Latest / Real Life Theology Podcast / Why Am I Doing This Again? Finding Strength and Purpose in Jesus | Matt Proctor

Transcript

Why Am I Doing This Again? Finding Strength and Purpose in Jesus | Matt Proctor · Real Life Theology Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back everyone to the Real Life Theology Podcast. Today's episode will
• 0:07
  feature Matt Proctor who's going to help us persevere in gospel allegiance by
• 0:13
  simply answering the question, why am I doing this again? I hope you guys enjoy
• 0:18
  this episode. Amen. I am grateful for all who went into planning this. My name is
• 0:24
  Matt Proctor. I get to serve as the president of Ozark Christian College, a
• 0:27
  Bible college in Joplin, Missouri. I'm excited to share with you. Let's jump in
• 0:31
  Revelation 1. If you have your Bibles you can turn there. Revelation chapter 1. I
• 0:36
  saw a lady one time in a gym. She was working out. She was sweating and she was
• 0:42
  straining. She was working very hard and she had a shirt that said this, why am I
• 0:47
  doing this again? It's a very good question and on the wall of the gym was
• 0:52
  the answer. Before and after pictures. You have seen these kind of pictures
• 0:56
  before, right? Here's some actual pictures. Before the weight loss, after
• 1:01
  the weight loss. Before the weight training, after the weight training.
• 1:08
  Before CrossFit, after CrossFit. There you go.
• 1:14
  Why am I doing this again? That's why. That's why. It's a good question. A few
• 1:19
  years ago Simon Sinek wrote a best-selling leadership book. It was
• 1:22
  entitled Start With Why. Subtitle, How Great Leaders Inspire Other People to
• 1:27
  Action. His thesis in the book was this, great leaders don't start by telling
• 1:31
  people what to do or how to do it. They start by telling them why to do it. At
• 1:36
  the Bible College where I serve, we are right now in the 12th week of the
• 1:40
  semester. Students are weary. They are fatigued. They are tired. I have a student
• 1:44
  who came up to me and he said, he said, have you ever noticed that the last part
• 1:48
  of the word studying is actually the word dying? He's not wrong. That's how
• 1:54
  they're feeling right now. And they're asking themselves, why am I doing this
• 1:58
  again? And as their leader and as their teacher, it's my job to tell them why.
• 2:02
  Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist, World War II, thrown into the Auschwitz
• 2:06
  concentration camp. And after he survived, he wrote a book in which he wrote these
• 2:11
  words. Those who have a why to live can bear with almost any how. It's very good
• 2:17
  wisdom. Always start with why. Now, the book of Revelation was written by the
• 2:23
  Apostle John to seven churches in Asia Minor who are undergoing severe
• 2:28
  persecution. End of first century, Emperor Domitian wants to crush the Christians.
• 2:33
  He knows one of the ways that he can flush them out is through the imperial cult.
• 2:36
  You remember this little piece of historical background? In the Roman Empire,
• 2:40
  emperor viewed as divine God and as a test of loyalty to Rome, every citizen had to
• 2:44
  come to the public square, offer a pinch of incense to the statue of Caesar and
• 2:48
  confess, Caesar is Lord. Christians, of course, knew they could never offer this
• 2:53
  pinch of incest. They could never make that confession. They knew if they didn't,
• 2:57
  severe consequences. You talk about gospel allegiance, they literally had to choose
• 3:03
  between pledging allegiance to Caesar and pledging allegiance to Christ.
• 3:06
  And they know that if they choose Christ, that they could lose their job,
• 3:11
  they could lose their home, they could lose their family and their friends and
• 3:14
  their freedom and maybe even their lives. John is writing here to believers who are
• 3:18
  living out gospel allegiance, but they are suffering. And surely they are asking
• 3:24
  themselves the question, why am I doing this again? And John writes the book of
• 3:29
  Revelation to tell them why. This whole book is a call to persevere,
• 3:33
  to endure, to stay faithful. And he calls himself in chapter 1 verse 9,
• 3:38
  their brother in suffering and in patient endurance. But the question his readers
• 3:43
  are asking is, why, John? Why should I get up every single morning and live out this
• 3:48
  life of gospel allegiance when it's so hard? And maybe, maybe this afternoon,
• 3:53
  some of you are there. Maybe that's the question you're asking yourself in a
• 3:57
  moment of hard temptation, maybe in the midst of conflict or in a moment of doubt
• 4:02
  or maybe just a moment of fatigue. You are doing ministry, you are bung-tired and it
• 4:06
  feels like you're seeing no fruit and you feel like quitting. And you are asking
• 4:11
  yourself the question, why am I doing this again? And to all who ask that
• 4:16
  question, John gives us the answer in one very simple word, Jesus. That's why.
