Latest / Max Lucado Daily Sermons / Powerful Preaching CARE OF 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. 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 her
- 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 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
- 1:39Speaker 1: is anything praiser. Meditate on these things, Yes, Lord grant.
- 1:46Speaker 2: That we could do just this.
- 1:48Speaker 1: Would you please take the anxiety out, replace it Lord
- 1:52Speaker 1: with meditation on good things. We would request this peace
- 1:58Speaker 1: that passes understanding. We lift up to you all of
- 2:01Speaker 1: our requests, but we do so with thanksgiving and gratitude
- 2:04Speaker 1: for all the good that you have done for us.
- 2:07Speaker 1: Forgive our speaker today his sins are many. Help us
- 2:10Speaker 1: to see Christ, just Christ. Through Christ, we pray and
- 2:15Speaker 1: all the Church said. You might consider adding to your
- 2:20Speaker 1: summer reading. A wonderful book that just came out is
- 2:22Speaker 1: called Called for Life, authored by Kent and Amber Brantley.
- 2:31Speaker 1: You may remember their story this time last year, doctor
- 2:35Speaker 1: Brantley's name was in the news. In fact, it was
- 2:39Speaker 1: on Wednesday evening July twenty third, twenty and fourteen, that
- 2:44Speaker 1: doctor Brantley took a seat on his couch and he
- 2:47Speaker 1: opened his journal. And he needed to collect his thoughts
- 2:50Speaker 1: because he had spent the day feeling the effects of
- 2:54Speaker 1: an illness that he knew would either be malaria or bola,
- 3:01Speaker 1: and he was praying for malaria. He was a medical
- 3:06Speaker 1: missionary in Liberia waging a war on the cruelest of viruses, ebola.
- 3:12Speaker 2: There was no sure cure.
- 3:14Speaker 1: The epidemic was killing people by the thousands, and as
- 3:18Speaker 1: much as any person in the world, Doctor Brantley knew
- 3:22Speaker 1: the consequences of the disease. He had treated dozens and
- 3:25Speaker 1: dozens of cases. He knew the symptoms, the soaring fevers,
- 3:30Speaker 1: the severe diarrhea, the nausea. He had seen the results
- 3:34Speaker 1: of the virus, and yet for the first time he
- 3:37Speaker 1: was feeling them himself. His colleagues had drawn blood and
- 3:41Speaker 1: begun the tests, yet it would be three days before
- 3:45Speaker 1: anyone knew the results. Doctor Brantley quarantined himself in his
- 3:50Speaker 1: cinder blockhouse and he waited. His wife and family were
- 3:54Speaker 1: across the ocean. His colleagues were not permitted to enter
- 3:59Speaker 1: the residence.
- 4:00Speaker 2: He was quite.
- 4:01Speaker 1: Literally alone with his thoughts, and in that moment he
- 4:06Speaker 1: opened his Bible and he found a passage from the
- 4:10Speaker 1: Book of Hebrews and began to meditate on it. The
- 4:14Speaker 1: passage reads, the promise of entering his rest still stands,
- 4:18Speaker 1: so let us never give up. Let us therefore make
- 4:21Speaker 1: every effort to enter that rest. Brantley called to mind
- 4:27Speaker 1: the phrase 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
- 4:40Speaker 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. He wrote the verse word
- 4:49Speaker 1: for word in his journal, and when he came to
- 4:52Speaker 1: the word confidence, he wrote it in italics. Then he
- 4:56Speaker 1: closed the journal and waited. The next three days brought
- 5:01Speaker 1: unspeakable discomfort, and then brought the news that they feared
- 5:06Speaker 1: he had indeed contracted ebola. Amber Kent's wife, was across
- 5:13Speaker 1: the ocean in her hometown of Abilene, Texas. She received
- 5:19Speaker 1: a call from Kent the following Saturday afternoon. When the
- 5:23Speaker 1: phone rang, she stepped into her bedroom to receive it.
- 5:26Speaker 1: She was actually at her parents' house, so she stepped
- 5:29Speaker 1: into her former bedroom and there Kent went straight to
- 5:33Speaker 1: the point over the phone.
- 5:35Speaker 2: He said, the test results came back. 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.
- 5:48Speaker 2: Now it was up to.
