Ron Dunn Podcast - Something to Be Thankful For

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

You can tell a lot about a person by what moves him to tears, temper or thanksgiving. From the series The Fullness of Christ.

When I was a pastor, I preached through it, and I've done it two or three times. It's a little book that has a big message in it. And this morning, we'll read the first five verses. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, to the will of God, and Timothy, his brother, to those in Colossae, holy ones and faithful brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God our Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

always concerning you whenever we pray, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you're having towards all the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, which you heard about in the word of the truth, which is the gospel. Now, I want to zero in just on that first word in verse 3, where the apostle says, we give thanks to God. We give thanks.

I have discovered in my own ministry, my own experience, that there are a number of ways that you can find the key to a person's character. And I've discovered that you can learn a great deal about a person by three things. By what moves them to tears. By what moves them to temper. And by what moves them to thanksgiving. Tell an awful lot about a person when you

see what he gets angry about. You can tell an awful lot about a person when you see what it is that makes him weep. And you can tell an awful lot about a person by the things that causes him to give thanks. Temper, tears, and thanksgiving, three of the great indicators of our character. Sad to say, one of the problems that I've had in my own Christian life is that sometimes the things that ought to move me to tears instead move me to temper. I was reminded of the Lord Jesus how there were a number of occasions when he was moved to temper.

And it was usually because of the self-righteous hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But when he saw sinners, blind and broken, he was usually moved to tears. And I've been convicted many a time because as I have watched men and women in their sin, I have been moved more to tears, more to temper than to tears. I can remember back in the early 70s when we had all the hippies about, you know, the long hair and all of that, the whole nine yards. I can remember driving down the highway, and I'd see one or two of these over on the highway, you know, thumbing a ride.

And to tell you the truth, I'd be moved to temper because those fellows with their long hair and denying everything that we thought made America great, I'd say to myself, well, why don't you get a job and go to work, you know, and buy your own car? And you say, well, preacher, you didn't think things like that. Well, I'm sorry. Yes, I did. You pray for me that I'll become more spiritual like yourself. But I have to admit that there were times when things like that moved me to temper.

But those things would have moved Jesus to tears. You can tell a lot about a fellow about what he gets upset about, the things that move him to temper, some of the silly things. You can tell a lot about a person by the things that moves him to tears. And it's awful a good indication of a person's character by the things that moves him to thanksgiving. And that's one of the great things about the Apostle Paul and all of his writings. It rings throughout every page, this idea of Paul's thanksgiving. Paul is always being thankful for something. He had an indomitable spirit that you just could not seem to squash. You could not seem to squelch. It doesn't matter what situation you placed him in. Somehow or another, he would squeeze out of it

a reason to thank God. You could put him in prison. You could hang the threat of death over him. You could put him on a ship that looked like it was going down. And somehow or another, this man was always able to find something, somehow, some way to bring thanks to God out of that situation, which is a marvelous characteristic of anybody, a person who is able to look at the lives of others and see in those lives things about which to be thankful. And what I want to do with you this morning is to just simply take this phrase of thanksgiving that Paul gives us here in this first chapter of Colossians. He's writing to the church at Colossae.

This is one of the few churches that Paul wrote to that he never found and he never pastored. And as far as we know, he has no contact with anybody there. It's not a church that he himself knows, but Epaphras, who was probably one of his missionary or sidekicks, one of the part of his evangelistic team, had been sent to the area there. And Colossae was a place where he had preached the gospel and had seen a number of people brought to Christ. And so Epaphras comes back and he's bringing the news of what has happened to this church in Colossae, to the Colossians. And so when Paul hears about it, he sets down and he writes this letter to these young Christians, these young believers, thanking God for the good things that have happened

in their church, what things that God has done in their life. And basically, his thanksgiving revolves around three things. He says, we always give thanks to God. Every time we're praying for you, we remember certain things about you, and we always give thanks to God. We thank God for your faith in Christ Jesus, and for the love which you have towards all the saints, and for the hope that is laid up for

you in the heavens. Paul says now these are things worth being thankful for. I think it is interesting he's not congratulating the Colossians on the good job they've done. Rather he's thanking God for what God has done in the lives of the Colossians. You know, sometimes we do get that mixed up a little bit. Sometimes we congratulate ourselves on the great job we've done in winning a lot of people to Christ and in building the church and increasing the budget. But you'll notice that Paul very rarely congratulates these people for what they have done, but he seems to find himself blessing God and thanking God for what God has done. And when he does congratulate the people, he congratulates them because they've been the

recipients of God's blessings. And so as he writes, he says, I thank God every time we pray, always, every time we remember you, we're always giving thanks to God because of your love towards all the saints, your faith which you have in Christ Jesus, and the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. Those three words, that Christian triad, does that sound familiar to you? Faith, love, and hope. Faith, love, and hope. You'll find those three words linked all through Paul's epistles, as a matter of fact. If you turn over to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, he talks to those Thessalonians about their, the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope. If you turn to Romans chapter 5, you'll find that same triad in those verses where he talks about faith and love and hope.