• 4:24
  In Revelation chapter 1 verse 1, he says that this book is a revelation of Jesus
• 4:29
  Christ because if we are going to stay faithful, that's what we need more than
• 4:33
  anything else. We need a fresh vision of Jesus. And so over the course of these 22
• 4:38
  chapters, he gives his readers three visions of Christ. Revelation 1,
• 4:43
  Revelation 5, Revelation 19, he paints three portraits of this King to whom we
• 4:49
  pledge our allegiance. And today, if you are asking, why am I doing this again?
• 4:55
  Can I show you these pictures? Revelation 1, I'll put a caption underneath it,
• 5:01
  a terrifying King. We pledge allegiance because we have a terrifying King.
• 5:06
  Before we read, my wife Katie and I, we were married in May of 1991 and I wanted
• 5:13
  to take Katie, you know, someplace exotic for our honeymoon. And so we went to
• 5:18
  Kansas City. I was a poor college kid. And when we got to Kansas City,
• 5:23
  we found out they had just finished filming a movie there in Kansas City.
• 5:26
  It was on the newspaper in our hotel room. This movie was entitled Mr.
• 5:30
  and Mrs. Bridge. It starred Paul Newman. And there was a true story about the
• 5:35
  filming of this movie. There was a lady there in Kansas City,
• 5:38
  went down onto the plaza, went into a Haagen-Dazs store to get some ice cream
• 5:42
  up to the counter, made her selection. The attendant is dipping her cone and she
• 5:45
  just happens to turn around. Guess who's standing behind her in line?
• 5:50
  It's Paul Newman in town for this movie. Well, she instantly recognizes him,
• 5:54
  you know, looks into those famous blue eyes of his. She kind of gets all weak
• 5:58
  in the knees and he says, hello. And she's just speechless.
• 6:02
  She can't say anything. She just nods at him. And she turns around,
• 6:05
  manages to pay for her ice cream cone. And as she's walking out the door,
• 6:10
  she regains her composure, kind of pulls herself together.
• 6:12
  And that's when she suddenly realizes, oh, no, she didn't have her ice cream cone.
• 6:17
  Very embarrassed, she walks back into the store. And as she does,
• 6:20
  guess who she meets at the door coming out? It's Paul Newman again.
• 6:23
  And he says to her, are you looking for your ice cream cone?
• 6:28
  Still speechless, she just nods at him. He says, you put it in your purse
• 6:32
  with your change. Now, that's what we do when we are in the presence of somebody
• 6:39
  that we think is important, right? We get a little nervous.
• 6:42
  Our palms begin to sweat. Our heart beats a little bit faster.
• 6:44
  We get tongue-tied. Maybe we do something silly.
• 6:47
  Can I ask you a question? When you walked in here this
• 6:50
  afternoon, did your pulse quicken? Did your palms begin to sweat?
• 6:55
  Did you begin to feel just a little bit nervous? You understand when we walk
• 6:59
  into worship, we are not in the presence of some small little human celebrity.
• 7:02
  We are in the presence of the high King of heaven himself. And the churches
• 7:07
  of Revelation have forgotten that. They have lost their reverent fear
• 7:11
  of Christ, and that's why read chapters 2 and 3. They are shot through with sin.
• 7:16
  They have compromised their gospel allegiance, Revelation 1.
• 7:20
  This picture will fix that. John is on the island of Patmos.
• 7:22
  He's worshiping on the Lord's Day. Here's a voice behind him.
• 7:26
  Listen to what it says, verse 12.
• 7:29
  I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned,
• 7:32
  I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone
• 7:36
  like a son of man, dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet.
• 7:40
  And with a golden sash around his chest, his head and hair were white like wool,
• 7:45
  as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.
• 7:49
  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound
• 7:53
  of rushing waters. In his right hand, he held seven stars,
• 7:57
  and out of his mouth came a sharp, double-edged sword.
• 8:00
  His face was like the sun, shining in all its brilliance.
• 8:03
  And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
• 8:10
  John is terrified. Why? Because Jesus is...well, he's standing
• 8:15
  among the seven golden lampstands. You know those are the seven churches.