- 5:49Speaker 1: Amber to process the news. She told her parents. The
- 5:54Speaker 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 thy compassions.
- 6:28Speaker 1: They fail, not as thou hast been, Thou.
- 6:30Speaker 2: Forever will be. That lifted her spirits, and.
- 6:33Speaker 1: So she sang even louder, I need THEE every hour,
- 6:37Speaker 1: in joy or pain. Come quickly and abide. Her life
- 6:40Speaker 1: is in vain. I need THEE. Oh, I need THEE
- 6:44Speaker 1: every hour. I need THEE. Come and bless me. Now,
- 6:47Speaker 1: my Savior, I come to THEE. She later wrote these words,
- 6:53Speaker 1: I thought my husband was going to die. I was
- 6:56Speaker 1: in pain. I was afraid. Yet through those hymns I
- 6:59Speaker 1: was able to connect with God in a meaningful way.
- 7:04Speaker 1: Maybe you remember this story. Maybe you remember watching the
- 7:08Speaker 1: news reports of the Brantley family unfold. Maybe you remember
- 7:13Speaker 1: the decision of the caregivers to give an untested treatment
- 7:19Speaker 1: to Kent because they.
- 7:20Speaker 2: 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: as 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. They got a hold of the anxiety and
- 8:32Speaker 1: they marched it out. They did exactly what the Apostle
- 8:35Speaker 1: 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.
- 8:49Speaker 2: If there is any virtue, if there.
- 8:51Speaker 1: Is anything praiseworth, they meditate on these things. If the
- 8:58Speaker 1: Bible has a recommended diet for the mind, this is it.
- 9:04Speaker 1: These are the green vegetables for the soul. My wife,
- 9:09Speaker 1: Dinlon likes green vegetables. I don't, but she does, and
- 9:14Speaker 1: she has a list of vegetables that are good for
- 9:17Speaker 1: the body. It includes things like broccoli and asparagus and lettuce.
- 9:22Speaker 1: As I read over the list, I don't see anything
- 9:25Speaker 1: that I think is a health food. Donuts and barbecue,
- 9:29Speaker 1: potato chips and Oreo cookies and ice cream. But I
- 9:34Speaker 1: don't ask why. I know the answer. I've heard all
- 9:39Speaker 1: the slogans. What tastes good on the lips does not
- 9:43Speaker 1: look good on the How did you know that already?
- 9:49Speaker 1: So if you want to feel good tomorrow, then eat
- 9:51Speaker 1: good today. These are principles of a healthy diet, but
- 9:56Speaker 1: they are also principles of a healthy mind. It is
- 10:01Speaker 1: good to be a picky eater, it's equally good to be.
- 10:06Speaker 2: A picky thinker.
- 10:09Speaker 1: In the Apostle, Paul sets himself up here as our
- 10:12Speaker 1: thought dietitian, because just as not every food qualifies to
- 10:19Speaker 1: 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.
- 10:46Speaker 1: It advocates fairness to all parties involved. It must be pure.
- 10:51Speaker 2: This is a call for high and lofty thoughts. Must
- 10:55Speaker 2: 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 1: It must be of good report. It must be of
- 11:06Speaker 1: good virtue. It must be praiseworthy. So we welcome any
- 11:10Speaker 1: ideas that promote the best of life, high ethics, lofty goodness.
- 11:16Speaker 1: We meditate on these things, and as we turn our
- 11:20Speaker 1: thoughts toward these things, a wonderful thing happens. We turn
- 11:24Speaker 1: our backs on their opposites. As we fill our minds
- 11:28Speaker 1: with veggies, we avoid a junk food diet of deceit,
- 11:33Speaker 1: unsavory thoughts, ugly thoughts, dishonest thoughts.
- 11:37Speaker 2: 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. So, just as some people
- 11:47Speaker 1: are picky eaters, we choose on purpose to be picky thinkers.
- 11:53Speaker 1: The big idea in this passage is simply this, meditate
- 11:58Speaker 1: on good things. Meditate on good things. You want to
- 12:03Speaker 1: treat anxiety. Turn your thoughts toward good things. This word
- 12:08Speaker 1: in Greek. As you know, the Bible was written in
- 12:10Speaker 1: New Testament was written in Greek. This word in Greek
- 12:13Speaker 1: is a great word.
