friend like Jesus.
• 41:55
  Now that's the first stanza in the chorus of that.
• 41:58
  And that's really what I'm hoping to communicate to you today.
• 42:00
  Really, what I'm hoping to communicate to you today.
• 42:04
  That if you struggle with having a troubled heart, if you struggle with anxiety, would you hear the invitation of Jesus to bring it to the mercy seat and leave it there?
• 42:04
  That if you struggle with having a troubled heart, if you struggle with anxiety, would you hear the invitation of Jesus to bring it to the mercy seat and leave it there?
• 42:20
  So many people look in so many places for relief from their painful lives, from their anxious concern in this case.
• 42:20
  So many people look in so many places for relief from their painful lives, from their anxious concern in this case, and they forget.
• 42:33
  I guess that's the most polite way I can say it.
• 42:36
  They forget that Jesus invites them to bring their concerns to Him.
• 42:44
  Take it to the cross and leave it there.
• 42:47
  That's what the hymn says.
• 42:56
  That when we talk about what Jesus did for people on the cross, it encompasses so much.
• 43:04
  And we sometimes are just oversimplifying it to say he died for our sin.
• 43:09
  He died for sin.
• 43:13
  The whole way you might think of it, the things we committed, the things other people committed, the things committed against us, the consequences we suffer because of someone's sin.
• 43:26
  Jesus died to take care of all of that and to make us whole and holy.
• 43:35
  And if you need wholeness in your life, take those things to the cross.
• 43:44
  And yet I think we have forgotten that we have that great privilege, that great invitation from Jesus Himself.
• 43:53
  In other words, what's it what's we what are we saying?
• 43:55
  Give your worries to God.
• 43:58
  Now, why would you seek help for a heart problem?
• 44:02
  Notice that it said, don't let your heart be troubled.
• 44:07
  Why would you seek for help with a heart problem any place other than the heart specialist named Jesus?
• 44:16
  Now, when it talks about heart here, make sure you understand what the Bible means by that.
• 44:21
  And what it means is the totality of your being.
• 44:27
  Sometimes we think about heart and we think Valentine's Day.
• 44:30
  Okay, enjoy Valentine's Day.
• 44:32
  I'm happy for you to do that.
• 44:34
  But when we're talking about heart here, we're talking about the totality of who you are as a person.
• 44:41
  Or if you want to break it down into a specific way to think about it, it's your will, it's your mind, it's your emotions, it's your choices, your will, the things you choose in life, it's your mind, how you think about things, and it's your emotions, how you feel about things.
• 44:58
  Now, anxiety tends to register on the emotional level.
• 45:03
  We're anxious about something.
• 45:06
  Well, you might say, I can't help myself, I'm anxious.
• 45:10
  Aha.
• 45:11
  Apparently we can, because Jesus said, don't let your hearts be troubled.
• 45:16
  So that's one piece of good news.
• 45:19
  But maybe we're thinking about that wrong, and so our emotions are all of who we are.
• 45:24
  Maybe we should just think about those emotions as a warning light on the dashboard of life that says, hey, you better think about your mind and your choices, your thinking and your choices, your will, your mind, and what they're doing and the effect they're having on your emotions, because the emotions may just be trying to tell you something that you're not getting any other way.
• 45:50
  So, what do we do and how do we manage our anxiety?
• 45:58
  Now I've said that Jesus is the answer.
• 46:01
  I don't say that in a shallow sense that some people sometimes seem to mean it.
• 46:06
  No, I mean it in the in the deep and absolutely consequential sense that when Jesus took sin to the cross, he obliterated it and he did that so that you could be whole.
• 46:22
  Now I know some people are gonna struggle with this next part of it.
• 46:27
  There's no place in the Bible that says Jesus' wholeness is limited by any sin that you may have committed or may have been committed against you.
• 46:38
  No, the cross satisfied everything.
• 46:42
  I have heard people say, not often, but they'll say, well, I just can't help myself, referring to some type of sin with which they struggle.
• 46:52
  And I want to tell you flat out that that is simply not true.
• 46:56
  They may have convinced themselves that it's true, but it's not true.
• 47:00
  Jesus obliterated sin at the cross, and you do not need to worry that he is not enough for you.
• 47:10
  He is.
• 49:00
  Remedy for a troubled heart is confidence in Jesus.
• 49:05
  Confidence in God.
• 49:05
  Confidence.
• 49:07
  And it's meant for us to keep on believing.
• 49:07
  And it's meant for us to keep on believing.
• 49:11
  Now, he's not referring to truthfulness.
• 49:11
  Now, he's not referring to truthfulness.
• 49:14
  Sometimes we get that mixed up.
• 49:14
  Sometimes we get that mixed up.
• 49:15
  He's talking to referring to trust.
• 49:15
  He's talking to referring to trust.
• 49:17
  It's do we trust Him?
• 49:17
  It's do we trust Him?
• 49:20
  Do we have full confidence?
• 49:20
  Do we have full confidence?
• 49:22
  Remember what faith is?
• 49:22
  Remember what faith is?
• 49:24
  Absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 49:24
  Absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 49:29
  Do you have
• 49:29
  Do you have confidence that God is trustworthy?
• 49:34
  Now, you and I know that when we get anxious about something, maybe it's one of these life issues of relative passing concern.
• 49:47
  We get concerned about this thing or that thing, and in a day or two it's resolved, and so we're not worried about it anymore.
• 49:58
  We're not even talking about things that might seem to have heightened importance that really in the scheme of things don't.
• 50:06
  For example, do you remember, and maybe you didn't, but some people did.
• 50:11
  Do you remember the concern that some people had for their grade point average in high school?
• 50:16
  Now, if you didn't have concern for that, then you can consider yourself liberated from that one.
• 50:21
  But a lot of people, they worried about some of those kinds of things.
• 50:24
  But you know what now?
• 50:25
  Nobody cares what your grade point average was.
• 50:28
  It just doesn't matter.
• 50:30
  It's not a thing.
• 50:32
  And so we're not talking about the things that that kind of come and go in life.
• 50:37
  We're not talking about that kind of normal human concern for things.
• 50:40
  We're talking about the things that wear at our souls.
• 50:44
  And the question then becomes do we really trust God?
• 50:49
  Do we really have faith?
• 50:52
  Absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 50:56
  Now, maybe we need to start with God.
• 50:58
  God is the creator, he put it all together, he knows how things are meant to work.
• 51:04
  He knows the remedy when they don't work.
• 51:08
  So if you have anxious concern, if you have a troubled heart, God knows the remedy.
• 51:12
  Well, we trust him with that.
• 51:15
  See, that's where it comes back to trustworthiness of God.
• 51:19
  God knows the remedy.
• 51:20
  Do we really believe in his trustworthiness?
• 51:24
  Do we have absolute confidence that he is trustworthy?
• 51:29
  If we do, then we can do some forthright things to address our troubled hearts.
• 51:35
  Let's talk about a couple of them.
• 51:37
  One of them I've already mentioned.
• 51:38
  I'll mention it again because I just do.
• 51:42
  I regularly encourage you, everybody, to show up to church.
• 51:48
  You see, we want help with our souls.
• 51:52
  We want help with our troubled souls, but we don't want to do what Jesus said.
• 51:57
  And one of the things that he said was, go to church.
• 52:01
  They didn't say it in those words.
• 52:03
  You'll find different words in the Bible, but you know, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
• 52:07
  God's people have always worshiped on the Lord's day.
• 52:12
  Go to church every Sunday.
• 52:14
  Now, some people are resisting that because they're already thinking I'd rather be worried and anxious than go to church.
• 52:19
  Well, then you're making your choice.
• 52:21
  Don't blame God for your trouble.
• 52:24
  All right.
• 52:26
  Can I be a little bit more pointed?
• 52:28
  Not only should you go to church, but you should also get involved in a Bible study group that will pray with you and for you, and who you can pray with and for.
• 52:38
  Do that on purpose.
• 52:40
  You want to deal with your troubled heart, do it.
• 52:42
  You want to deal with your troubled heart, find a place in your church where you can serve the people of God.
• 52:48
  You can make a contribution, you can help out with something, so that you can then say, I have followed the Lord and obedience to serve him.
• 53:00
  Makes a huge difference.
• 53:02
  Let's keep going.
• 53:03
  Let's get a little deeper.
• 53:04
  There are things you can do if you want to hear what Jesus says and not have a troubled heart.
• 53:10
  We know, not just because the Bible reminds us, but indeed because the Bible reminds us that if we will spend focused time in the scriptures, in the word of God, it will minister grace to our troubled hearts.
• 53:27
  Now, what do I mean by that?
• 53:29
  I mean the same thing I've said before.
• 53:31
  We got to get back to the fundamentals sometimes, and this is fundamental.
• 53:35
  We got to get back to the Bible.
• 53:37
  You need to read and soak in the Bible.
• 53:40
  I'm not talking about sit down and read a verse.
• 53:42
  Sometimes people are real proud of themselves because they read a verse for the day.
• 53:46
  If you have a verse for the day, that's fine, but you need to find time in your week to spend more time than a verse of the day.
• 53:53
  All right.
• 53:54
  Start in the gospel of Mark.
• 53:55
  If you don't know any place else to start, start in the gospel of Mark and read a chapter a day and think about what's there.
• 54:02
  Pray about what's there.
• 54:04
  Consider what the story is telling you.
• 54:07
  Consider things that you hadn't thought of because you hadn't really taken the time to think through the events that Mark is describing.
• 54:15
  You see, if we want the Lord to restore our souls, we have to embrace the things that he uses to restore our souls.
• 54:26
  Amen, Pastor.
• 54:27
  That's pretty good.
• 54:28
  Well, I don't know if it's pretty good or not, but it's true.
• 54:31
  All right.
• 54:32
  If you really want to follow what Jesus said, and if you really want to believe him, then begin soaking in the Bible.
• 54:40
  Now, how much do I need to do that, Pastor?
• 54:42
  Well, you can try a chapter a day, but if you can't manage a chapter a day, plan days during the week where you will take time to read and soak in a portion of Scripture.
• 54:57
  I suggest the gospel of Mark because it's such a good one, tells the story of Jesus so effectively, and I like it.
• 55:04
  Okay.
• 55:05
  So take a chapter a day, four times during your week and let it happen.
• 55:10
  Now let me assume, because you're such good people that you're going to do that.
• 55:16
  You're going to follow these suggestions.
• 55:18
  You're not going to feel 100% the next day because you did it once.
• 55:24
  Oh, this is a continuing remedy.
• 55:27
  It's the same as when you take an antibiotic, it doesn't cure whatever it's supposed to cure the first day.
• 55:33
  You have to take the whole bottle.
• 55:35
  You're no, you know what I'm talking about.
• 55:38
  If you want Jesus to minister grace to you, you have to keep yourself in the stream of grace.
• 55:43
  And that means showing up to church every week.
• 55:46
  That means that Bible study, that means serving, that means embracing the scriptures and doing what it says, at least.
• 55:54
  At least you don't have to settle for just four, but at least four times during the week.
• 56:00
  And as you do that, that will build strength into your life, and you will discover that you don't have to have a troubled heart.
• 56:00
  And as you do that, that will build strength into your life, and you will discover that you don't have to have a troubled heart.
• 56:11
  You will discover something is changing in your life.
• 56:11
  You will discover something is changing in your life.
• 56:15
  You will discover, wait a minute, I don't feel like I used to.
• 56:15
  You will discover, wait a minute, I don't feel like I used to.
• 56:19
  I don't worry like I used to.
• 56:19
  I don't worry like I used to.
• 56:21
  I know peace that I never knew I could know.
• 56:21
  I know peace that I never knew I could know.
• 56:25
  And that's my prayer for you that you would have the peace of Christ.
• 56:25
  And that's my prayer for you, that you would have the peace of Christ today, tomorrow, and all your tomorrows.
• 56:35
  I'm Pastor Rick.