• 8:19
  Jesus is not up in the clouds somewhere, the man upstairs, absentee landlord.
• 8:24
  No, Jesus is right in the midst of his people. He is among his churches.
• 8:28
  And this robe that he is wearing, golden sash, he has left aside the rags
• 8:31
  of the rabbi, and now he is wearing the robes of a king.
• 8:35
  His head and hair white like wool, that's not aging, that's not frailty,
• 8:38
  that's dignity, that's respect, that's power. His feet glowing like bronze,
• 8:43
  he can stand firm and strong and immovable. His eyes like blazing fire,
• 8:49
  they can pierce through our hypocrisy and they can see to our very souls.
• 8:53
  In his hand, he holds seven stars. Did you ever sing this song when you
• 8:58
  were a kid? He's got the whole world in his hand. This Jesus has multiple worlds
• 9:05
  in his hand. He holds entire planetary systems right there in his palm.
• 9:09
  He is that huge and out of his mouth comes a sharp, double-edged sword,
• 9:13
  face shining like the sun in all its brilliance. Listen to me,
• 9:15
  this is not the gentle Jesus. This is not a flannel-graft Jesus with little
• 9:20
  lambies around his shoulder, or Mr. Roger Jesus with little children
• 9:23
  upon his lap. This Jesus speaks in Niagara thunder. He blazes with supernova brilliance.
• 9:30
  This Jesus could play kickball with our planet. He could flick his finger and send
• 9:36
  our solar system spinning off into space. This Jesus is the Jesus of Genesis 1 who
• 9:40
  takes a handful of syllables and he just speaks 10,000 galaxies into existence.
• 9:45
  He is clothed in glory and splendor and majesty and authority and John falls
• 9:49
  at his feet as though dead. He is terrified. He is crushed by a tidal wave
• 9:55
  of glory and he is fighting for his breath, for his very life. This is a Jesus
• 10:00
  in whose presence you do not casually stand around. And the message to the
• 10:04
  churches is clear, be afraid. Jesus is watching and he is not some kindly
• 10:12
  grandfather who tussles your hair when you misbehave. Oh, boys will be boys.
• 10:16
  He is not a smiling buddy who will wink at your sin. He is a towering,
• 10:21
  furious figure who will not be managed. He is Lord and he is among his churches
• 10:27
  and he sees our sin and he's big enough to do something about it.
• 10:31
  And he says to his readers and he says to us that if we are hiding secret sin
• 10:35
  in our lives, do not be Ananias and Sapphira who walked casually,
• 10:40
  carelessly into the sanctuary, unaware of who their king really was,
• 10:45
  pledging allegiance to themselves. No. This king is glorious and holy.
• 10:51
  He is not to be trifled with. He is terrifying and that's why we
• 10:56
  pledge allegiance. There's a second picture, Revelation 5.
• 11:01
  Revelation 5, caption, we have a tender-hearted king. Now, my wife,
• 11:09
  Katie, and I, we have six kids. And so, you can imagine as my kids have
• 11:13
  been growing up, it's hard to find one-on-one time with my kids,
• 11:16
  with that many kids. But I have tried really hard and especially with my two
• 11:21
  middle kids out of the six. Middle kids can often get forgotten, right?
• 11:26
  And so, whenever I've had one-on-one time with my two middle children,
• 11:29
  I have a ritual that I have done with both of them, only with those two.
• 11:34
  When my daughter, Clara, she's kid number three, my first middle kid,
• 11:38
  when she was a little girl, five, six years old, and we would get time together
• 11:41
  alone, just the two of us, Saturday morning, maybe driving to Walmart,
• 11:46
  in the car, this was my ritual with her. I would lean over to Clara,
• 11:51
  five years old, and I'd say, hey, Clara, guess what? What? You know what?
• 11:57
  What, Dad? Guess what? What? You know what? What? Ask her those same two questions
• 12:03
  over and over again. Pretty soon, tension began to grow, excitement began to build.
• 12:06
  When she couldn't stand it any longer, I'd say, guess what? What? You know what?
• 12:09
  What? I'd say, I love you. And she'd go, yay. I had never done that ritual
• 12:16
  with my other middle kid, Carl. He is child number four. But one day,
• 12:21
  when he was three years old, I decided to do this with him.