- 12:14Speaker 2: Look at it.
- 12:15Speaker 1: Logisomine, meditate, logismid Do you see an English word, the
- 12:19Speaker 1: roots of.
- 12:19Speaker 2: An English word inside that? 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 2: He noted a predictable pattern. He said, in a.
- 12:56Speaker 1: Typical platoon of twenty two men, there will be a
- 13:01Speaker 1: small number who respond and 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. They will quit thinking.
- 13:15Speaker 1: He writes, every platoon can be analyzed as follows six
- 13:19Speaker 1: 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. Long before this research, the apostle Paul.
- 14:03Speaker 1: Was calling on us to mind our minds in times
- 14:06Speaker 1: in which we're anxious to be careful. What we think
- 14:10Speaker 1: our 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 great 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.
- 15:53Speaker 2: Same point.
- 15:54Speaker 1: If they don't look unhappy, they really are very beautiful.
- 15:59Speaker 1: In fact, she's Jesus says, even though their lifespan is short,
- 16:02Speaker 1: they're here today and tomorrow they're going to be thrown
- 16:04Speaker 1: into the fire. Even Solomon and all of his glory
- 16:08Speaker 1: was not dressed up like one of these.
- 16:10Speaker 2: He's the richest king in history.
- 16:12Speaker 1: In the field of lilies is prettier than he was.
- 16:16Speaker 1: The point we disarm anxiety by looking and by considering,
- 16:21Speaker 1: by thinking, by processing.
- 16:23Speaker 2: We look at the birds, we look at the lilies.
- 16:27Speaker 1: We don't get lost in our negative downward spiral of thoughts,
- 16:31Speaker 1: nor do we get frozen in no thinking. We stop,
- 16:35Speaker 1: we collect ourselves. We look at the birds, We consider
- 16:38Speaker 1: the lilies. We manage anxiety by managing our thoughts. We
- 16:44Speaker 1: manage anxiety by managing our thoughts. Now, maybe you wanted
- 16:48Speaker 1: something that was a little more mystical a little more supernatural,
- 16:53Speaker 1: a little more angelic, maybe some heavenly visitations or chariots
- 16:57Speaker 1: of fire. Maybe you thought that God treated anxiety through
- 17:01Speaker 1: these supernatural visions. Paul and Jesus would tell you otherwise.
- 17:08Speaker 1: The key to peace is not in the emotion you feel,
- 17:12Speaker 1: but in the thoughts you think. The key to peace
- 17:16Speaker 1: is not in the emotions you'll feel, but in the
- 17:18Speaker 1: thoughts you think. Do you want to feel peace tomorrow,
- 17:21Speaker 1: then think godly thoughts today, meditate on good things. Years ago,
- 17:28Speaker 1: a renowned British pastor by the name of d. Martin
- 17:31Speaker 1: Lloyd Jones wrote these words about the passage in Matthew
- 17:35Speaker 1: chapter six, that we just looked at faith, according to
- 17:40Speaker 1: our Lord's teaching in this paragraph, is primarily thinking. And
- 17:45Speaker 1: the whole trouble with a man of little faith is
- 17:47Speaker 1: that he forgets to think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him.
- 17:53Speaker 2: The way to avoid that, according to our Lord, is
- 17:56Speaker 2: to think.
- 17:58Speaker 1: To look at the birds, to think about them, to
- 18:01Speaker 1: draw your deductions, to look at.
- 18:02Speaker 2: The grass, at the lilies of the field, consider them.
- 18:05Speaker 1: The trouble with a person of little faith is that,
- 18:08Speaker 1: instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being
- 18:11Speaker 1: controlled by something else, and he goes round and round
- 18:15Speaker 1: in circles. This is the essence of worry. That is
- 18:19Speaker 1: not thought. That is the absence of thought, that is
- 18:23Speaker 1: a failure to think. Paul Elsewhere said, Kent, set your
- 18:29Speaker 1: mind on things above, not on things of the earth.
- 18:33Speaker 1: There is a time in which we intentionally and deliberately
- 18:37Speaker 1: set our mind on things above. That's what Kent Brandy
- 18:40Speaker 1: did when he was about to spend three days waiting
- 18:44Speaker 1: on the results from the Ebola tests. He set his
- 18:48Speaker 1: mind on things above. That's what his wife Amber did
- 18:52Speaker 1: when she got news of her husband's positive diagnosis. As
- 18:57Speaker 1: she didn't panic. It was not easy, but she did
- 19:00Speaker 1: deliberate things. She took deliberate steps to set her mind
- 19:05Speaker 1: on good things. I did something like this once, and
- 19:11Speaker 1: it had to do with a little lemon and a
- 19:14Speaker 1: little phrase that was written on the lemon that I
- 19:18Speaker 1: had attached to the dashboard of my car. One of
- 19:22Speaker 1: the most difficult days of my life happened when I
- 19:24Speaker 1: was nineteen years old and I was in a town
- 19:28Speaker 1: called Dalton in the state of Georgia. I had never
- 19:34Speaker 1: been to Dalton. I didn't know anyone in Georgia, and
- 19:38Speaker 1: I wondered what in the world had happened.
- 19:42Speaker 2: I was nineteen years of age. This was the.
- 19:44Speaker 1: Summer of my first year in college. I found myself
- 19:49Speaker 1: sleeping in the Salvation Army because it was cheap, and
- 19:53Speaker 1: the night before a person who had had too much
- 19:57Speaker 1: to drink rolled over in his bunk above mine and
- 20:01Speaker 1: vomited right down on the floor. I was so homesick.
- 20:07Speaker 1: If homesickness was water, I was soaked. What had I
- 20:11Speaker 1: 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. 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 2: People don't like door to door salesman.
- 20:45Speaker 1: They don't, not even when they're a nice kid from
- 20:48Speaker 1: West Texas.
- 20:49Speaker 2: That first day was terrible.
- 20:52Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Max Slam. Hello, I'm Max Slam. Hello, I'm
- 21:01Speaker 1: Max Slam. The second day was just as bad. I
- 21:06Speaker 1: didn't know if I was gonna make it. I couldn't
- 21:08Speaker 1: envision going through a whole summer like that. So I
- 21:12Speaker 1: ended up at that diner for lunch and I ordered
- 21:15Speaker 1: a hamburger and I treated my bruised ego. And as
- 21:20Speaker 1: I was paying for my burger checking out at the
- 21:23Speaker 1: cash register, I noticed that to the right of the
- 21:27Speaker 1: cash register there was this display, And upon this display
- 21:32Speaker 1: was a collection of rubberized magnetized truisms, the kind that
- 21:40Speaker 1: you stick on a refrigerator door. Do you know what
- 21:42Speaker 1: I'm talking about? Little statements? And there was one of
- 21:46Speaker 1: them that was shaped like a lemon, and on that
- 21:51Speaker 1: rubberized lemon, these words appeared.
- 21:56Speaker 2: I bet you know what I'm about to say.
- 21:59Speaker 1: When he gives you a lemon, make lemonade.
- 22:08Speaker 2: Well it's old, it's a chop worn, it's corny.
- 22:12Speaker 1: But I'd never heard that before, and that was exactly
- 22:17Speaker 1: what I needed. That little slogan told me that my
- 22:20Speaker 1: problem was not my problems. My problem was the way
- 22:24Speaker 1: I was looking at my problems, and it was just
- 22:27Speaker 1: enough to convince me to stay on the job. I
- 22:30Speaker 1: bought that little thing and I took it out to
- 22:33Speaker 1: my plymouth duster. My plymouth duster had a metal strip
- 22:39Speaker 1: on the dashboard and I stuck that magnetized lemon on
- 22:43Speaker 1: that metal strip, And every day, at least a dozen
- 22:47Speaker 1: times I would reach up and I'd rubbed my thumb
- 22:50Speaker 1: across that, and I think, Okay, I can either be
- 22:56Speaker 1: miserable or I can make some lemonade. I survived the summer.
- 23:04Speaker 1: That's been forty years. Much has happened, much has changed,
- 23:11Speaker 1: But friends, this much has not. Life still gives lemons.
- 23:21Speaker 1: It does, and my prospects of a miserable summer are
- 23:26Speaker 1: nothing compared to the lemons that some of you have received.
- 23:32Speaker 1: Just a few days ago, I found myself in a
- 23:34Speaker 1: conversation with an elderly lady whose husband has been diagnosed
- 23:39Speaker 1: with dementia and she's gonna have to tell him he
- 23:45Speaker 1: can no longer drive. And she was telling me how
- 23:48Speaker 1: she was going to have to take the car keys away.
- 23:50Speaker 1: Life has given her a lemon. I found myself in
- 23:54Speaker 1: a conversation with a young mom. She already has one child,
- 23:57Speaker 1: and now she has a new born, and this seems
- 24:00Speaker 1: like she can't remember the last time she had a
- 24:02Speaker 1: good night sleep, and she's really worried if she'll be
- 24:07Speaker 1: a good parent. I had lunch not too long ago
- 24:11Speaker 1: with a fella who's trying to get through a very
- 24:15Speaker 1: very difficult divorce. He underestimated the damage it would do,
- 24:22Speaker 1: and he's worried about his kids. He's worried about himself,
- 24:25Speaker 1: if he'll ever be happy again. Life gives lemons, doesn't
- 24:29Speaker 1: it 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: leomens 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 the.
- 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 of 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 2: Your request known to God.
- 26:01Speaker 1: Life comes with a bushel full of lemons, but if
- 26:05Speaker 1: you're sucking on them, they're gonna make you sour. But
- 26:11Speaker 1: you can respond to them in a better way. Meditate
- 26:15Speaker 1: on good things the passage one more time.
- 26:18Speaker 2: Read it out loud with me as 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.
- 26:33Speaker 2: Are of good report.
- 26:34Speaker 1: If there is any virtue, and if there is anything praiseworthy,
- 26:39Speaker 1: meditate on these things.
- 26:42Speaker 2: Lord, would you grant us.
- 26:43Speaker 3: The same.
- 27:03Speaker 4: At a.
- 27:27Speaker 1: A A.
- 29:19Speaker 3: A A A.
- 30:26Speaker 4: And people arts taken part at.
- 31:51Speaker 3: People.
- 32:43Speaker 5: Loving you alone feels so beautiful, and yet it hurts
- 32:54Speaker 5: the most.
- 32:59Speaker 2: You became my.
- 33:00Speaker 6: Quiet sunrise, the dream I never dared to say. Every
- 33:07Speaker 6: smile you gave so freely took my breath a little away.
- 33:13Speaker 6: I held this love like fragile glass, so precious, soft
- 33:18Speaker 6: and true. But every bee inside my heart was only
- 33:24Speaker 6: reaching out to you.
- 33:27Speaker 7: Unspoken love is sweet and painful, like honey MIxS me rain.
- 33:35Speaker 8: A tender whole by all so sadly while it slowly
- 33:41Speaker 8: breaks me loving you from just one side. Now leave
- 33:46Speaker 8: my soul in silent blue. Because the deeper that I
- 33:51Speaker 8: fall along, the lonelier I do.
- 33:58Speaker 5: I can't blame my heart for choosing someone.
- 34:02Speaker 2: It could never keep, so I smiled through hidden heartache.
- 34:09Speaker 7: Hell love you quietly spoke in love is sweet and painful,
- 34:16Speaker 7: I can even mixed with rain, that'send the whole biw
- 34:21Speaker 7: so tightly wal.
- 34:23Speaker 8: It slowly breaks me loving you from just one side.
- 34:29Speaker 8: Now leave my soul in silent pool because the deeper
- 34:34Speaker 8: that I follow, the loly I do.
- 34:56Speaker 3: Maybe loving you in silence it.
- 35:00Speaker 8: Is the closest, darknsting, though leaves behind the sorrow that may.
- 35:07Speaker 3: Never fat away.
- 35:13Speaker 7: Spoken love is sweet and painful, Like horney mixed with rain,
- 35:21Speaker 7: a tender whole.
- 35:22Speaker 8: Bibles so tightly wild slowly breaks me loving you from
- 35:29Speaker 8: just one side.
- 35:30Speaker 3: Now leave my soul in silence.
- 35:33Speaker 8: Bold because the deeper that I follow.
- 35:37Speaker 3: Love the lowly her to