You'll find the same thing in Galatians chapter 5 and Ephesians chapter 4. Always Paul seems to be linking together these three attitudes, these three thoughts, faith, love, and hope. In a sense, you could actually say that is a summary of what it means to be a Christian. Actually, to be a Christian means this. What is a Christian? A Christian is someone who has faith in Christ Jesus, who has love towards all the saints, and has hope that is laid up for him in heaven. And of course, the most familiar place is in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 you remember where Paul says now these three

abide faith hope and charity faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love do you know why the greatest of these is love because faith will someday turn to sight and hope will someday turn to reality but love will always stay the same throughout all eternity. So these three things are what really count. Paul, as he has gone through this discussion of the spiritual gifts over which these Corinthians were fighting with one another, he says, listen, there's something better than gifts going on. I remember several years ago when I was a pastor, I did a long series of messages on spiritual gifts. And when I came to the end of it,

I said to my folks, I almost wish I hadn't preached on this. Because the more I have studied this, the more I realize that the only time Paul ever brings up the mention of the gifts is not to emphasize the gifts, but he's merely using the gifts as an illustration

to emphasize the unity and diversity of the church. Paul's emphasis is not so much on the gifts as he is emphasizing that the church, while it is diverse, is also a unity, and he uses the gifts as an illustration. And I said, I'm almost sorry I've given all this emphasis and attention to the gifts, lest we put all of our attention on the gifts. And so my last sermon was something better than gifts. And of course, that was love. And so Paul, when he distills all of those discussions and arguments about spiritual gifts, he brings it down.

These are the things that really matter. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. So let's look at these three things as Paul mentions them here in Colossians. First of all, he says, we give thanks to God because of the faith which you have in Christ Jesus. Your faith in Christ Jesus, your faith in Christ Jesus. Now, of course, this is the starting place, of course, because our salvation starts with our faith in Christ Jesus. And I don't need to labor that point with you because we all understand that a person is justified by faith.

Salvation is a by grace through faith operation. Everything you get in the Christian life, you get by grace through faith. Grace means God provides it. Faith means we receive it. And even the faith with which we receive it is a gift of God's grace. We could not even believe if God did not give us the capacity to believe. But this is where it always starts. And so there is a good reason for Paul mentioning this first. He says, we give thanks to God for your faith which you have in Christ Jesus.

Now, there's one thing here, though, that needs to be specially noted. Sometimes when Paul uses the phrase faith in Christ Jesus, he is speaking of Christ as the object of faith, that Christ is that in which we place our faith. But here, in this particular statement, Paul is not talking about Christ as the object of our faith, but rather he's talking about Christ as the sphere of our faith, or the realm of our faith. Christ is the environment in which our faith exists. It's the atmosphere of our faith. He's using that familiar phrase that

is one of the keys to understanding Paul's theology in Christ. We are in Christ, and our faith, he says here, is in Christ. Now, as I said, here he's not speaking of Christ as the object of faith, which Christ is, of course. But here the emphasis is upon something else. He's saying literally, I thank God for your faith, which is lived and exercised in Christ Jesus. In other words, Christ is the arena in which your faith is lived and expressed. Now you say, well, I don't quite understand what you mean by that. What does it mean to be in Christ? Well, Paul has given us a great illustration of that.

Look back in verse 1. Actually, verse 2, where he says says he's writing to the ones in Colossae, holy ones and faithful brethren in Christ. Now notice I think in your King James it says he's writing to the ones at Colossae, but actually literally it's those who are in Colossae, the same word that's used in Christ, in Christ in the other passages that we're going to look at. So here he's describing these Christians and he says two things about them. word that's used in Christ, in Christ, in the other passages that we're going to look at. So here he's describing these Christians, and he says two things about them. You are in Colossae, and you are in Christ. You have a geographical address, and you have a spiritual address.

