Greater Joy

And you may be seated. Good morning. My name is René. I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Good morning here in the auditorium. Good morning to everybody who's watching over in Munskey Hall in the venue service. Everybody who's joining us on our podcast, on our website, the TLC app. There's so many ways to access what happens here at Twin Lakes Church.

First, before we dig into the Bible today, I want to show you something I think is super cool. My wife is in India right now with our Twin Lakes Church outreach team. We send a team to a children's home, an orphanage there, every single year in January. She's over there with our dental team right now. And she keeps sending me pictures of the building that we as a church are building there at the orphanage near Chennai, India. It's spectacular. This is going to be a community center. It's going to have dental and medical clinics. It's going to have classrooms for the kids there at the orphanage. And this is all part of our 2020 Vision Initiative that is also building our own children's building here.

You may not know this, but every single building here on campus is represented by another building that was built at the same time in the developing world. That's just the way Twin Lakes Church has always rolled from back in the early 70s. And that's what's happening right now. I really want you to see this because it's real kids we're talking about here. These are some of the kids at the orphanage holding up a sign that says, "Thank you for building our school." Isn't that awesome? In a world full of bad news, it's good to get good news. And you were a part of this if you contributed to the 2020 Vision. So I just really want to thank you guys for that.

Well, why don't you grab the message notes that look like this in your bulletins that you were handed when you came in? When we study the Bible at Twin Lakes Church, I usually give you some notes to follow along. It just kind of makes it easier to follow, particularly if you are new to Bible study. We want to make it super user-friendly for you. And our series that we're doing in January is called Greater. We focus on the greater things in life because it's so easy to get distracted. And today I specifically want to talk about greater joy because people really need to hear this today.

I heard a sermon the other day from a pastor that I think summarized so well how people are feeling these days. And I want to put some of his words on screen, see if you agree with me. He said, "It is midnight everywhere, paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Deep clouds of anxiety and depression are in our skies, threats of violence, wars, economic upheaval. More people are emotionally disturbed today than at any other time of human history. Many feel, as did William Wilberforce, who in 1801 said, 'I dare not marry, the future is so unsettled.' They conclude that life has no meaning. It is midnight."

This summarizes kind of the feeling today pretty well, doesn't it? Except that sermon was preached back in 1967 by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And since MLK Jr. Day is tomorrow, this past week I went online. Stanford has all of his sermons online and I read several of them. Fascinating. And I'm going to wrap up today with the end of the sermon as he talks about the problem of finding hope and joy when it's midnight. Because as I said, people are feeling the exact same way today.

So as we continue our greater series, let's talk about finding greater joy by looking at the story and the words written by a man who quite literally found joy at midnight, in jail, when everything seemed to be going wrong for him. I want to look more closely at a passage that I briefly read last weekend. And I want to warn you something about this passage at the start. Really pay attention. Look up here for a second. Because this is a dangerous passage. Especially if you're... Well, show of hands, how many of you have been coming to church, this church or another church, for at least five years? Show of hands. Okay, this is dangerous to everybody who just raised your hands. Because probably you have heard these verses. Probably you practically have these verses memorized.

The passage we're going to look at today is one of the best known, yet least practiced parts of the Bible. It sort of has what I call the Pledge of Allegiance factor. You know when you're a kid, you're like, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America." You just mouth the words and you don't even know what they mean anymore. And that's kind of what this passage has for so many Christians who feel ultra familiar with it. But don't go there. Don't go, "Yeah, I've heard it all, but I know all this already." Because the Holy Spirit wants to do something powerful in your life today. Specifically, he wants to raise your joy level, as we'll see that is God's will for you to have joy in your life. And if you just kind of push it aside and say, "I've heard this already. I wish I was coming someday when there was a scripture I didn't know before." You might miss out on what the Holy Spirit wants to do. So don't short-circuit it, all right?

All right, let's dig into it. We're going to go to Philippians 4. We're going to start in verse 4. And we're going to read verses 4 and 5 out loud right now. So you can look at them in your notes, in your Bible, or on screen. Let's read this together. Let's read this with gusto like we needed, okay? Here we go. Let me hear you. "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Amen."

