The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Reliance - Hope, Love, Rejoice 2024.07.22

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

God bless Steven Menking and the Menking Family.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope. perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Lord, help us to be your people. Holy Spirit, be with us now and redeem this time. We love you, Jesus. We thank you and we praise you and we worship you.

And we stand in awe of the wondrous salvation and atonement you have made available to us. Thank you for giving your life for us. Thank you for drawing us to yourself. Thank you for everything that you have given us. All things were made by you and for you. Jesus, we adore you. We do not deserve what you have provided for us, but we bless you, Lord, and praise you for the hope that you establish in our lives at all times. God, help us to understand this hope. Help us to see clearly and to hear clearly what you are speaking to us and showing us in this generation. God, in times of trial and tribulation. Let us rest in your scripture. Let us be energized and fulfilled by your scripture.

Let us pursue you and your kingdom, Lord, and establish the character in us that produces hope. We love you, Lord. We bless you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. This famous scripture from Romans 5 about glorying in tribulations is apropos of what this world is dealing with. But how easy is it, of course, to glory in tribulations. Glory is such a majestic, positive, powerful, mighty word. And how do tribulations bring about a state of glory? Well, it is nothing about the tribulation itself, because we go through these times and seasons of frustration, Because we go through these times and seasons of frustration, of challenge, of obstacle, of dread even. And all of the other negative emotions that so easily beset us. Particularly when we recognize our own state of continued captivity in sin despite having been set free by the grace of Jesus. And this dichotomy runs through us all. Paul captures it elsewhere in talking about the body of death who will save us,

who will deliver us from this. What we want to do, we don't do. And what we actually do is not what we want to do. We all know this feeling. We all feel this feeling. We all have this understanding. And it is a common point that is made that if we recognize this, then we are in a good place because it means that the Holy Spirit is still working and convicting us of sin and moving us forward and pointing things out and challenging us and that our consciences haven't been seared, that we haven't grown so numb and acclimated to sin and to that habitation that we can't see a way out,

that we don't understand how to navigate that landscape because we're not even looking for it, lest we become one of the blind that Jesus speaks of, the spiritually blind who don't understand the difference between right and wrong and who will substitute different things for what God says about virtue, about righteousness itself. But it is not just a switch that we can flip to say, all right, there are tribulations. I will glory in them. We can't adopt a mindset overnight and over just these challenging circumstances that can look that in the face and say, good, I know what is to come of this. This is a mark of maturity, a mark of discipline, a mark of understanding. And in a culture of reactivity and being swept along by the maelstrom that this world presents to us in these times, it is so difficult for people to

grasp onto it. And many, of course, have written and spoken about how to accomplish these things from a spiritual perspective and from a secular perspective. And I don't propose to be able to solve that here. I don't propose to be able to put in words in a way that will turn around someone's approach to the scenario that they find themselves in. But I can do something better than that. Instead of relying on my own articulation to try and make a convincing case and an argument and a psychology and a character building and all this other the best I can do, the only thing I can do is to tell you that God is trustworthy that he loves you and that his word is true and that his Holy Spirit is within you

brothers and sisters and that he wants you to be established in this way this is a supernatural gift to be in a position where we can truly glory in tribulations instead of just tolerating them. But let's look at the logic here that Paul puts forth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. How can we glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation produces perseverance? Well, you could interject right there and say, well, does it? Sometimes tribulation breaks us down instead of builds us up. Sometimes tribulation can completely destroy us if it is so vast in magnitude and so difficult to handle? It can be life and death. It

can be life changing. So how can we be guaranteed to know that tribulation produces perseverance? Well, brothers and sisters, it is an item of faith and it gets down to the bottom of the barrel conclusion, this foundational understanding and this knowledge that our lives are not our own. And it goes back to verse one in Romans five, where we read, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, because of what he has accomplished, has given us peace with God. And if we are at peace with God, the rest of the circumstances that we find ourselves in don't go away immediately, don't simply disappear. go away immediately, don't simply disappear. But there is a foundational principle that can be established based off of that recognition that we have peace with God because we have placed our faith in Jesus. Later on in this chapter, in verse 9, it says, much more than having now been

justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. We are at peace with God. We will be saved from wrath. So this eternal perspective on our salvation, on what God has accomplished, if we do not actively keep that in mind, if we are not consistently going to the Lord, seeking him in scripture, in prayer, in worship, in fellowship, in giving our testimony and being obedient to his calling, if we are not in active pursuit of the kingdom of God, then the world will simply overwhelm us. of the kingdom of God, then the world will simply overwhelm us. And yet, if we do focus on the kingdom, if we do seek the face of the Lord, we will be overwhelmed by him. Think and sit and even pause this recording and spend 10 minutes understanding and meditating on the idea of being at peace with God.