Geographically, you are in Colossae. That's your hometown. That's where you live. You're called Colossians. That's where you live. Now, just as you live in Colossae, so you also live in Christ Jesus. Now, what does it mean to be a Colossian? Well, to be a Colossian, it means that you talk like a Colossian, that you do business in Colossae, that you dress like a Colossian, that you root for the home team, the football team of Colossae.

It means that your environment, the atmosphere in which you live, which you behave, which you love, which you bear children, is all taking place in the geographical location. You are Colossians, and as a Colossian, there are certain things that distinguish you so that when people see you, they say, I know that guy, he's from Colossians and as a Colossian there are certain things that distinguish you so that when people see you they say I know that guy he's from Colossae I just got back from England we spent two weeks in England sort of on a preaching tour kind of one night stands we made about nine cities in 14 days and it was a harrowing trip but we had a great time you know if you've been over there enough, you discover there is English accent

and then there's English accents. Some I can understand, others I cannot understand. One of the amazing things I first realized the first time I went over there is that if you live on the west side of London, your accent is different than if you lived on the east side of London. As a matter of fact, if you live up in the west side of London, your accent is different than if you lived on the east side of London.

As a matter of fact, if you live up in the Lake District of England, your accent is different than if you live in the south of England. As a matter of fact, if you live in North Wales, your accent is a little bit different than if you live in South Wales. And as we would travel throughout the country these two weeks, it was interesting to see how when you would move into a different city or a different area, the accent would change. And I was always confused.

But what was so interesting is that we would sit around and the natives, you know, the people that lived there, they could pick out by a person's accent where he was from. He said, oh, I remember in one restaurant, we had a waitress who came and took our order. And when she left, was from. He said, oh, I remember in one restaurant we had a waitress who came and took our order, and when she left, our friends around us said, well, where do you think she's from? Oh, I think I know exactly where she's from. I believe she's from Manchester. And so when she came back, they said, you're from Manchester, aren't you? She said, yes, I am. What

we can tell by your accent. Now, that's the same way it is here in the States, but not quite as accented as much as that. You can tell when somebody's from the South and you can tell us when somebody is from the North up there, those Yankees, because they have speech impediments up there. But what was interesting to me, what was interesting to me was that they could identify their geographical location by the way they talked, by the way they behaved.

Now, Paul says every one of us as believers have a geographical location. And that geographical location determines how we speak, determines how we dress. You dress differently up here in Rifle, Colorado around this time of the year than I'm dressing in Dallas, Texas. I'll have you to know that for sure. But wherever you live, your geographical location

determines a great deal of your lifestyle. Now Paul says in the same way just as you are in Colossae, you are also in Christ. That's your spiritual address. That's your spiritual location. And just as your geographical location determines how you talk, how you act, how you behave,

so your spiritual location in Christ ought also determine how you talk, how you behave, how you act. If you go over to Philippians, Paul makes this even more clear when he talks about the fact that we are a colony of heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven. Philippi was a Roman colony. In other words, it was not a part of Rome, but it was a little bit of Rome set down there in Philippi.

And the people, though they lived in Philippi, they acted as though they were Romans. They talked like Romans, and they dressed like Romans. Why? Because their citizenship belonged in Rome. And Paul says in the same way, while you and I may live in the culture of this world, our citizenship is in heaven. Our commonwealth is in heaven, and we are to obey the rules of heaven and the laws of heaven and dress like heavenly people dress and talk like heavenly people talk the fact of the matter is my spiritual location ought to have a greater effect on me than my geographical location paul says i i thank god we thank god because of the faith which you have. But that faith which lives and operates

and survives and thrives in Christ Jesus. Then the second thing he says is, we also thank God for the love which you have towards all the saints. Now, it seems like everybody this morning is talking about love. Like the fellow said, everybody talking about it,

not many of us doing it. It is another one of those things. It's like prayer, one of the most intimidating words in the Bible, this matter of love, the kind of love that we ought to have. Now, there's an interesting correlation here between faith and love. If you go over to, I believe it's Galatians chapter 5 and verse 6, Paul talks about the fact that faith works in love. In other words, if you really have faith in Christ, it will express itself, evidence itself, by the love you have towards all the saints, you see. If a person says he has faith in Christ

and manifests no love to the saints, then there's something wrong with his profession. Because genuine faith, real faith, always expresses itself, evidences itself by love towards all the saints. Now, another thing. This love that he's talking about is an active love. The little preposition that he uses there, your love. Actually, he's not saying the love you have for the saints. He's literally saying the love which you have towards the saints. And there is a difference. There really is a difference.