Now, the first time you look at these words, even if you are familiar with them, it kind of sounds almost shallow or simplistic, doesn't it? Rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice. Sounds like uber-positive thinking. It sounds like the motivational speaker lives in a van down by the river just saying, "Come on, put a smiley face on," right? If you don't know the story behind these words, some of you may have forgotten that these words were penned by the Apostle Paul. And in his lifetime, Paul was imprisoned. He was tortured eight times. He was shipwrecked three times. He was whipped within an inch of his life twice. He had all kinds of bad things happen to him. He was robbed by bandits. He was attacked by wild animals. I mean, this man really was slandered. He had all kinds of negativity surrounding him while in the city of Philippi. He was thrown into jail unjustly.

And what does he do while he's sitting there in the city jail? Does he complain to God? Does he sit there in a funk, you know, in a corner? Now, if you're familiar with the story, what does the Apostle Paul do in jail? What does he do? He sings praise songs to God. And all the other prisoners are listening to him like we have never heard anybody else doing that in jail before. In other words, the Apostle Paul, despite all of these horrible things happening to him, somehow found joy. And when Paul writes this letter to the church at Philippi, the very city where he had been imprisoned and had sung songs of praise at midnight, Paul is an older man. He's jailed. He is awaiting execution by Nero. He's in constant pain. Scholars believe he had an eye disease. He is nearly blind. He's chained to a Roman guard 24/7. He has no privacy. Yet this letter he writes is absolutely infused with a sense of joy. You almost can't read it without smiling.

The book of Philippians, that's his letter to the church at Philippi, which wound up in the Bible as the book of Philippians, it's very short. It's only 104 verses. You could read it in 20 minutes during halftime today. You could read this whole book if you read it slowly. Yet in 20 minutes, Paul mentions joy 17 times. How in the world could he have found that kind of joy with that kind of a midnight life of circumstance? Well, he says this in the final verse of the passage we're going to look at today. He says, "I have what? Learned the secret of living in every situation." Now this is huge because he's not saying, "Yeah, I'm just that kind of a guy. That's my DNA. I'm tough yet joyful. I always have a smile on my face. God just made me this way." No, he says, "I've learned it is not natural to me." And that's good news to me because it's not natural to me either. But if the Apostle Paul learned how to have joy, how to have that calm sense of inner delight and security and confidence that we call joy, that means I can learn it too and you can learn it too.

So how did Paul learn it? Well, he learned four disciplines that nurture joy. Flip your notes over to page two and let's look at these disciplines right now. And no doubt about it, these are disciplines. If you want more joy in your life, you need to do these disciplines. Discipline your mind to do these four things. Don't just wait for joy to kind of roll over you in waves just kind of magically because when it's dark at midnight, it won't. You have to develop these disciplines. I'm still learning these, but I'm making progress.

Number one, jot this down, worry about nothing. Worry about nothing? Yeah, it's a tall order, but that's what he says, Philippians 4:6, don't worry about anything. Now I really want to drive this home. So circle the words about anything. You say that is impossible. Well, Jesus didn't think so. You know, in Jesus Christ's most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, he talks more about worry than he does about any other single topic. He talks more about worry than he talks about prayer, more than he talks about relationships, more than he talks about money. He talks about worry and what does he say? Jesus said, Matthew 6:34, read this out loud with me, do not worry. In fact, Jesus commands do not worry three times in six verses. Now just think about this, Jesus says don't. And that means, and I know you did not want to hear this this morning, but that means worry is a sin. I know. And think about how we excuse this in ourselves. You know, we'll judge people for all kinds of worst sins, but when it comes to worry, the sin that Jesus talked about more in the Sermon on the Mount than anything else, we just excuse it. That's just the way I'm wired. We excuse it in ourselves, we excuse it in our friends. Imagine excusing other sins the way we excuse worry.

Now why doesn't Jesus want us to worry? Watch this, the word for worry in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, literally means a divided mind. Don't you love that? Worry divides your attention. Worry fragments your focus. Worry leads to what psychologists call the loss of the power to will. You get that? Your attention becomes so fragmented that you can't find the will to focus on one thing and take action in one direction because you're just, what about this? What about that? And I'm worried about this and you never get anywhere. You just spin your wheels. Here's a great quote by Rick Warren. Worry can't change the past, worry can't control the future. Worry can only ruin the present. It is utterly useless.

Now you gotta be very, very careful here because if you just look at this without looking at the rest of the passage, you can make the mistake of thinking the Bible says do not worry okay. That means I don't talk about anything that's bothering me and I just face a smile on my face and every time somebody asks me how it's going, it says let it go in grave phrase God even though my heart is breaking, my life is falling apart. I just gotta wear a mask because it says do not worry. That is not what this means. Even though we go there a lot.

It's funny how vinyl records are becoming a thing again. I've got a 17-year-old son and he's collecting vinyl and it's fascinating when you go to places that sell vinyl and there's these old records from the 60s and 70s that wound up there. You get all kinds of amazing kind of memory trips just seeing these old albums that you used to own by Emerson Lake and Palmer or Crosby, Stills and Nash or something. We saw one the other day that we were like oh my goodness, I remember this record. I don't know if you remember this but when I was in Sunday school, when I was a really little kid, they used to play us records by Little Marcy. Little Marcy is not this woman. Little Marcy is the name of her ventriloquist's dummy. Does anybody here show of hands? Anybody here remember Little Marcy? Raise your hands high. I'm just curious. There's like 12 of you. Do you remember Little Marcy? Were we in a cult together, Connie, because nobody else remembers this.

Well, here's the thing with Little Marcy. All her songs are about just put on a happy face. This kind of thing. In fact, her biggest sort of hit among the Sundays of the crowd was "Let the Sun Shine In." Anybody else remember that song? "Let the sun shine in, face it with a grin, smilers never lose, and frowners never win, so let the," right? It kind of goes on like that, right? See some of you remember that song. Now I thought that smilers never lose and frowners never win, Mark. Start smiling right now. As a kid, I still like the chorus but have you ever looked at the verses lately? Connie, have you looked at these? Probably not, but we kind of got intrigued at this, so we looked at the verses because I was basically raised by Little Marcy, and the verses kind of go off the rails just a little bit. Let me read you verse one to the Little Marcy version of the song. This is how we were taught in Sunday School. "Mommy told me something a little kid should know. It's all about the devil, and I've learned to hate him so." I thought it was all about Jesus. No, it's all about the devil. Learn to hate him, kids. Hate, hate him. Okay. Sorry, flashbacks. She said he causes trouble when you let him in the room, and he will never, ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom. I know he'll be unhappy because I'll never wear a frown. Maybe if we keep on smiling, he'll get tired of hanging around. This is how to create a generation of neurotics is what this is right here. So, kids, we're going to be handing out our smiley face masks. Be like me, Little Marcy. You know, now, couple that lyric with the whole ventriloquist, dummy thing. Kind of a freak out for me right now. It's like, kids, don't make me come to your house and find you frowning, or I'll bring my friend Chucky. And Satan will never leave you, you know?

Now, don't get... Here's the thing. I know I'm going to get email from Little Marcy lovers. I like Little Marcy. And I welcome your emails. Tell me at Trent@TLC.org. But here's the thing. Whether you were raised by Little Marcy or not, a lot of us kind of got this idea, right? Do not worry. Put a smile on your face. That's not joy. That's being a puppet. So, how do you accomplish this? How do you worry about nothing? Well, the next three points explain it, right? Don't worry about anything. But don't wear a mask. Do these things.

Number two, pray about everything. Pray about everything. Did you notice, second part of verse six, instead, instead, paste a smile on your face? No. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need. Hey, check this out. Guess what everything means in the original Greek? Yeah, everything. Everything! Speaking for myself, I usually pray too vaguely. I really do. Get super specific with God. The Phillips version says, "When you pray, tell God every detail of your needs." Now, let me ask you something I've been asked a lot as a pastor. Why does God do it this way? I mean, God already knows all of our needs. Jesus said this in the Sermon on the Mount. So why does he ask us to pray specifically about our needs? Why doesn't he just kind of suck them out of our brain and we don't have to pray at all?

Well here's the thing. Paul is getting to the root cause of anxiety. One of the root causes of anxiety is a lack of intimacy with God, right? Not having that connection to the Lord. So Paul doesn't just say, "Stop the effect." He says, "Work on the cause." Does that make sense? Excuse me. You work on the root of your anxiety, a lack of intimacy with God, by praying very specifically about things. Why worry we're being practical atheists? We're saying, "Yeah, I believe all that stuff, but you're acting like God doesn't exist and doesn't know what's ahead." Give God every detail when it's midnight. You don't deny it. This is not about not facing facts. You face all the facts and you give them to God in prayer. And you incorporate the third discipline, "Thank God in all things." Notice in verse 6 when he says to pray, "Do it how? And thank him for all he has done." Now here's the thing. Most people can be persuaded to say a few words of thanks to God when the skies are blue. But Paul is saying, "Give thanks at midnight." He says to the Thessalonians, "Give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God for you." You ever want to know the will of God for your life? Here is part of it on the authority of God's word. Give thanks in all things. In all things, not for all things, but in all things.

And remember what gives Paul such credibility here is he's writing this under a restorating chuau before Nero and the Philippians had seen him singing in that jail. What's that tell you? There is always something for which to be thankful in all things, no matter what situation you're in right now. You see, not me, because a lot of things are going wrong. Friday, my 17-year-old son David and I went on a road trip down to Big Sur, just a father and son trip. And we passed a landslide, actually as it was happening. Caltrans was just letting one lane at a time through down there on Highway 1 on Big Sur. And while we were going past the landslide, it started again. I was driving a convertible, so we looked up and we heard the rock skittering down the hillside and the Caltrans traffic director saw that too, got panicked, and he told us, "Stop, stop, no, no, go, go, go, go, go!" So I'm just going as fast as I could as my son David said, "Yea, adrenaline!" It was really exciting.

But after we got to the other side of the landslide, it covered the road and the whole road was closed. It was shut down. So we were stuck on the other side of Highway 1. We were in a mile-long traffic jam at one point. And it is fascinating to observe human behavior in a traffic jam. Have you ever done this? I mean, we were not going anywhere. And there were people who were still in their cars. There were people who were fuming. There was one guy who was in the car next to us who said, "What is going on? I need to be in L.A." Just people just kind of going crazy. And David said, "Hey, Dad, you know what? We're stopped anyway. Let's just shut off the car and enjoy kind of where we are right now." And I said, "Good idea." So we just literally turned the car off, got out, and right next to the car was a gorgeous view. And David said, "Let's just breathe deep and just meditate on where we are right now instead of wishing we were some other place." I said, "That is wisdom right now."

And actually, in that moment, I snapped a picture with my phone and that's where we were. In that moment, and David just kind of breathing deeply in the traffic jam. And that is wisdom because so many things in life are exactly like that. You get detours. You get, maybe right now you're facing a giant road clothes sign and you're like, "But I had to get from point A to point B in my life's plan." You can sit there fuming that your plan didn't go exactly like you wanted or you can stop and you look around and find there is beauty even where you are stuck, even though you didn't want to be stuck there.

Now you might be saying, "Okay, I can see how that works out for some people." But you don't understand. I have a really bad thing in my life. I'll never forget when Mark and I went to visit a woman in a nursing home who was very elderly, crippled up, doubled over with arthritis and clearly in her last days we went to pray with her. And then as we were leaving, she said, "Do you fellas remind of I pray too?" No, sure. She held our hands and this woman in this circumstance said, "Lord, thank you so much that these two handsome men came to visit you today." But I mentioned her eyesight was going too. And she said, "Lord, I can't see much anymore, but I can tell it's blue skies outside. Thank you for those blue skies." Didn't have the heart to tell her that was a billboard. No, just kidding. It really was blue skies. And then she says, "And thank you for the promise of a restored body in glory. Amen." And I left thinking I would be depressed going on that visit, but I left uplifted why she also had learned Paul's secret.

But let's take it a step further. Let's say you're at a point in your life right now, you're going through a horrible loss or a devastating disease and you're thinking to yourself, "That's fine. At least she could thank God for your visit and for blue skies, but I literally, there is nothing but pain and devastation surrounding me right now." And that might be your circumstance. Let's just look at the example of Jesus. The Bible says on the night he was betrayed, about to be crucified, and it says he knew that he would be handed over. Luke 22 says, "He took bread and when he had given thanks," that's the part of the phrase I always miss, "When he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them." Now, what do you think Jesus Christ was giving thanks for here? What was Jesus giving thanks for here? Was he going, "Lord, thank you so much for this delicious bread. I love the nine green variety. It's nutty and not too sweet. Awesome bread. No, I don't think so." Was he giving thanks for the pain and the sorrow and the betrayal and the death he was about to experience? I don't think so. Based on the authority of Scripture which says, "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross." I believe Jesus was giving thanks for what that broken bread symbolized, which was the fact that through the crucifixion and resurrection would come the redemption of all humanity, eventually the restoration of earth. God's plan fulfilled Jesus in that moment when all was black, when it was midnight, was giving thanks to God for his future fulfillment of his plan.

Now, you say, "Well, that's great for Jesus. He knew the future. Doesn't work for me. I put in your bulletins on page three a list of things you can know for sure about your future if you are in Christ. And I'll just read a few of these bullet points. I can give thanks that I am God's beloved now and forever. I have the free gift of complete forgiveness of all my sins extending into forever. I can know that in all things God will work for the good all the way up until the end where it says that one day I will see Jesus. I will be like him in my resurrected body and no full undiluted joy. Heaven and earth will be restored. That's just a small sample. All these things on this list are true about your future. And let me explain the difference this makes.

About 10 years ago when David, who's now 17, was just seven, I was speaking at a family camp up at Lake Tahoe. And it was just me and David. Laurie was on a mission trip along with the other two older kids. And every night when I walked back from the auditorium to the cabin, it was about a three-quarters of a mile walk in the pitch black darkness. And even though I had a flashlight, David would just get freaked out and scared on that walk. Every night he would try to climb up on my shoulders just shaking from fear. I said, "What's wrong?" He said, "Daddy, Daddy, just outside where we can see with our light, what if there's bears? And there could be mountain lions." And he actually said this, "And there could be wild squirrels." He was really scared about everything. His imagination was going crazy. What's just out there in the dark?

Now I should explain, when I say we had a flashlight, we did have a flashlight. We have this flashlight, just a tiny little keychain light that gave us about one square foot of light as we went along. It actually kind of made it scarier, I think, because it made him realize we really don't know what's out there in the next step. It is pitch black. It is midnight dark. Well, I told a friend of mine at the camp about this. And he said, "Okay," he says, "You know, I camp a lot." And he goes, "Let me lend you my flashlight." And he gave me this. It's like a comedy prop, isn't it? It's just remarkable. And the beam is incredible. You can blind space station astronauts with this from the surface of the planet. You really can. So that night I said, "David, I got a new flashlight." He went, "Wow." And I said, "Why don't you carry it on the way back to the cabin?" And he's just shining it all around. He wasn't scared of anything anymore because he could see like two miles away with this thing. Now, other people at the camp were afraid of a seven-year-old having something that could sterilize frogs at 50 yards, but he was so happy, right?

What's my point? I have none. Let's close in prayer. No, here it is. When it comes to the worries of life and your future, you have as much power to see in your future as this little flashlight does, right? And so you're scared of what's ahead in the dark, mountain lions and bears and squirrels, you know, diseases and relationship problems and wars and terrorism. You just don't know. But the word of God is like a flashlight that sees way, way, way into your future, like thousands of years ahead to the restoration of heavens and earth, to your resurrected body when your focus is on those promises. If you're in Christ, those are true of you, then you can have peace and then you can have joy. It all depends on where your focus is.

I was talking to a man after the service on Saturday night and he said, "You know, René, a lot of people might think that, 'Oh, give thanks in all things for what God is doing in your future,' that that's sort of a, you know, a light thing to say." He said, "Let me just tell you, my wife and I lost one of our children in a drowning accident in our home swimming pool years and years ago." And he said, "Of course we were devastated and for months just cried out to God in such grief." And he said, "Finally, the only way out of that grief was to thank God for the promise that he was going to somehow even weave that tragedy into something for his glory." And then this man said this, he said, "I realized I had no other place to go with my agony." He said, "I was on an endless loop of agony and gratitude for what God promised to do in the future was my only exit ramp." And that leads right into the fourth and final discipline that nurtures joy. And that's this, think on the right things. Think on the right things.

What do I mean by that? Well, I read verse 8 last week, but let's look at it again slowly. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." And we talked a little bit about this last weekend, but I want to focus on the very first word in this long list, whatever is true. When Paul uses this word, he is always talking about doctrine. Who God is. What is wrong with the world? How God is fixing it. He's saying if you want joy, that truth will totally set you free.

Now think about this for just a second. This is totally different than what you get when you walk into a bookstore and look for a book on reducing anxiety and gaining joy, isn't it? I mean, they have a lot of valuable stuff about relaxation techniques and decluttering your closet. I like all that stuff. But what these books never say is this. "Okay, you're stressed. You've got anxiety." So to solve that, let's think about the problem of evil in the world. And let's think about God. They never say that. Instead, they only go to technique. Techniques that can be helpful, but they never really get down to the core issue. I think because for a lot of people to really think about the big, big picture is depressing. It's morbid because all they got is, "I'm going to die. Everything's going to die. The sun's going to fizzle out. The sun's going to die, so nothing really matters." So Paul is saying, "No, think about what's true." Big picture, true. The world is messed up, true. But God has a plan also true. His plan is he sent his son out of the world to rescue the world because he loves you, very true. And that means this is also true. You have worth, and everyone has worth, and he's preparing a new heaven and a new earth without any sorrow. That's all true. And if you're a Christian today and you say you believe all that doctrine but you don't have joy, Paul would say maybe part of the problem is you're not thinking. Think big, big, big picture. Ultimately, what's going to happen? God's going to work it out to his glory.

You know, when you wear a cross around your neck, or some of you might have a tattoo of a cross or a cross on your T-shirt or something today, you're showing a symbol of the greatest example of this. Because when Jesus Christ was crucified, if you were one of his friends then, you would have looked at this and said, "This is the worst thing I ever could have imagined," and it just happened. What a total catastrophe. Yet you would be looking straight at the greatest thing that God has ever done toward the redemption of the planet. And God is saying that's just the prime example of what I'm doing in everybody's life. You think on that truth and what's the result? Peace that comes from a sense of protection.

Now don't miss this. Back to verse 7 which we skipped. When you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand, his peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. The word he uses therefore guard is a word that refers to a Roman garrison guarding a town. He's saying you'll have a sense of protection because you know God's got your back. You know what will happen ultimately. And this is a real thing. I will never forget when my father-in-law and mother-in-law went through a horrible mass shooting event in Phoenix. Somebody walked into the place where they were at and just started shooting people up just like all the stuff you hear, unfortunately, all the time in headlines. Now my father-in-law, Paula, was shot right in the chest and the person sitting right next to him was killed. My mother-in-law was shot at the person sitting right next to her was killed. And so naturally my wife rushes down there to Phoenix to see them. I'm calling them on the phone. It was dicey would Paul make it or not. They rushed him to the hospital. And I said, "How are you doing?" And you know what they both said? They both said, "René, it's so hard to describe, but we are surrounded right now by just this atmosphere of peace. We feel like God is telling us, you know, whether Paul lives or dies. And even though others have died, God is going to use this for His glory." They were very close with the two people who were killed. They were both believers. I attended a memorial service for them down there in Phoenix. And over the years they saw people coming to Christ through it. And they saw this promise coming true incrementally where God was even glorified through this horror. But that sense of peace in the midst of the storm, that is what's soaking your mind in this kind of truth can do.

And I'll give you another great example. I want to close with this. I told you I read some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermons this week. And what's fascinating to me is how his emphasis changed a little bit. As he got older and as how he experienced more and more threats to his life, he spoke more and more and more about the things in the bullet list on page three, the promises of God for your future. And my favorite of all was a message he preached in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. And he spoke in a church to try to encourage these downtrodden East Berliners. And what fascinated me about the sermon is it's a totally different context than we're used to seeing sermons by Dr. King. What did he say on that occasion? To try to encourage these people living under this huge oppression. Well he said, "Listen, I can't pretend to know what you're going through." But he goes, "I know what I'm going through." He talked about some of the threats to his life. And then he talked about what he called the faith of my namesake, Martin Luther. And he said in those 95 theses, and a faith in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ's plan for us and for the whole world. And then he wraps up like this. He says, "It is midnight, but our eternal message of hope is that dawn is coming. This is the faith which has kept us going. This is the faith which has enabled us to face death. This is the faith which has given us a way when there seemed to be no way. This is the faith that let us face our daily crucifixions in the knowledge that God brings resurrection. This is the faith I commend to you Christians here in Berlin, a living, active, massive faith that affirms the victory of Jesus Christ over the world. Whether it be an Eastern world or a Western world, with this faith we see the day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah! That's the faith that brings joy and peace.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this truth. Let our hearts be anchored in this blessed assurance that Jesus Christ loves us and came to rescue us and promises us this future when it's midnight. Help us to remember that the dawn is promised. God help us not to be a church of fake forced puppet smiles, but a church of people who have been soaking in this truth. Help our faith not to be a faith that's about ignoring facts. Help us to remember this is a faith that's about facing the facts, all the facts, the facts of midnight, but also the fact of that promised dawn. And God I just want to pray right now if there's anybody here in this room who wants to commit or recommit their life to Christ that they would now in their hearts say God I just don't want to wait any longer. I don't understand it all, but the faith that Dr. King talked about, the faith that the Apostle Paul talked about, the faith that René's mother and father-in-law had, I need that faith. And so God today I want to commit my life, surrender my life to the Jesus they trusted in. God come into my life and through your crucifixion and resurrection change me from the inside out and help me to grow and learn more. In Jesus name I pray, amen.