We have a peace that passes all understanding available to us through the Holy Spirit. In the knowledge, not just head knowledge propositionally, but in an experiential knowledge to understand that we are in a situation where we are at peace with God and we shall be saved from wrath. Now, again, this realization, this understanding, getting this into the center of our being, at the core of our existence, it doesn't make the tribulations disappear, but we know that God works all things together for good, for those who love him. And brothers and sisters, if we love God, if we pursue him, if he is our priority, we know that we have been made by him for a purpose that is his, for his glorification. And that if we follow through on this chain of action, this chain of reasoning to glory and tribulations,

going from tribulation, understanding that leads to perseverance and character and hope, character and hope, then we understand that we are here until God says we're not. And yes, of course, that doesn't absolve us from making healthy decisions and doing the right kinds of things to put ourselves in the best position possible. But ultimately, who is in charge? God is in control. It doesn't give us an excuse for wanton behavior because we'll adopt a theology that says, well, God's obligated to keep me around or anything else like that. But there are certain things that we're not going to understand. But what we do understand about God is more than sufficient to establish ourselves. Because at the end of that line, tribulation, perseverance, character, and hope. Hope is an indispensable good in the lives of human beings. When hope is lost,

there is a gap, a problem. It is fundamental. And when we have no hope, when we are either as an individual or a family or a society or a species, when we are bereft of hope, we change. We think differently. We act differently. Our world becomes different. A lack of hope is such a foothold for the enemy to come in and wreak havoc. And it's one of those things where we can't just turn it around through our own willpower. We can't manufacture some kind of hope in our heart. It has to come from somewhere. And the fountain of hope is Jesus. He is ruling and reigning. He is our high priest. He is praying for us and interceding for us. And even if we feel like heaven isn't receiving or understanding our prayers, even in those dark nights of the soul, and especially during those times, have hope.

especially during those times. Have hope. Jesus, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, he knows you better than you know yourself. He loves you beyond measure, proven by the cross, where he gave up his life to save us, sinners, rebels, who are separated from God and heading for the wrath of that separation. But he made a way for us to be reconciled. He did what no one else could have done,

and he did it for our sakes. Because of his love for us and his desire for loving eternal fellowship and greater and greater measures of glory, greater and greater measures of goodness and righteousness and a virtuous cycle of positive reinforcement of good getting even better and better and better and better. And it's just such a separate picture, such a different complexion than we see right now with our eyes right in front of us. For many people, we can look around and just see worse and worse and worse and worse. But if that is not counterbalanced with hope, then it just can get out of control. And we've all been there to one extent or another. And we've all known people, even if it's ourselves, who have gone down the worse and worse and worse and worse to the point where it impedes everything. It robs us of

perseverance. It robs us of character. It robs us of hope. It robs us of the fruit of the Spirit. And you don't have to look very far, online, in person, in any situation, sacred or secular, to see that this is a plague that is afflicting us. This lack of hope. But brothers and sisters, when we understand what Jesus did, when we were still without strength, we had nothing to bring to the table. We had nothing but a mess. And that's even being extremely polite and understated to call what we were and what we are in many ways still a mess. But it is the blood of Christ, the priceless, infinite, eternal blood of Christ, and all the power contained therein that was shed for us. And that is a promise. We were enemies and we were reconciled to God

through the death of Jesus. As Romans 5 says in verse 10, how much more since we have been reconciled? Will we be saved by his life? He is alive and powerful and beyond anything we can imagine. So if we don't have hope in Jesus, in what he can and will accomplish, if we don't have hope in eternity driving us, then we will simply not stand. We could know exactly what's going to come down the line, one after the other after the other for the next 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 years should the Lord tarry. We could know every step of the way, but that knowledge alone is insufficient. We could come up with a perfect plan for how to deal with every situation using all the best information, a perfect insight and understanding into tactics and strategy and where to be and when and everything else. But we are people, not machines. And we could have that kind of perfect foreknowledge,

but that kind of perfect foreknowledge about what is going to happen in the world is not necessarily going to give us hope. Hope and faith and love, these are the things that drive us, that give us the resources that we need to be effective in this generation and to live up to our calling. Brothers and sisters, if you read through scripture, there are many, many, many times when the people of God in one way, shape, or form lost hope. And the question is, where would that come from? Is it a lack of understanding of God? Is it a lack of understanding of tactics and strategies and what to do in certain situations? It may not be a simple answer in every single case, but at the very least, I would say that hope is something that is so central to our constitution and our makeup,

our consciousness, that we can understand the difference between someone who has real, genuine, bona fide hope versus someone who has feigned hope versus someone who has no hope at all. That is something that we can read in people. We can feel it. It's there. It's a presence. It's such an important characteristic. It's such an important characteristic. It's such an important aspect

of who we are. And when we go around, I would say that, at least for me, the people who I encounter outside of my immediate circle of Christian friends and brothers and sisters, the attitude around me is one of manufactured hope, a rational hope, a probabilistic hope, a trust that is nebulous, trust that is nebulous, maybe based on an assumption that I guess things just work out. But that is a false substitute. It is a veneer that can't stand the test. That kind of manufactured hope, any sort of convincing of ourselves that we do, that everything's going to be all right. When that is put under real scrutiny is when that veneer will fall away. And again, it's something that is difficult to put your finger on. But real hope is so precious and so good and so pure. And it doesn't come from having three PhDs. It doesn't come from having a powerful position.

It doesn't come from having specific skills or an awful lot of money or resources in your bank account. It comes from the heart. And there are so many with everything at their disposal, but no hope. There are some who move around in various ways where they feel like they have to present a positive attitude when deep down they know, at least at a subconscious level, that there is a sense of hopelessness. And this has been inculcated in us for many years and decades with the perspective of us being vanishingly small in the span of the universe with the argument that our existence itself is nothing but a brute fact with no real purpose behind it. But most people simply go about and operate in their day-to-day addressing the things that are in front of them, dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, missing the present.

And there are a variety of different ways to think about this and to try to get out of that mindset. But there's only one thing that truly liberates. set, but there's only one thing that truly liberates, and that is the external, supernatural, perfect, loving power of Jesus and the faith that we place in the validity of his sacrifice and the truth of his deity. And without hope, there can be no true rejoicing and glorying. There can be celebration. There can be fun. There can be positive emotions. There can be all these things. But there's a difference between those things and rejoicing. rejoicing is something far more transcendent, far more powerful, far more captivating. People can externally and even internally be having a good time or doing well or everything else like that, but rejoicing. Rejoicing is a completely different thing,

whether we're rejoicing in worship or in any other form or fashion. Worship is, of course, extremely helpful in cultivating the mindset of rejoicing by bringing back to mind what Christ has done and allowing us to participate in that process. But when you meet, when you encounter someone who is really capable of rejoicing, someone who has hope. There is something so fundamentally important and relevant and captivating about that, that you cannot help but have your attention drawn to it. There's something uncanny about it. And yeah, you can have conversations about someone's faith and a skeptic can look at it and say, well, that's just half-baked and it's preposterous and how could you even act this way? Or it's just some silly superstition or bias. or you could try to explain it away, but there is something there where there is a

presence of rejoicing, where there is a presence of hope, and where there is a presence of love for others that is a clear, a crystal clear showcase of the presence of the supernatural in someone's life. These are not things that can be established with a rebalancing of chemicals. You can introduce a state of euphoria, but euphoria is different than rejoicing. You can introduce a state of optimism, but optimism is different than hope. You can introduce a state of affection, but affection is different than genuine love. Genuine rejoicing and hope and love is a description, as much as we can get to it, of the kind of overflow that goes beyond our natural capacities. We dilute those words, particularly love, next hope, and people don't really talk about rejoicing much anymore.

But those words have been diluted to have a description of their primarily physical counterparts. But we should be precise in our language. There is something overwhelming about genuine rejoicing, genuine hope, genuine love in their fullest degree. Something that each and every one of us is created to recognize, that each and every one of us will, even if we end up going in a different direction or trying to deny it or finding ourselves skeptical or anything else like that, we have to work to suppress that. There is something at the core of our being because we are created in the image of the God who made us and loves us and who provides

hope and who deserves worship and who is in a state of rejoicing. There are these moments in time, there are these times, there are these seasons, there are these little indications where we say, oh, I wish I could just put that feeling in a bottle and have it with me all the time. There are these moments of breakthrough, these moments of transcendence, these moments of appreciation. when things just drift back into the same old, same old, when we can't occupy that space for an extended period of time. But brothers and sisters, this is a matter of spiritual discipline. It is a matter of understanding who God is. And most importantly, it is a matter of walking with God. When we see and have these sparks of recognition of these genuine things, the true supernatural nature of them in other people, they instantly captivate us. They instantly resound and echo and reflect something deep, deep inside of us. And for us, if we see that in other people, when we spend time with Jesus, when we

walk with him, when we get to know him, he is the fountain of all of these things of hope and perseverance and character and love and rejoicing. When we ask and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us into these things, the Holy Spirit will lead us to the Lord, will lead us to Jesus and say, here is the source of all of these things. Here is the place. Here is the one who can establish you with these supernatural resources. establish you with these supernatural resources. And if we are thinking about the fruit of the spirit of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, gratefulness, all of

these wonderful attributes, these things that we can see in other people and hopefully in ourselves growing and abounding in maturity. When we look around and we ask, where is hope? Where is love? Where is genuine rejoicing? It is in Jesus and in Jesus alone. Everything else is a facsimile. Everything else is an inferior copy. Everything else is synthetic. Everything else is mechanistic. Everything else is natural instead of supernatural. natural instead of supernatural. I found myself in a situation where I've realized that the music that I used to listen to that would get me excited,

it's bland. There's nothing there. There's rhythm. There's manufacture. I know what effect it's supposed to create, but it just doesn't move me. The aspirations and the other objectives, they just don't move me anymore. about the Lord, about his goodness, about what he has done, about how much grace he has shown me, about who he is, about his love. When I imagine what it would be like to encounter him. When I pray, when I sing, these things create overwhelming emotions. And it's not as if we can't get our emotions stirred by all sorts of different things. But to you, brothers and sisters, if you understand what I'm speaking about, you know that it's different. God has saved me and transformed my heart and he's still working on me and I'm trying to work out my salvation with fear and trembling and to let him lead me from image to image and from glory

to glory. And I can't say proof positive that I'm in a place where I glory in tribulations. I get frustrated. I make mistakes. I say the wrong things. I do the wrong things. But I do know, brothers and sisters, that when I focus my attention on Jesus, what I can perceive and what I experience viscerally is this sensation of an absolute overflow of all the things that are the most valuable, that each and every one of us knows is the most valuable, and that we've crafted language to try to understand in some form or fashion that then has gotten put to mixed use by our society and diluted in many ways. But there's a pure experiential form that is not simply a trick. It's not simply a con or a product of circumstances and environment

and some special synapses connecting and other things like that. There is a genuine, bona fide reality to the experience of walking with Jesus that is so overwhelming that many people experience it and have to back off from it because it's too powerful. And they retract into themselves because there's something so overwhelming it can even be a little bit challenging and frightening at times even. But that is our own weakness. We will spend an eternity with the Lord in that state of hope and love and rejoicing that will go on and on and on and on. We are talking about some of the highest goods. And when we have met Jesus and when he has met us in that way, when the Holy Spirit has moved in our hearts and transformed us and reinforced the truth of scripture and has led us in those ways, then perhaps in the right time, at the right

place, in the right situation, that we can be that beacon of hope and love and rejoicing for others. That we can be there when people need us and that we can show them even just a glimpse of the beauty and the virtue that is underlying things. And if that happens to be because we are able to glory in tribulations and we stand in our testimony and say, this is not of my strength. This is a reflection of a God who gave himself for me and who loved me and loves me now and set me free and had this love and intention and purpose for me before I deserved it, before I was even born. Then we can show others that path forward. We can show people what hope looks like. People want that. People need that. It is something that is inside of us. When people talk about there being a God-sized hole

in our hearts that nothing else can fill, it is made up of hope and love and rejoicing because that is what we are created for. We are created to share in this amazing, unspeakable, indescribable glory of God, the one who is perfect, the one who is everlasting, the one whose love knows no bounds. We get moments of this. We get sparks of it. But the more and more we cultivate it, the more we will be able to broadcast that to everyone around us. Well, and how do we do it? We seek the kingdom of God. We encounter Jesus personally. And we grow. We grow in faith. We deal with the tribulations and the trials and we fight the good fight of faith. But we glory in that tribulation.

And if everything that we deal with, everything that we go through, everything that we have encountered, if it impacts the life of just one other person, can you be convinced, brothers and sisters, that it was all worth it? If one additional person gets to experience an eternity with God, an infinite good, was it worth it? Is it worth it if that person, because of the chain of causes that is so beyond our ability to estimate and manage, if that person is not even yet alive but is something, the transformative event, that spark of hope, that love being shown,

that sense of rejoicing, that call of the eternal God, if that takes place in 10 years for just one person, is it worth it? How about 100 years? How about 1,000 years if the Lord tarries? It must be. It is an infinite good. And whatever we have to go through pales in comparison to an infinite good. And I bet you could name

off the top of your head a dozen people around you who, if you were really persevering in hope and love and rejoicing, who that would impact. You may not see it yourself. You may not hear about it. The credit may not be given by them or by those around you, but just by living your life with Jesus in earnest, prioritizing him and in the struggle that you have, being open and honest and transparent with people, showing them that you care by really taking the time to understand them and be around them and to reach out to them, even if it's not reciprocated, even if there are difficulties,

even if there are obstacles. If you are in a position, well, I will say this, you know that you are in a position to impact people's lives right now. And if it's worth it for a hypothetical person a thousand years from now for you to do the right thing, surely it is worth it for you to do the right thing and to earnestly pursue the Lord in the way that he deserves to be pursued for the sake of those who are immediately around you in your circle of influence. There is no alternative. There is no other way forward. Everything else pales in comparison or in the worst case scenario goes in the exact opposite direction, but there is nothing better than

seeking the kingdom of God and pursuing a life with Jesus. He knows you. He loves you. He understands you. He gets you. He wants to be in fellowship with you. He will give you grace. He will strengthen your faith. He will set you free. And then you can extend that to others to participate in this process of infinite good and these relationships of infinite beauty beyond comparison. That is what we are made for, brothers and sisters. That is what Jesus will provide us. Jesus will provide us. That is what the Holy Spirit will lead us into. This is what communion with God the Father is about.

Jesus has made it so. Jesus has made it so. So can we all dedicate ourselves not to manufacturing hope and love and rejoicing, but to say, let's go to the source of these things so that we have the strength to fight whatever battles will face us, whatever tomorrow brings, so that we can have glory in tribulation, so that we can persevere, so that we can mature in our spiritual character. And what is the source of this? Knowing Jesus, understanding what he has done, understanding what it means about his love for us, understanding that the Holy Spirit is actively ministering and at work to create this endless supernatural fountain of these resources and these aspects of virtue and of just true genuine life and the fullness thereof, the hope, the love,

and the rejoicing. What a difference it would make, brothers and sisters, if we made that our focus, if we moved in that direction, if we allowed the Holy Spirit to dictate and to lead and to go the right way, let go of whatever sense of necessary control is driving us and is preventing us from going in that direction. necessary control is driving us and is preventing us from going in that direction. There is something better. Not just something better. There is something perfect. And as we do that, brothers and sisters, my prayer is that it would be so reinforced, so palpably and supernaturally reinforced in our lives that our only regret would be, why didn't I choose this trajectory sooner? We will all regret how much we have fallen short. But in the final analysis, God will wipe away every tear and he will say, well done,

thou good and faithful servant. Reflect on that moment that is promised to you, seeing the Lord face to face and hearing him say those words. No earthly success could in any way compare to that. Brothers and sisters, let us have hope. Let us see the love of God. Let us show the love of God and let us rejoice.

Lord, thank you for this reminder. Thank you for your word. Thank you for creating us in your image with a desire and a desperate need for fellowship with you. Thank you for the love that you have showed us. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the hope that is within us. Thank you that we can rejoice, not in ourselves, but in you. Help us, Lord, to move forward. Help us, Lord, to be your people. Help us to understand the impact that moving towards you and seeking your kingdom will have on those around us. Help us to be humble. Help us to avoid the pitfalls that the enemy will place in our path

as we make this decision. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would draw everyone closer to yourself. Draw me. Draw those listening. Draw everyone in our circle of influence, Lord. Your power must be shown in this generation. Lord, only you can accomplish these things. Use our lives for your glory and for the sake of others. Give us a supernatural strength,

a supernatural faith, a supernatural conviction, and help us not be deterred by the presence of obstacles, by the presence of perceived enemies, real or imagined. Help us to keep our focus on you and your glory and help us to demonstrate even just a small bit of the supernatural transcendent hope, love, and rejoicing that you want to provide us. Keep us in your will, Lord, and in your protection. Strengthen my brothers and sisters in Jesus' name. Amen.