You see, if you go to verse 8, Paul is talking about the fact that Epaphras has given him all of this news about what's happening and he says, He declared unto us your love in the Spirit. The word declare there means He has made clear,

He has made plain, He has shown us in plain terms your love in the Spirit. Now let me ask you a question have you ever seen love no you can't see love if you've seen love and tell me what color it is is love green or is it blue or is it red what shape is love? Is love rectangle or is it circular? Is it a triangle? You don't see love. And yet, Epaphras made plain, made clear to us your love in the Spirit. Well, how do you see love? Well, you don't really see love. What you see is love manifested, love demonstrated, love expressed towards all the saints.

It is an active love. It's not enough for you and me to say, oh, I love God's people. I just love God's people. I just love everybody. That won't cut it, folks. That's not enough. I want to see that love in action. It's love that is active.

It is love that is reaching out. And what Malcolm said about the translation of charity was very, very good. And I believe that's right on because they understood that love and the aspect of genuine love did something about it. It was not simply a love that was stagnant and simply a matter of love in words.

And you remember John says that we are to love not only in words but also in deed and in truth the love which you have towards all the Saints not just some of them not just most of them but towards all the Saints I'll not go over all that's been said this morning about agape but I think it is essential to understand that in the word agape you don't have any idea at all of emotion there is no indication of emotion in the word agape say this used to disturb me

when the Bible would command me to love people. Well, how can you love somebody that you don't love? I don't even like them. How can I love them? Well, if love is an emotion, then it cannot be commanded. But love is not an emotion, as has already been stated. Love means that I place such a high value upon you, and I think so highly of you, and I give myself for your welfare and your good,

that I'll do whatever is in my power to do to promote your welfare and your good. That's what love is. Now, folks, I want to tell you something. You can love all the saints. You really can. You say, I don't like them. It doesn't make any difference whether you like them or not.

You say, they aggravate me. It doesn't make any difference whether they aggravate you or not. You're commanded to show love towards all the saints. That simply means that you, in your lifestyle, in your behavior, you give yourself to do whatever is necessary

to promote the welfare of your brothers in Christ Jesus. Oh, I'm telling you, I was going through what we call the model prayer, the family prayer some time ago, and I discovered, as you know also, that in that family prayer, it's always the plural. You know, we pray, we do this, give us this day our daily bread,

forgive us our sins. It's a family prayer. There is a sense in which one member of the family prays, the whole family prays. But what really struck me is this, that I as an individual member of the family have no right to ask something for myself that I wouldn't ask for every other member of the family.

You see, that does something with the competitiveness that is so true among us. When I pray for something, I have no right to ask God to bless me with anything that I'm not willing for him to bless you. I want God to bless you as much as he blesses me.

And so when I pray, it's not just, Lord, give me this, but it's, Lord, give us this. And do we pray with that understanding? I think one of the great harms that is happening among contemporary Christianity today is that it is being too, how can I say this? It is being too individualized. Is that a word? Well, it is now. I've got a right to make up a word much as anybody else. Now, I know that our relationship to God is personal and is individual,

but in the New Testament, the emphasis is not so much on the individual as it is upon the community, on the family, on the body, on the church, you see. One of the problems I have with the health and wealth gospel is that it's all oriented to me. Me getting what I want. Lord, I want this. Lord, I need this. Lord, give me this. I'm going to give so that I can get what I need. Me, me, me. I believe that's

contrary and foreign to the teaching of the New Testament. I don't think I have any right to expect God to give me preferential treatment over you. What if I, as a parent, and I'm an evil parent as the Bible says, but I work as hard as I know how to be fair equally with my children. It would not be right for me to do something for one child

so that he would get an edge and get ahead of the other child, and I would bless him in a way that I was not willing to bless the other one. That might happen among an evil parent, but that does not happen among a good parent. And so we're to show love towards all the saints. And of course what that simply means is you go back to Galatians chapter 5 and I believe it's verse 13 where what he says is love serves one another.

That's basically what love is. Love is serving one another. If I love you, I'll serve you. Well, it's hard to be on top. It's hard to be number one. I'll serve you. Well, it's hard to be on top. It's hard to be number one. And yet I'm reminded of what I talked about last night when Jesus spoke to His disciples and they were wanting to be the greatest.

He said, listen, which one of you, who's the greatest? He who sits at meat or he who waits on the tables? He said, it's always the one who sets at meat, but I am the one that waits on tables. What is love? Love is serving one another. Love is ministering too.

