Latest / Max Lucado Daily Sermons / A Greater Grace- Minister Max Lucado

Transcript

A Greater Grace- Minister Max Lucado · Max Lucado Daily Sermons

0:01
Speaker 1: That can become a thing of the past. I believe
0:04
Speaker 1: that God is writing a new chapter in your life,
0:08
Speaker 1: one that will be marked by diminishing anxiety and increasing peace.
0:15
Speaker 1: That He has provided for us a prescription for anxiety.
0:21
Speaker 1: And this prescription is found in some paragraphs in a
0:25
Speaker 1: book called Philippians. The words are going to appear in
0:28
Speaker 1: the screen. I invite you to say them out loud
0:31
Speaker 1: with me. Let's read them together. Sit up straight, fill
0:34
Speaker 1: your lungs with air, and say it like you mean it.
0:38
Speaker 1: Rejoice in the Lord always Again, I will say, rejoice.
0:43
Speaker 1: Let your gentleness be anxious for nothing but in everything
0:53
Speaker 1: by prayer and the peace of God. Finally, Brethren, whatever
1:11
Speaker 1: things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just,
1:16
Speaker 1: whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things
1:21
Speaker 1: are of good report, if there is any virtue, and
1:25
Speaker 1: if there is anything praiseworthy medicae on these things. I'm
1:30
Speaker 1: so grateful you're here as we continue the study of
1:33
Speaker 1: this passage. And if you're in the overflow rooms, we're
1:35
Speaker 1: grateful that you're here too, and we're going to make
1:38
Speaker 1: more room for you. We're so grateful to have this
1:42
Speaker 1: passage to help us understand how God deals with anxiety
1:46
Speaker 1: and helps us do the same. So let's pray together
1:49
Speaker 1: and then we'll get to work. Heavenly Father, we bless
1:53
Speaker 1: your name for all you've done and all you do.
1:55
Speaker 1: We pray you'd forgive the sins of our speaker, they
1:58
Speaker 1: are many, and help us to see Christ, just Christ
2:03
Speaker 1: through Christ. We pray and all the church said. The
2:11
Speaker 1: hangover was terrible, but I could handle that. The nausea
2:18
Speaker 1: was palpable, but I knew it would pass. The discipline
2:24
Speaker 1: was severe, but I knew I deserved it. What I
2:30
Speaker 1: couldn't handle was the guilt. You've heard parts of my story.
2:39
Speaker 1: Our family tree has suffered from a blight of alcoholism. Consequently,
2:45
Speaker 1: my father made it very clear to my brother and
2:48
Speaker 1: me that there would be no drunkenness permitted in his house.
2:54
Speaker 1: To reinforce his point, he would take my brother and me,
2:58
Speaker 1: when we were young nine ten years of age, to
3:02
Speaker 1: rehab centers to visit his sister, his brothers, who had
3:08
Speaker 1: lost their jobs, who had lost their marriages, who had
3:12
Speaker 1: lost their lives as a result of alcohol abuse. And
3:18
Speaker 1: we would promise him, oh Dad, we'll never do that.
3:23
Speaker 1: Then why did I Why did I at the age
3:28
Speaker 1: of sixteen, buddy up with another sixteen year old and
3:33
Speaker 1: get so ragingly inebriated that we could not walk? And
3:39
Speaker 1: why did we, in our state drive cars and cause
3:46
Speaker 1: trouble and endanger the lives of others? Why did we
3:54
Speaker 1: drink so much cores that our heads were spinning and
3:58
Speaker 1: our stomachs were turning. Why did we get so commode
4:05
Speaker 1: hugging drunk that we could not stand up? Did I
4:10
Speaker 1: really think my father wouldn't hear me? Did I really
4:15
Speaker 1: think he would believe me when I blamed it on
4:18
Speaker 1: Mexican food? Did I have any idea? And when I
4:27
Speaker 1: awoke the next morning, my head was pounding, my stomach
4:32
Speaker 1: was upset. But what I felt, more than anything, and
4:38
Speaker 1: more than any time I had ever felt it was
4:41
Speaker 1: a sense of guilt. I had felt guilt before, but
4:50
Speaker 1: never a guilt like this. There is a guilt that
4:53
Speaker 1: sits in the soul like a concrete block. There is
4:59
Speaker 1: a guilt that causes a person not to feel bad
5:03
Speaker 1: just for doing something bad, but there is a guilt
5:06
Speaker 1: that causes a person to feel bad for being alive.
5:13
Speaker 1: There is a guilt that causes a person to look
5:16
Speaker 1: at the person in the mirror and say, who are you?
5:21
Speaker 1: Who is this liar, this deceitful hypocrite? Who is this person?
5:27
Speaker 1: Where did you come from? There is a guilt that
5:32
Speaker 1: descends quickly into shame. Guilt says I did bad. Shame
5:39
Speaker 1: says I am bad. And that day, that weekend, I
5:47
Speaker 1: was dealing with this guilt. I'm not sure that's the
5:52
Speaker 1: worst thing I've ever done in my life, but I
5:54
Speaker 1: will say that's the first time I ever felt that
6:01
Speaker 1: destructive guilt. And I did not know what to do
6:06
Speaker 1: with it. I didn't know where to place it. Maybe
6:14
Speaker 1: there's somebody on the planet who has never felt that guilt,
6:19
Speaker 1: but I haven't met him, and I have a hunch
6:21
Speaker 1: they're not in this room. Your guilt may have been
6:26
Speaker 1: as a result of alcohol, or maybe it was a
6:29
Speaker 1: result of inappropriate sex or embezzlement or dishonesty, or losing
6:38
Speaker 1: your temper or losing your control or breaking your promise.
6:43
Speaker 1: And maybe your guilt is not the consequence of a
6:46
Speaker 1: moment in life, but maybe more a season of life.
6:50
Speaker 1: You feel like a failure as a parent, You feel
6:53
Speaker 1: like you've squandered your career, wasted your youth. Maybe you
6:59
Speaker 1: inherit a guilt. Maybe your parent or parents abused you,
7:06
Speaker 1: passing on to you a sense of will you deserve this,
7:10
Speaker 1: this ugly thing called guilt. I would suggest to you
7:16
Speaker 1: that this guilt is one of the seeds out of
7:23
Speaker 1: which grows the weed of anxiety. Please write this down
7:30
Speaker 1: in your outline. Guilt creates anxiety. The emotion of guilt
7:40
Speaker 1: creates anxiety. This may be a new thought for you.
7:45
Speaker 1: Pick up most books on anxiety, and you read discussions
7:50
Speaker 1: about overcrowded calendars and dealing with hard and harsh demands
7:56
Speaker 1: or expectation, and all of those can bear anxiety as
7:59
Speaker 1: well well. Less discussed, but equally important, is the idea
8:04
Speaker 1: of guilt, shame anxiety. In fact, I would suggest to
8:12
Speaker 1: you that the very first documented case of anxiety in
8:17
Speaker 1: the history of the world can be traced back to
8:22
Speaker 1: unresolved guilt. You remember the story or the moment from
8:27
Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden that evening Adam and Eve heard
8:32
Speaker 1: the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden,
8:36
Speaker 1: and they hid themselves among the trees. That's what anxious
8:41
Speaker 1: people do. They ran and they hid. What has happened
8:46
Speaker 1: to the first family? This is our first appearance of
8:50
Speaker 1: anything but tranquility in the garden of Eden. Up until now,
8:56
Speaker 1: it's just been peace. It's just been contentment, no fear,
9:03
Speaker 1: no trepidation. In fact, the scripture says they did not
9:06
Speaker 1: hide from God because they had nothing to hide. Chapter
9:10
Speaker 1: two and verse twenty five. The man and his wife
9:12
Speaker 1: were both naked, and they felt no shame. There was
9:15
Speaker 1: no shame, no guilt, no shame in the garden of Eden.
9:19
Speaker 1: But then what happened. Then came the serpent, Then came
9:25
Speaker 1: the forbidden fruit. They said yes to temptation, they said
9:28
Speaker 1: no to God, and in a moment, in a moment,
9:33
Speaker 1: everything changed. They covered themselves with leaves, and they hid
9:39
Speaker 1: from God. They did what anxious people do. They scurried.
9:45
Speaker 1: They entered into a frenzy of cover ups and hideouts.
9:50
Speaker 1: Guilt came first, Anxiety came next. Guilt came anxiety followed
9:59
Speaker 1: guilt drove the truck. Anxiety rode in the back, and
10:05
Speaker 1: they set out on this effort to cover themselves or
10:09
Speaker 1: hide from God. We're still doing the same, We're trying
10:13
Speaker 1: to figure out what in the world will we do
10:17
Speaker 1: with this guilt? Make a list of how we deal
10:20
Speaker 1: with guilt. It's pretty exotic. I have a list of
10:24
Speaker 1: ten ways that we deal with guilt. Number one, we
10:28
Speaker 1: deny it. We pretend that we never did anything bad.
10:33
Speaker 1: We concoct a plan to cover up the bad choice,
10:35
Speaker 1: and one lie leads to another lie. We had just
10:38
Speaker 1: the second lie to move to the third lie before long.
10:43
Speaker 1: Our first thought to any question is what did I
10:45
Speaker 1: say last? Or we minimize it. We didn't sin, We
10:51
Speaker 1: just lost our way. We didn't sin, We just caught
10:54
Speaker 1: up in a moment. We didn't sin. We just do
10:57
Speaker 1: what everybody does. We didn't sin, We just took the
10:59
Speaker 1: wrong path. We just experienced the lapse in judgment. We
11:03
Speaker 1: minimize it, or we denounce the very existence of it.
11:07
Speaker 1: There is no sin because there is no standard. There
11:10
Speaker 1: is no ultimate truth, and there is no ultimate truth
11:14
Speaker 1: or standard because really there is no God. There is
11:17
Speaker 1: no sin because there is no truth. There is no
11:20
Speaker 1: right and wrong unless you offend me and then I
11:22
Speaker 1: think that's wrong. Or we bury it. Suppress the guilt
11:29
Speaker 1: beneath amount of work and a calendar of appointments. The
11:33
Speaker 1: busier we stay, the less time we have to spend
11:36
Speaker 1: with the person. We have come to dislike ourselves, or
11:42
Speaker 1: We punish it, beat ourselves up, cut ourselves, hurt ourselves.
11:48
Speaker 1: Priests used to flog themselves with whips. We've exchanged whips
11:52
Speaker 1: for rules, more prayer, more Bible study, more church attendance,
11:58
Speaker 1: more givings, Day up later, get up earlier. We pay
12:02
Speaker 1: for our guilt painful penance, or we numb it with
12:08
Speaker 1: a bottle of gray goose, with an hour of pornography,
12:13
Speaker 1: with a joint of marijuana, with a rendezvous at a hotel.
12:17
Speaker 1: Guilt disappears during happy hour. Right funny how it reappears
12:23
Speaker 1: when happy hour ends. We avoid the mention of it.
12:27
Speaker 1: Certain topics are just off limits. We don't talk about
12:30
Speaker 1: certain things, just live life on the surface and pray
12:34
Speaker 1: that the lock nest monster of guilt never wakes up.
12:39
Speaker 1: We redirect it, just take it out on everybody. Lash
12:42
Speaker 1: out at the kids, take it out on the wife,
12:44
Speaker 1: yell at the employees or the driver in the next lane.
12:48
Speaker 1: We begin to so hate ourselves that we don't let
12:52
Speaker 1: someone love us, for fear they will find out who
12:55
Speaker 1: we really are and then hate us. We offset it.
13:02
Speaker 1: We resolve to never make another mistake. We'll just be
13:06
Speaker 1: perfect from now on. Pursue perfection, the perfect family, the
13:11
Speaker 1: perfect career score, the perfect grades, be the perfect Christian.
13:18
Speaker 1: Everything must be perfect, hair, car, tone of voice, ever
13:23
Speaker 1: in control, absolutely no fallops or we embody it. We
13:33
Speaker 1: didn't screw up a screw up. We didn't mess up.
13:38
Speaker 1: We're a walking mess up. We didn't get drunk. We
13:42
Speaker 1: are a drunk. We are destined to be bad, and
13:47
Speaker 1: in some weird way we start taking joy and being bad.
13:50
Speaker 1: We're bad to the bone. I'm just made to be bad.
13:54
Speaker 1: I'm just bad. It's weird. Adam and Eve hid behind
14:04
Speaker 1: fig leaves. We still hide, don't we. So let's go
14:11
Speaker 1: back to that story of sixteen year old Max. What's
14:16
Speaker 1: he gonna do? This kid who wakes up not just
14:20
Speaker 1: with a hangover, but with the guilt. What's he going
14:23
Speaker 1: to do with it? Well, suppose he takes one or
14:28
Speaker 1: any combination of these ten options. Suppose he denies it,
14:34
Speaker 1: suppresses it, numbs it, offsets it. Suppose he kind of
14:38
Speaker 1: makes a route through all of them, depending on what
14:41
Speaker 1: day of the week it is. What's he going to
14:43
Speaker 1: be like in ten years, What's it going to be
14:47
Speaker 1: like in twenty years, What's it going to be like
14:49
Speaker 1: in forty years. What kind of person does off What
14:54
Speaker 1: kind of person does unresolved guilt create? I think it
15:02
Speaker 1: creates an anxious one, a troubled one, one who is
15:06
Speaker 1: always doing what Adam and Eve did, running and hiding,
15:09
Speaker 1: running and hiding. As one man said, I was always
15:13
Speaker 1: living a lie for fear someone might see me for
15:16
Speaker 1: who I really was and then think less of me,
15:19
Speaker 1: disapprove of me, reject or judge me. So I hid
15:23
Speaker 1: behind my fig leaf of competence, or knowledge or super spirituality,
15:30
Speaker 1: or a whole list of other options. In living this
15:33
Speaker 1: lie was exhausting and anxiety producing. Doesn't it make sense
15:44
Speaker 1: that if guilt causes anxiety, that to deal with anxiety
15:50
Speaker 1: we must go upstream, upriver and deal with guilt, and
15:57
Speaker 1: that this piece that passes understanding happens once we discover
16:02
Speaker 1: this grace that is greater than our sin. This was
16:09
Speaker 1: the opinion of the Apostle Paul. Last week I mentioned
16:13
Speaker 1: to you that really the Apostle Paul built all of
16:15
Speaker 1: his teachings around two truths. Test me on this. Every epistle,
16:21
Speaker 1: every sermon of the Apostle Paul seems to come back
16:24
Speaker 1: to one of two pillars of faith. This was his
16:27
Speaker 1: belief system. Belief creates behavior. If you want to change
16:32
Speaker 1: a person, you deal with belief. His belief system had
16:36
Speaker 1: two pillars in it. One was the sovereignty of God,
16:40
Speaker 1: that God is sovereign over circumstance. And the second is
16:44
Speaker 1: the one we're looking at today, and that is the
16:46
Speaker 1: grace of God. That God's grace is greater than our sin.
16:51
Speaker 1: And this grace Erace's guilt. Now you know the story
16:58
Speaker 1: of Paul. No one had more reason to feel guilt
17:01
Speaker 1: than the Apostle Paul. Right, he was an ancient version
17:05
Speaker 1: of Isis. He had blood on his hands. He set
17:09
Speaker 1: out not just to hurt Christians, but to destroy the
17:13
Speaker 1: whole Christian movement. The Bible says this about the Apostle Paul.
17:17
Speaker 1: Paul was like a wild man, going everywhere to devastate
17:21
Speaker 1: the believers, even entering private homes and dragging out men
17:25
Speaker 1: and women alike and jailing them. He was a persecutor.
17:30
Speaker 1: In addition, he was a legalist. That is to say,
17:34
Speaker 1: he thought salvation was a legal transaction. He does this,
17:39
Speaker 1: God has to do that. So he elaborated this concoction
17:43
Speaker 1: of self salvation. He articulated this concoction of self salvation
17:50
Speaker 1: in the Book of Philippians. Have you read it, It's
17:53
Speaker 1: in Philippians chapter three. He says, if anyone had reason
17:57
Speaker 1: to hope that he could save himself, it would be
17:59
Speaker 1: if others could be saved by what they are. Certainly
18:03
Speaker 1: I could, for I went through the Jewish initiation ceremony
18:07
Speaker 1: when I was eight days old, having been born into
18:10
Speaker 1: a pure blooded Jewish home that was a branch of
18:14
Speaker 1: the old original Benjamin family. I was a real Jew,
18:18
Speaker 1: if ever there was one. What's more, I was a
18:20
Speaker 1: member of the Pharisees, who demand strictest obedience to every
18:25
Speaker 1: Jewish law and custom sincere yes, so much that I
18:29
Speaker 1: greatly persecuted the Church. I tried to obey every Jewish
18:33
Speaker 1: rule and regulation, right down to the last point. So
18:40
Speaker 1: Paul had blood on his hands, he had religious diplomas
18:44
Speaker 1: on his wall. But then came that Damascus Road moment
18:51
Speaker 1: when Jesus came to Paul, And once Paul saw Jesus,
19:01
Speaker 1: Paul couldn't see anymore. He couldn't see any more merit
19:08
Speaker 1: in his merits, He couldn't see any more worth in
19:12
Speaker 1: his accomplishments. He couldn't see any reason to brag about
19:16
Speaker 1: what he had done. He couldn't see any reason to
19:20
Speaker 1: do anything except cast himself upon the grace of Christ.
19:24
Speaker 1: And he couldn't see any other course for the rest
19:27
Speaker 1: of his life except to spend the rest of his
19:30
Speaker 1: life talking more about Christ and less about self. And
19:36
Speaker 1: he became the great poet of grace. This grace changed
19:44
Speaker 1: his life, as he said in the Book of Philippians,
19:49
Speaker 1: all these things that I once thought very worthwhile, I've
19:55
Speaker 1: now thrown them all away so that I can put
19:59
Speaker 1: my trust and hope where in Christ alone. In exchange
20:06
Speaker 1: for that rubbish of self salvation, God gave him righteousness. Now,
20:11
Speaker 1: Paul wrote, I am right with God, not because I
20:15
Speaker 1: followed the law, but because I believed in Christ. Paul
20:22
Speaker 1: found joy because he found grace, a great, unlimited, life changing,
20:28
Speaker 1: unconditional grace. Paul gave his guilt to Christ. He didn't
20:34
Speaker 1: hide it, he didn't suppress it. He didn't he quit
20:39
Speaker 1: trying to offset it. He didn't numb it, he didn't
20:43
Speaker 1: punish it. He simply surrendered it to Jesus Christ. As
20:50
Speaker 1: a result, he could write again still in Philippians, I
20:54
Speaker 1: am still not all I should be, but I am
20:57
Speaker 1: bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing,
20:59
Speaker 1: look at forgetting the past, and looking forward to Eliza ahead.
21:05
Speaker 1: I strained to reach the end of the race and
21:07
Speaker 1: receive the prize for which God is calling us up
21:10
Speaker 1: to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for me.
21:19
Speaker 1: So what would Paul say to a guilt laden teenager?
21:24
Speaker 1: I believe he would say, give your guilt to Christ.
21:28
Speaker 1: Cast yourself entirely upon his mercy, trust in his ability
21:33
Speaker 1: to forgive, because unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry,
21:42
Speaker 1: stressed out, fretful soul. Church guilt sucks the life out
21:51
Speaker 1: of our souls. It sucks the life out of our souls.
21:57
Speaker 2: But grace restores the joy, restores the joy in our
22:05
Speaker 2: innermost being.
22:07
Speaker 1: That's why we can say Grace calms the anxious soul.
22:15
Speaker 1: Grace is the word the Bible uses to describe the
22:18
Speaker 1: undeserved favor of God. He knows we cannot live with
22:22
Speaker 1: our guilt. So he took our guilt and he put
22:25
Speaker 1: it on his son. And when Jesus died on the cross,
22:28
Speaker 1: he received upon him our punishment for our sins. Consequently,
22:34
Speaker 1: our sins though they be severe, are adequately paid for
22:39
Speaker 1: in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And he does what
22:42
Speaker 1: only he can do. And when Paul discovered this, he
22:46
Speaker 1: couldn't keep his mouth shut. He told Titus, God's readiness
22:52
Speaker 1: to give and forgive is now public. Salvation's available for everyone.
22:58
Speaker 1: Now look at this, Tell them all this and build
23:03
Speaker 1: up there what Anxiety is a result of guilt, But
23:09
Speaker 1: courage is a result of grace. Grace creates confidence. A
23:16
Speaker 1: perfect love is discovered that casts out all what fear,
23:22
Speaker 1: and there's a sense of confidence that comes to the saint.
23:27
Speaker 1: The happy saint is one who is at once aware
23:31
Speaker 1: of the severity of sin yet the immensity of grace.
23:35
Speaker 1: He does not compromise and pretend that he has never sinned,
23:38
Speaker 1: but nor does he denounce for one second God's ability
23:42
Speaker 1: to forgive those sins. This is the happy, peace filled,
23:47
Speaker 1: tranquil saint. And I can bear witness to this church.
23:52
Speaker 1: I could take you to the city, I could take
23:55
Speaker 1: you to the church. I could take you to the auditorium.
23:59
Speaker 1: I could take you to the section of chairs in
24:03
Speaker 1: that auditorium. I think I could even find the very
24:07
Speaker 1: chair in which I was sitting when as a twenty
24:10
Speaker 1: year old I heard someone do for me what I'm
24:15
Speaker 1: attempting to do for you, And that is explained this
24:18
Speaker 1: wonder of God's grace. I had spent three and a
24:27
Speaker 1: half years just spiraling through that list of inappropriate attempts
24:33
Speaker 1: to cope with that guilt, numbing it one weekend, suppressing
24:37
Speaker 1: it the next, denying it, offsetting it. I was just
24:40
Speaker 1: a mess, and I was headed toward a lifetime of misery.
24:46
Speaker 1: And when that preacher Lynn Anderson began talking about this
24:49
Speaker 1: grace that is greater than sin, And when he, at
24:54
Speaker 1: the end of the message said, does anybody want this grace?
24:58
Speaker 1: You couldn't have held me down with chains. Truth of
25:01
Speaker 1: the matter is I had been held down with chains,
25:05
Speaker 1: and I was finally set free. I've had anxiety in
25:09
Speaker 1: my life. That's been forty years. I've had anxiety, but
25:12
Speaker 1: I will say I have never ever had an anxious
25:16
Speaker 1: moment due to a fear of no salvation. Ever. Maybe
25:22
Speaker 1: I'm just such a sinner that I don't have another alternative.
25:26
Speaker 1: But I have had to throw myself entirely upon the
25:31
Speaker 1: grace of Jesus Christ. I do not believe I have
25:34
Speaker 1: ever been saved more or less than I was when
25:38
Speaker 1: I was first saved. I do not believe that any
25:42
Speaker 1: bad deed has deducted from my salvation. I do not
25:45
Speaker 1: believe that any good deed, if there are any, has
25:48
Speaker 1: contributed to my salvation, because my salvation has nothing to
25:52
Speaker 1: do with me and everything to do with Christ. Because
25:56
Speaker 1: when Jesus Christ said it is finished, and it was absolute,
26:02
Speaker 1: and it was complete, and it was the greatest discovery
26:05
Speaker 1: in the history of the world. That what separates the
26:09
Speaker 1: Christian faith from any other philosophy, dogma, or religion is
26:15
Speaker 1: that we believe that God saves sinners. Religion says God
26:21
Speaker 1: saves saints, and you've got to become a saint before
26:25
Speaker 1: you can be saved. I was not a saint, but
26:29
Speaker 1: I believe I'm saved because of the grace of Jesus Christ.
26:35
Speaker 1: This grace, my friend, will set you free from some
26:41
Speaker 1: anxiety that maybe you've always wondered why you're a troubled soul,
26:49
Speaker 1: why you have these sudden outbursts of anger, why you
26:55
Speaker 1: can't really be at peace when down deep you wonder
26:59
Speaker 1: have I done enough? And if I've done enough, have
27:01
Speaker 1: I really done enough? Maybe somebody, all your life has
27:05
Speaker 1: told you that salvation is up to you. Then my
27:08
Speaker 1: job today is to stand in bold defiance to that
27:12
Speaker 1: lie and tell you that salvation is the work of
27:14
Speaker 1: a savior. That's why we call him a savior. And
27:17
Speaker 1: redemption is not the work of the redeemed. Is the
27:20
Speaker 1: work of the redeemer. That's why we're calling the redeemer.
27:24
Speaker 1: And you don't need rules and regulations, you need a messiah.
27:27
Speaker 1: You need someone to save you. Henry Now, one great
27:35
Speaker 1: Catholic theologian, spent part of his early life traveling, of
27:42
Speaker 1: all things, with a circus, and during those years he
27:48
Speaker 1: came to be friends with the acrobats, the people who
27:52
Speaker 1: manned the trapeze artist, and he asked one of them once,
27:57
Speaker 1: what's the secret of flying from trapeze to trap piece
28:01
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the circus tent, And the
28:05
Speaker 1: acrobat gave him this response. He said, the secret is
28:09
Speaker 1: that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything.
28:14
Speaker 1: When I fly, I simply have to stretch out my
28:17
Speaker 1: arms and wait for the catcher to catch me and
28:22
Speaker 1: pull me safely over the apron. The worst thing the
28:25
Speaker 1: flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher.
28:30
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to catch the catcher. It's the catcher's
28:34
Speaker 1: job to catch me. If I catch him, I might
28:39
Speaker 1: break his wrists or he might break mine, and that
28:42
Speaker 1: would be the end for both of us. A flyer
28:45
Speaker 1: must fly, a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust,
28:54
Speaker 1: without stretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.
29:02
Speaker 1: In the great trapeze act of salvation, we are the
29:07
Speaker 1: flyer and God is the catcher, and we throw ourselves
29:12
Speaker 1: upon him, not because of any good that we have done,
29:17
Speaker 1: but because we believe He is good and he alone.
29:21
Speaker 1: Dear friend, it is time for you to put the
29:24
Speaker 1: past in the past. Maybe your anxiety has been dogging
29:30
Speaker 1: you all these years, and today God is telling you,
29:33
Speaker 1: why would you please, once and for all receive absolute
29:38
Speaker 1: forgiveness for those mistakes. Just receive it, Just receive it.
29:45
Speaker 1: Just let his grace go deeper than you'd ever gone before.
29:49
Speaker 1: What you did wasn't good. I'm not saying it was.
29:52
Speaker 1: But I am saying is that you serve a good God.
29:55
Speaker 1: And when Jesus died on the cross, he died for
29:58
Speaker 1: every single sin, and it's time for you to put
30:02
Speaker 1: it in the past. There's a reason that the windshield
30:04
Speaker 1: is larger than the rear view mirror. And that is
30:07
Speaker 1: because what lies ahead is much more important than what
30:10
Speaker 1: lies behind. You are not who you were. You are
30:15
Speaker 1: not what you did. You are a child of God.
30:19
Speaker 1: Receive the grace of Christ. And if you do, and
30:22
Speaker 1: when you do, you will discover that you really can.
30:26
Speaker 2: Be anxious and.
32:43
Speaker 3: The back back b petto.
36:27
Speaker 4: You don't have to stay close. As long as you're
36:40
Speaker 4: somewhere out there. That's enough for me.
36:49
Speaker 5: I don't need to hold you near me, don't need
36:53
Speaker 5: promises to keep just the thought that you are breathing.
36:58
Speaker 6: Somewhere in this world.
37:00
Speaker 4: Let see.
37:02
Speaker 5: Even if I'm not beside you, even if you never know,
37:09
Speaker 5: there's a quiet kind of comfort just.
37:12
Speaker 6: In knowing you still glow. I don't need forever, I
37:23
Speaker 6: just need you to exist. You don't have to stay
37:29
Speaker 6: with me.
37:31
Speaker 7: You don't have to be the same, just as long
37:35
Speaker 7: as you're still out there, calling softly through mondays.
37:41
Speaker 6: You don't have to look my way. You don't have
37:45
Speaker 6: to be my home. It's enough to know where you're
37:50
Speaker 6: living in the world. I'm not alone.
37:58
Speaker 7: I won't chase it through the distons, won't disturb your
38:02
Speaker 7: chosen life.
38:04
Speaker 4: I'll just keep you in my silence, like.
38:07
Speaker 8: A star that shines at night, through the darkened, through
38:13
Speaker 8: the blue, I still think of you.
38:23
Speaker 2: You don't have to stay with me.
38:26
Speaker 6: You don't have to feel the same.
38:30
Speaker 2: Just as long as you're still out.
38:32
Speaker 6: There, calling softly through my days. You don't have to
38:37
Speaker 6: look my way. You don't have to be in my home.
38:44
Speaker 6: It's enough to know you're living in a world. I'm
38:48
Speaker 6: not alone. I don't need to be your late. I
39:09
Speaker 6: don't need to cross your mind. All I need is
39:12
Speaker 6: just the truth that you're somewhere, still alive.
39:20
Speaker 2: You don't have to stay with me, You don't have
39:25
Speaker 2: to feel the same.
39:27
Speaker 1: Just as long as you're.
39:29
Speaker 2: Still after, calling softly through my days.
39:34
Speaker 6: You don't have to my way. You don't have to
39:39
Speaker 6: be my home.
39:41
Speaker 3: It's enough to know you're living.
39:47
Speaker 6: In a world.
39:47
Speaker 2: I'm not alone.