• 12:25
  Now, Carl is 17 these days. He's 6'1", 230. He's a football lineman.
• 12:31
  But even at age three, he looked like an NFL linebacker. That's how he was built.
• 12:36
  The two of us were in an empty church building. We were walking down a long
• 12:39
  hallway, and he's just walking beside me, little barrel chest.
• 12:42
  He's sucking on a lollipop. And I decided to do this ritual with him
• 12:44
  for the very first time. I leaned over to Carl, and I said, hey, Carl, guess what?
• 12:49
  What? You know what? What, Dad? Guess what? What? You know what? What?
• 12:57
  Same two questions over and over. Tension began to build, excitement began to grow.
• 12:59
  When he couldn't stand it any longer, guess what? What? You know what? What?
• 13:03
  I said, I love you. He popped that lollipop out of his mouth. He said, yep, you do.
• 13:13
  I love that. I want my kids to know deep in their bones, if nothing else in the
• 13:20
  world is true, this much is true, their father loves them.
• 13:24
  Every human being ever born wants to know, does anyone love me?
• 13:29
  In Revelation chapter 5, John is in the throne room. God is seated on his throne,
• 13:34
  holding in his hand a scroll on which is his plan to save the world.
• 13:40
  But no one can open the scroll. No one can enact God's plan of salvation.
• 13:45
  And when John discovers this, it says, he wept bitterly. Does no one love us?
• 13:53
  Can no one save us? Will we be forgotten? But in Revelation chapter 5,
• 14:00
  listen to the words. It says this, then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain,
• 14:08
  standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures
• 14:11
  and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits
• 14:14
  of God sent out into all the earth. He came and he took the scroll from the right
• 14:19
  hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it,
• 14:21
  the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb.
• 14:25
  Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense,
• 14:28
  which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song,
• 14:31
  you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain.
• 14:39
  And with your blood, you purchased men from God from every tribe and language and
• 14:43
  people and nation. What is this? What is this that we are seeing?
• 14:46
  Very simply this, Jesus came to earth as a lamb. He came to earth as a sacrifice.
• 14:52
  He came to earth to be slain. Why? To purchase us. We are not forgotten.
• 15:01
  Our king loves us so much, he died for us. My wife, Katie,
• 15:06
  is the children's minister at our church. I'm one of her children's church teachers.
• 15:11
  And so, just a few years ago, we took a group of her kids,
• 15:14
  about 15 or 20 kids, to a passion play at a big Baptist church in our town.
• 15:20
  It was right before Easter. And we got there about an hour early so
• 15:24
  we could go up in the balcony and get seats in the front row,
• 15:27
  a great spot for all these kids to see. But here was the challenge.
• 15:31
  That year, in our children's ministry, we had several unchurched kids.
• 15:34
  It was great. A neighbor had brought them, but they were pretty rough kids.
• 15:40
  They were street kids, sitting quietly for an hour, waiting for the show to start,
• 15:46
  not their spiritual gift. It was a Friday night. It had been a long week.
• 15:51
  I was very tired. I'm just being very honest with you. I was grumpy.
• 15:55
  And I was riding herd on this one little third-grade kid named David.
• 15:59
  You talk about a rough kid. He was kind of a punk.
• 16:01
  He kept harassing the other kids. He kept whacking them on the arm,
• 16:04
  and David kept mouthing off, and he kept cussing, and he kept telling
• 16:07
  dirty jokes to all of them. I heard a story about a substitute teacher
• 16:13
  who had a very rowdy, loud first-grade class. And so, about an hour into the
• 16:17
  school day, the principal came by to check on her. And to his amazement,
• 16:20
  all the kids were quiet. And he said,
• 16:23
  Wow, how did you do that? And she said, Well, I gave all the kids glue sticks,
• 16:28
  and I told them it was lip balm. I wanted to give David some lip balm that night.
• 16:34
  Are you following me here? But what I did instead was I took him
• 16:37
  down to the bottom floor, and we sat in the back row, and he was on my lap.
• 16:42
  My arms clamped around him to hold him still. Finally, the lights went down,
• 16:46
  and the show began. And David was almost instantly captivated,
• 16:50
  his eyes wide with wonder. David had just started coming to our church.
• 16:55
  David had never heard the story of Jesus. And as the play unfolded,
• 17:02
  he sat on my lap, and he kept asking me questions in the dark.
• 17:07
  Mr. Matt, why did he say that? Mr. Matt, how did he make that man better?
• 17:16
  When Jesus walked down the aisle bearing his cross just inches from where we sat,
• 17:22
  the actor bloodied and almost unrecognizable, Mr. Matt, is that still Jesus?
• 17:32
  And when they took Jesus onto the stage, and they threw him down onto that cross,
• 17:36
  and the soldiers began to pound the nails into his hand, David, sitting on my lap,
• 17:41
  turned to me in genuine grief, and he said, Mr. Matt, why are they doing that?
• 17:45
  Why are those soldiers killing Jesus? And I tried to explain. I said, David,
• 17:53
  Jesus let those men kill him so he could take the punishment for our sins.
• 18:00
  Do you see those other two men on the crosses? Those men are criminals.
• 18:04
  They died for the bad things they did, but Jesus died for the bad things we did.
• 18:14
  And David said to me with tears running down his cheeks, that's not fair.
• 18:21
  And I said, you're right, David, it's not fair, but he did it because he loves us.
• 18:30
  And that night in the back row of that church, the Holy Spirit just hit me upside of the head
• 18:37
  with the question, how long has it been since your heart was broken at the foot of the cross?
• 18:43
  And that night I was reminded that neither death, nor life, neither angels, nor demons,
• 18:47
  neither the present, nor the future, nor any power, neither height, nor depth,
• 18:50
  nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus,
• 18:55
  our Lord. And Jesus looks down on us from the cross, and he says, I love you.
• 19:04
  And our hearts answer, yep, you do. We have a tender-hearted King,
• 19:12
  and that's why we pledge allegiance. But there's one more picture, Revelation 19.
• 19:19
  And in Revelation 19, the enemies of God are gathering to make war against the people of God.
• 19:26
  And John's readers, they know these enemies well. They bear the battle scars.
• 19:30
  They know what is about to come, and they are afraid. Maybe, maybe this afternoon,
• 19:36
  that's where you're at. Maybe you are facing off against the powers of darkness in your own life.
• 19:40
  Maybe you are facing an obstacle that you know is much too big for you, and you can feel it.
• 19:45
  Discouragement, powerlessness, fear. Then I want you to hear the words of Revelation 19, verse 11.
• 19:55
  I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called Faithful and True.
• 20:03
  With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.
• 20:10
  He has a name written on him that no one but he himself knows. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood,
• 20:15
  and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses,
• 20:21
  and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.
• 20:28
  He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty,
• 20:33
  and on his robe and on his thigh he has this name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
• 20:40
  And John's message could not be more clear. Jesus is riding to the rescue. Don't be afraid.
• 20:51
  One last story and I'm done.
• 20:55
  Three years ago, my wife Katie and I took our 20-year-old daughter Lydia to a conference down in Florida.
• 21:02
  It was at a very nice hotel right on the beach. In fact, when we got there, we found out that they were
• 21:08
  filming a movie there at the hotel while we were there. Now, I have never seen this movie.
• 21:13
  In fact, I would recommend that you not see this movie. It was the movie Baywatch.
• 21:19
  This movie starred Zac Efron and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. And so while we were there,
• 21:25
  we actually got to see these two very famous movie actors. In fact, I think you'll see up here,
• 21:30
  this was a picture that somebody in our group snapped of Zac and Dwayne The Rock Johnson.
• 21:35
  And one night during the conference, we went down and sat by the outdoor pool because they
• 21:42
  had it roped off. They were going to film a night scene for this movie and we got to watch them
• 21:47
  film the scene. I was seated on the front row right up on the rope. My daughter Lydia, 20 years old,
• 21:52
  seated right here. And on the other side of the rope are these two big guys, black t-shirts,
• 21:55
  walkie-talkies. They're the crew. They're guarding the set. And literally just 15 feet
• 22:01
  from where we are at is Zac Efron. And so my daughter Lydia here is seated next to me,
• 22:07
  20 years old, and she is just looking at Zac Efron and she is just fanning herself.
• 22:12
  Oh, thank you, Jesus. Oh my Lord, you did a great job on that one. Oh, how did you? You are good.
• 22:18
  You are good. And right beyond Zac Efron is Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Now, can I just say,
• 22:25
  he's big on screen, but in real life, the man is massive. Look at that picture. He is a huge
• 22:31
  human chunk of granite. He is an exceptionally large human being. Now, as we watch this scene,
• 22:37
  in this particular moment in the film, The Rock is angry at Zac Efron's character. And so he, boom,
• 22:45
  he shoves him into the pool. And we watched them shoot about six or seven takes of this. They did
• 22:50
  about six or seven times. Now, of course, every time The Rock is not shoving Zac Efron into the
• 22:55
  pool, he's shoving his body double, his stunt double into the pool. And as we're sitting there
• 23:00
  watching this, all of a sudden, those big guys in black t-shirts, walkie talkies, they come up to
• 23:04
  me seated right there on the rope. And they said, sir, we're going to have to ask you to come with
• 23:09
  us. And I was like, oh, okay. Did I do something wrong? Is there some mistake? What's going on?
• 23:15
  They said, no, sir, no mistake. We just need you to come with us. And what had happened was
• 23:19
  that apparently, they had accidentally mistaken me for The Rock's body double.
• 23:29
  That did not happen. I did see The Rock. I was not mistaken for The Rock. Look at me. I am not
• 23:35
  a big guy. I am not buff. I am not jacked. I'm not muscle bound. I am not a fearsome person.
• 23:41
  I have been in some fearsome situations, some dangerous situations in my life. I have been
• 23:46
  at times in third world neighborhoods that were so dangerous, crime ridden that they were being
• 23:50
  patrolled by soldiers in helicopters with AK-47s flying right above our head. I have been on the
• 23:55
  streets of New York City at 2 a.m. once when a bunch of guys spilled out of a building onto
• 24:00
  the sidewalk right around me and a bar room fight began to brew right there on the sidewalk around
• 24:07
  me. Now, in moments like that, in those kind of neighborhoods, on those kind of streets,
• 24:13
  I do not strike fear in anyone's heart, okay? I did not have a class in Bible college on how
• 24:18
  to break up bar room fights. This is not my spiritual gift. I'm a children's church teacher,
• 24:22
  remember. What am I going to say in that moment? All right, guys, I mean it. Sit down and be quiet.
• 24:27
  I'm serious. That doesn't work in children's church, okay? At that moment, I am the one who
• 24:34
  is afraid. My heart is the one that is pounding. My palms are the one that is sweating. I am
• 24:38
  terrified in that moment, but that night in Florida as I sat beside that pool, I had a thought,
• 24:44
  what if? What if I had The Rock with me in moments like that? I mean, look at these
• 24:53
  pictures. The man is massive. The man is powerful. If you've seen any of his movies,
• 24:56
  he's pretty much the baddest man on the planet. He drinks jet fuel for breakfast. He's machine
• 25:01
  gun bullets for lunch. You do not mess with The Rock. What if The Rock was my friend? What if he
• 25:09
  was my partner? What if he was my constant companion in life? If I had The Rock with me,
• 25:14
  I could walk down any street with confidence. If I had The Rock with me, I could move through life
• 25:19
  with courage. If I had The Rock with me, I could be free from fear and anxiety. If I had The Rock
• 25:24
  with me, even the middle of a bar room fight would be a perfectly safe place for me to be.
• 25:29
  You listen to me, church, I do. Every single moment of every day, I have The Rock of ages
• 25:36
  at my side. Jesus Christ is my rock. He is my refuge. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the
• 25:43
  Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the King of the universe, and he is the Champion of heaven.
• 25:48
  He is the creator of the cosmos, the conqueror on the cross, the slayer of sin, the destroyer of
• 25:52
  death, and the subjugator of Satan himself. He is the sustainer of galaxies, the sovereign over
• 25:57
  every nation, and he is Revelation's righteous warrior on a white horse. Do you think for a
• 26:02
  moment that I am worried about North Korea, or China, or Russia? Do you think for a moment I
• 26:09
  am worried about Supreme Court nominees, or Senate races, or presidential elections? I am not. A day
• 26:16
  is coming when every leader, every nation will be a footnote in history, but the kingdom of Jesus
• 26:20
  Christ will reign forever. He is the rock that will never be broken. He is the rock that will
• 26:25
  never be shaken. He will reign forever as the rock of ages, and whatever enemy you are encountering
• 26:31
  today, whatever fear you are facing right now, fear not. He is riding to the rescue.
• 26:39
  I understand that a life of gospel allegiance is hard. It is not easy, but when you ask yourself
• 26:47
  that question, why am I doing this again? May I remind you why. Because our King is triumphant.
• 27:17
  Link is in the description.