Not so much being ministered to. One of the problems we have in the church is that we come to church and we're saying all right somebody minister to me i want to be ministered to and really we ought to come with this idea of let me minister to somebody god used me today to minister to someone it's the love which you show to all the saints you see love towards all the saints it is an active serving love you want to be the greatest jesus says you want to be, serving love. You want to be the greatest? Jesus says you want to be the greatest?

Here's the way to be the greatest. Serve one another. Serve one another. And you find this principle all throughout the Word of God. Peter says God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Amazing, isn't it? By the way, do you realize that everything we're talking about

is totally alien to the world in which we live? Do you realize that most of the time we preachers are trying to make the gospel believable to the world? Our world's never going to believe it. The world cannot believe it. That's the reason we find ourselves sometimes compromising and shaving off the truth a little bit. Why? Because we want to make it compatible to the world. We think the problem is simply a matter of intellectual belief. And if we could

rephrase this whole bit where the world could kind of understand what we're talking about, then they'd join us. Folks, that'll never happen. That'll never happen. God has not called us to make the world try to understand what we're about. He's called us to be the church within the world and to love one another. And that's the only way we can live.

The world will never understand this business. This is totally alien. If you want to be great, be a servant. Paul says to the Philippians, esteem each other higher than yourselves. Do you think the world's going to buy into that? Is there any way that you can translate that to make that compatible to the world?

No, never will be. So Paul says, I thank God for the faith which you have, which lives and resides in Christ Jesus, and to the love which you are actively showing towards all the saints. And then he comes and he talks about faith, about hope. But now hope here is a little different. These three are not on the same level. Normally, in Paul's statements,

faith, hope, and love, or faith, love, and hope, they will all be of equal status, but it's not true in this one, because actually he says, when he comes down to the fifth verse, he says, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. He says, I thank God for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven he says i thank god for the faith which you have in christ jesus and for the love which you're showing towards all the faith all the saints and the reason you have this faith and the reason you're showing this love is because of the hope that you have which is laid up in heaven in other words it is our hope that keeps us going it is our hope that makes us steadfast in our faith it is the hope that's laid up for us that makes us diligent in loving one another it's the hope that we have that is laid

up in heaven sometimes folks it I never have any trouble believing in Jesus as the object of my faith. I've always had Jesus Christ. Ever since I came to Him and trusted Him, Christ has always been the object of my faith. But I confess to you, He has not always been the arena of my faith. Sometimes, my faith is faltered and failed i say what's the use you just go on believing you just go on trusting i don't know about you but i hear heartaches. I hear problems. And people come to me and they're on down and out and they've tried everything.

They've done everything they know to do. They've prayed. They've believed. And they're growing weary and well-doing. Trusting. Keep on trusting. Sometimes I find it hard to say that to somebody who's been doing that all these years

and they're still flat on their back. And they ask you, why is it? I tell you folks, sometimes it looks like faith's not working and you grow a little bit weary. Well, what is it that stimulates your faith? Well, it's because you do have a hope that's laid up there in heaven. Don't forget that.

Don't forget that. And sometimes it gets a little weary showing love to everybody because half of them don't forget that. Don't forget that. And sometimes it gets a little weary showing love to everybody because half of them don't appreciate it. And so you say, well, but what is it that stimulates your love and keeps you active in your love one towards another?

It is the fact that you have a hope that is laid up for you in heaven interesting thing about this he says this hope is laid up for us in heaven now strictly speaking heaven is not our hope our hope is not our hope. Our hope is not heaven. Whatever our hope is, it's in heaven. You go over to 1 Peter 1, I think it's verse 4 and 5, where he says that we've been born anew to an inheritance incorruptible,

undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. Oh, I thought my inheritance was heaven. No, inheritance can't be in heaven for you? Oh, I thought my inheritance was heaven. No, inheritance can't be in heaven because that's where it's been kept. Right there. And by the way, he goes on in the next verse, he says, who are kept?

Talk about you. Who are kept by the power of God. I like that. It's sort of a two-way security system. Paul says you have an inheritance and it's reserved. It's laid by and stored. It's reserved for you.

Well, that's wonderful, but what if I don't make it? He said, oh, we'll make sure you make it because you're kept by the power of God. It's one thing for you to know that there's a reservation for you in heaven, but what if I don't get there? I mean, what if I have a breakdown on the old bus?

Oh, he said not to worry about that. We've got a two-way security system going. It's kept for you and you're kept for it. You'll both meet up just at the right time. But you have an inheritance, but this inheritance is not heaven, folks. You know, we're

a bunch of hypocrites. We're just a bunch of hypocrites. I was at a camp meeting not too long ago and one night every song that was sung was about heaven I mean that's all they sang songs about heaven

and that crowd would cut loose I mean they'd cut loose they'd jump up and wave their arms and scream and bawl and cry talk about seeing Jesus oh when we see Jesus and in the sweet by and by. And I said up there,

I said, God, we're all a bunch of hypocrites. Here we're talking about, oh, wanting to see the face of Jesus and going to heaven, going to heaven. And if the doctor told us today we had terminal cancer, we're going to die in six weeks,

we'd say, pray for me, pray for me. That God will spare my life. Here we are on the one hand, crying and screaming and squalling, wanting to see my life. Here we are on the one hand, crying and screaming and squalling, wanting to see the face of Jesus. Then on the other hand, oh, help me, please pray for me that I won't die.

We're a bunch of hypocrites. But heaven is not our inheritance. Heaven is not our inheritance because our inheritance is laid up in heaven. Heaven's just the storage room, not just the location. Of course, you know what inheritance is, don't you? You know what our hope is, don't you?

It's Him. It's Him. Because I have news for you folks. It takes more than golden streets to make heaven. It takes more than gates of pearl to make heaven. It takes more than diamond doorknobs to make heaven. I can take you places now where people live in heavenly mansions,

but it's not heaven. Heaven without Jesus would be hell. The hope that we have, which is laid up for us, and by the way, that being laid up there has the background of the practice among the Greeks and among the Greek generals and emperors that they would reserve lay-by things for faithful servants who when they finished their time of service,

they would have this all stored up for them. And he said, you and I have would have this all stored up for them. And he said, you and I have a hope that is laid up for us in heaven. And that's what keeps us going. That's what keeps us believing. That's what keeps us loving. Why? He says, because you and I have a hope.

And this hope is based not on fancy, not based on emotion. He says, which you heard before in the word of the truth, which is the gospel. This hope is based on emotion. He says, which you heard before in the Word of the truth, which is the Gospel. This hope is based on truth. Based on truth. Basically, finally,

what this actually means to me is that the future belongs to us. The future belongs to us. The present may not belong to us I tell you the truth folks I think we're losing the battle all of our work diligence all of our legislation

the world's getting worse and worse we're losing the battle we just voted in the lottery in Texas a few years ago that wouldn't have happened I can remember when I first went to Irving it was a dry city no beer no nothing and every year the wet forces of course would try to take a vote turn it wet and we'd always muster our forces and we'd turn them back turn them back every year every year every year but every year the margin would grow smaller and smaller and smaller and I knew that sooner or later we'd lose the battle and we did we

lost the battle you see with the world history always tends towards liberalism have you ever noticed that the tendency is never towards conservatism the tendency is always towards liberalism, both theologically and politically and every other way. The farther you get from the fire, the colder it is. That which was sacred to the parents

has become silly to the grandchildren. That's the way it always works. It's tending towards degradation. We're losing the battle, folks. I have news for you. We're losing the battle. The present does not belong to us, but the future does. degradation. We're losing the battle, folks. I have news for you. We're losing the battle. The present does not belong to us,

but the future does. The future does. And to tell you the truth, that's what keeps you going. The future belongs to God. The future belongs to us. Pain is not the last word. Sickness is not the last word sickness is not the last word suffering is not the last word

I talk to people every week I don't know why it is they just seem to gravitate to me people having all of these heartaches and problems and sometimes I get so emotionally drained I can't believe I tell Kay I said I can't believe there's so much pain and sorrow

in the world and to think that Jesus died for every heartache multiply that by billions of people I said the K one day I say I God's promise to make all this turn out right but I don't know he may have bitten off more than he can shoot on this one. Sometimes it appears that even God's not going to be able to turn this thing around. And sometimes I despair. And I will despair. I can see why people drink.

I can see why people get on drugs. I mean, if it wasn't for tranquilizers, I'd be on drugs myself probably. What people are after is oblivion. And I would despair except for this one thing. Sickness, suffering, pain, injustice. That's not the last word.

That's not the final word. God has the last word. And the last word that's not the final word God has the last word and the last word is this God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes that's the last word that's the whole that you and I have laid up for us in heaven and that's what stimulates us to faith and that's what stimulates us to love towards all the saints. Folks, those are things worth being thankful for. We give thanks to God always concerning you.

Every time we pray, because of the faith which you have in Christ Jesus, because of the love which you're showing towards all the saints, and because of the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens.