Be Anxious for Nothing

[0:00] So we are in Philippians chapter 4. It's the last chapter of Philippians. Philippians chapter 4 is, and some of the passages that we're going to be looking at,! It's somewhat of a smattering of just short instructions.

[0:19] Not one big long soliloquy about any one thing. Well, we just finished in chapter 3 looking at the concept of spiritual maturity, running a race to grow in Christ.

[0:31] And so I think some of these things that we're going to be looking at today is part of that growth in spiritual maturity. We're going to be looking at a few different things.

[0:43] We're going to be looking at some divisions between two different ladies here in this church in Philippi. We're going to be looking at this. There's a reference to something called the Book of Life.

[0:56] We're going to spend some time on that. We'll look again at this concept of rejoicing in the Lord. This is repeated. One of the constant refrain there in this letter to the Philippians.

[1:10] And then also look at the concept of moderation. In fact, I don't think we'll get to the passage that I was intending to about being anxious for nothing.

[1:21] We'll look at getting into that next week. Let's go ahead and read here these verses. We're going to start in verse 2 and go through, let's see, verse 5.

[1:35] I implore Judea and implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel.

[1:52] With Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the Book of Life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice.

[2:05] Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. I think that's what we'll look at this morning.

[2:17] The first thing we'll address here is this sentence where Paul is addressing two different people and then a few others as he goes along.

[2:31] But there seems to be some kind of quarrel. He references somebody named Judea and another person named Syntyche. Those two names are female names.

[2:44] Syntyche can actually be used for both males or females. It's a Greek name. But from the context of the next sentence, it seems that he's referencing here two women that are at odds in some kind of fashion.

[3:02] And these are two ladies that have worked with him in the past. Worked doing gospel work with him. He's asking them to be of the same mind.

[3:16] And so, well, what's that talking about? Well, it seems like there's some kind of dispute or quarrel among them. Probably something that's ongoing that he has been made aware of.

[3:26] And he's saying, hey, listen, we need to resolve this. We don't need a division between these two ladies. There's not really much detail.

[3:37] We don't know exactly what the dispute is between these two women. But we can maybe look at a few different things, takeaways from this. One of the things that I think about is that here is Paul writing a letter.

[3:52] Now, when Paul wrote a letter, it wasn't a private letter to an individual, right? He is writing to what? The church at Philippi. So he's writing to the whole church. The intent was that he's going to send this letter by the hand of one of his partners in the gospel, Epaphroditus.

[4:08] And at least that's what we kind of assume from what we've read through here. And the intent is that this letter will be read publicly to the Christian believers here at Philippi.

[4:22] So I imagine these ladies, right, maybe they weren't privy to what the contents of this letter is. But they're getting this letter from Paul, and they're going through, and towards the end of this letter, they hear their names come up.

[4:35] And it's not something very positive. It's about this conflict that they've had that Paul is encouraging them to come to the same mind on, to instead of being divided, to be unified.

[4:53] And so that could be embarrassing, right? You know, correction, or what the Bible calls admonishment, is something that is necessary in the church.

[5:08] When there's something going on in the body of Christ that needs to be fixed, that needs to be done better, whether it's sin or just even a minor dispute, someone, usually a more mature Christian, needs to come in and address it and bring some admonishment.

[5:29] And like I said, this may have been embarrassing for these two women, but it was something that Paul used, not just to address that, but Paul is writing to the whole church and using this as an example of saying, hey, we need to be unified as the body of Christ.

[5:49] We can't let things divide us. Now, there are some things that should divide. We'll talk about that in just a second. But I think about admonishment, and in this case, it's actually very public.

[6:04] And really, I think for the most part, admonishment should not be a public thing. If it's addressing a sin that is very public, then in that case, it should be.

[6:17] But here, again, we don't know exactly what's going on. But God is using this as an opportunity to instruct not just the Philippian church, but this is scripture for the whole church, the body of Christ, including us.

[6:32] Another thing regarding kind of the embarrassment that might be here with these two ladies. You know, when we make mistakes, when our flesh gets the better of us, and hopefully we come to our senses, we mature, it can be embarrassing, some of the things that we've allowed to control our life.

[7:02] But I think it's good that we ought to use things like that in our life as examples to others. Not be afraid to talk about our past mistakes.

[7:13] And so even for these two ladies, even though it might be embarrassing that Paul kind of called them out, if you will, in public, that they can at least be thankful that, you know, what's going on between them can be used as a forewarning to others.

[7:34] So I was just thinking, well, what could possibly be some of the cause for disagreement between these two ladies? I think maybe it could be something like jealousy, where there's personality clashes.

[7:53] I'm sure many of us have experienced those kinds of things, differing opinions on this or that. But whatever the cause, it seems it wasn't just a one-time thing that was done and over with, but it was a continuing thing.

[8:11] And it wasn't something that was something where one person sinned against another person, an innocent party. Right? If that was the case, then Paul would instead call out the guilty party, right, the offending party, and saying, hey, you need to, you know, stop offending or in some way hurting this other person.

[8:36] And so there are different things that we can do as Christians to get sideways with one another. Sometimes there are one guilty party and one innocent party, and sometimes there's just two guilty parties, and they need to reconcile their differences.

[8:56] And so there are many people who go to church for a while, right, and after some time end up, usually there can be some kind of conflict with somebody at church, and instead of trying to figure out how to resolve it through communication, apologies, forgiveness, whatever it might be, they just find another church to go to.

[9:43] Right? And it's kind of easy to do that today. In the past, maybe it wasn't so easy because there was only one church in your area. Today, you can choose from a dozen different churches within driving distance.

[9:58] But I think it's important as part of, you know, as part of the body of Christ, that when you have a church family, to try to figure out how to get along with people. Because what I've seen is, especially people who are very quick and ready to do something like that, it's not much longer, right?

[10:16] They go to that second church, and then they get sideways with somebody else, and then they go to the third one, and then the fourth one, and then the fifth one, and it just continues to be a pattern.

[10:27] Now, that's not to say that it's never appropriate to leave a church and find another one. There are definitely reasons where we might do something like that.

[10:40] But we shouldn't do so lightly. The other thing to pull out from this is when it comes to quarrels. I think about a family and children.

[10:53] You know, it's really easy for children, for siblings, brothers and sisters, to quarrel, right? For there to be strife. And as parents, sometimes we look at these quarrels that our children have as fairly petty, right?

[11:15] And we tell our kids, listen, you guys need to figure this out. This is such a small, petty thing that you're quarreling about, and you need to reconcile.

[11:26] But for the kids, a lot of times, it doesn't feel petty. But as from a parent, from the mature, older perspective, we see it that way.

[11:37] And I think God, you know, looks at it the same way as a parent. These quarrels that we might have between us, he kind of just shakes his head and thinks, man, these guys need to get their act together.

[11:52] They're acting like children. The next thing to kind of bring out here is, he wants them to be of the same mind.

[12:04] Verse 3, he says, He says, He says, And so all of us need to be willing to be that third party.

[12:41] And try to help people reconcile when there's an issue. He mentions somebody named Clement also. And then he says, And the rest of my fellow workers.

[12:53] Clement is, you know, some people have wondered because there is, in early church history, a man who we title Clement of Rome, who wrote letters to the church at Corinth.

[13:08] This is very, very early on in church history. It's not part of the biblical record. But somebody who was a leader of the church who wrote to other believers.

[13:21] We call some men like that the early church fathers. That's a name that we give to them. Nobody really knows if this Clement is the same.

[13:33] Clement was somewhat of a common name. I tend to think probably not. But possibly. This guy, it sounds like, was probably from Philippi.

[13:46] But it certainly is a possibility. But, again, we don't know for sure. And then I wanted to get into, he mentions all of these co-workers of his.

[14:00] And he mentions that these fellow workers, these fellow laborers with him in the gospel, that their names are written in the book of life. Let's take some time and consider, what is this book of life?

[14:19] Now, this is the only time that the Apostle Paul mentions anything called a book of life. And it sounds like somewhat of a mystery, right?

[14:30] There's this book called the book of life. And, you know, just from the title, we can imagine what it means. Somebody who has life, their name would be written in that book.

[14:43] Well, even though Paul mentions this, makes a reference to this book of life just one time, it's actually referenced probably about a dozen times we see a reference to a book of life in the scriptures.

[14:57] Let's go ahead and look at some of these. So, turn to Revelation chapter 20. This is actually towards the very end of the Bible, the very end of the book of Revelation.

[15:09] And there's a description of the final judgment. The final judgment. We're going to start at verse 12.

[15:19] Revelation 20 and verse 12. And he says this, And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened.

[15:32] So, there are multiple books. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. So, there's many books, but the last one, or at least that he mentions, is this book of life.

[15:44] And he says this, And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. It sounds like there is a record of people's lives, and how they have lived their lives.

[16:01] And at this final judgment, people will be judged by what is written down about how they have lived their lives. And it says this, The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them.

[16:17] So, these are people who have died in the past, from the beginning of history, and now it's time for them to be judged for their works. And their works have been written down, and the record is being presented.

[16:31] And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

[16:48] And so, at the end of this judgment, there is what's called the second death. You know, you have the first death, which is a physical death. But then this is, after the final judgment, an eternal death. It's quite a sober passage.

[17:04] But there is this book, and if your name is not in the book, you'll be cast into the lake of fire. And it doesn't, we can assume, right, that if your name is in the book, you will get eternal life with God forever.

[17:21] And so, for many people, the nature of this book is pretty important, right? How do I get my name in that book? And so, I've read over the years many different ideas that people have about this book of life.

[17:38] And so, I just want to look at some more passages and kind of what others might teach, and then we'll kind of look at the end about how we should look at this concept of the book of life.

[17:50] The next passage we'll look at, if you go back just a few chapters in Revelation, go to Revelation chapter 13, 13 verse 8. This is talking about this person that is called the beast during the tribulation period.

[18:10] This is at the time of the end before Jesus returns to the earth, and there is a period of great tribulation. And there are certain figures that rise up to deceive the nations, and one of these is called the beast.

[18:25] It says this in Revelation 13, 8, And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, it's a reference to the beast, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

[18:40] There is this book of life, and those whose names are not written in it, they are the ones who will be deceived by the beast. They'll be the ones who bow before him.

[18:55] A few chapters later, if you can turn to Revelation 17, 8, there's a similar reference. Revelation 17, 8. The beast that you saw was and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition.

[19:16] And those who dwell on the earth will marvel whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. When they see the beast that was and is not and yet is.

[19:31] And so many people will worship this beast, and then later on, when they see the destruction of the beast, they will marvel and realize that they've been had or whatever the case may be.

[19:49] But it mentions in both of these cases that these are people whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.

[20:00] And so there's this question, well, what exactly is this reference to the foundation of the world? Now, some have said, well, there's this book that was put together, that was written, it was completed at the foundation of the world.

[20:17] And so there are those out there who have more of a kind of a predestinarian view of things, and they would say, you know what, God chose some people to save at the very foundation of creation, at the very foundation of the world.

[20:34] And he wrote their names in a book. And those are the people that are going to be saved. And those whose names aren't in the book, and God already pre-decided all of this in the beginning. And so, that's one view.

[20:51] Others have said, well, there's this book, and this is, I think, the view that I would take, is there's this book that was established, this record, established at the beginning of creation.

[21:07] And as time goes on, people choose whether they want to be part of God's family or not. And people, people are added to this registry.

[21:18] You can think of this book as a directory or a registry. And some people, like these people described in the book of Revelation, they never made it into the book of life.

[21:32] Their names were never registered in that book because they were not interested. So how do you get your name in this book?

[21:42] We'll talk about more, we'll talk about that in a second. Some other passages that give us a little bit more detail about this book Exodus chapter 32.

[21:55] So turn back to Exodus chapter 32. Now this is a passage about Moses.

[22:09] This is right after the Ten Commandments or around the time the Ten Commandments were given. Moses came down from the mountain and what did he find with the people of Israel?

[22:20] They had because they weren't sure what happened to Moses. He was gone for a while and they said, hey, let us take all of our gold and let's create an idol like we had back in Egypt and we will worship an idol that we make with our own hands.

[22:37] When Moses came down from the mountain, this is what he saw. That many of the people of Israel were worshiping a false god. Exodus 32, 31.

[22:48] This is Moses' plea to God because God's very angry with the people. Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, Oh, these people have committed a great sin and have made for themselves a god of gold.

[23:01] Yet now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray, blot me out of your book which you have written. And the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book.

[23:18] Now, therefore, go and lead the people to the place which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin.

[23:32] And so, there's this reference to a book. And Moses says, because of the sin of the people, please forgive them, but if you won't, hey, will you just remove me along with them, I think is the understanding from this book.

[23:50] Now, it's not clear because he actually doesn't even call it a book of life, but there is this registry of sorts that he is referring to and saying, hey, go ahead, why don't you go ahead and remove me?

[24:03] Now, I don't know if I would say something like that. It actually makes me think about Paul in the book of Romans when he's thinking about his own countrymen, his own brethren, the Jews who have rejected their Messiah.

[24:15] This is in Romans 9. And he says, you know what, I wish that I could even be cast away from the promises of God if my people, Israel, could be reconciled to the Lord.

[24:29] He was willing to say, I'm willing to give up my own salvation, it seems. And so, Moses, it seems, was interceding for the sake of the people in a similar manner.

[24:45] But this is some kind of registry that Moses was referring to and God acknowledged that there was some kind of a book that people could be blotted out from when they sinned, because they sinned against them.

[25:06] In Revelation chapter 3, 5, you don't have to turn there. There's another reference to this book. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white raiment. This is during the tribulation.

[25:16] Whoever overcomes during that tribulation. And I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.

[25:29] There's another reference back to Revelation. This is actually at the very, very end. Revelation chapter 22, so if you go to the very last page of your Bible before all the maps and concordance or whatever else you might have at the end of your Bible, the very last chapter, Revelation 22, there is a warning given to those who might take away from any of the words in this book, this book of the Revelation.

[25:57] Revelation chapter 22 and verse 18. For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in the book.

[26:11] And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

[26:24] And so here we read that there is conditions involved in having your name written in the book. And so what do we take away from this?

[26:37] Paul mentions this book of life and those whose names are written in it. But we see all kinds of things from people's names being blotted out.

[26:50] And so some have surmised, well, I've heard this view, that God starts out with a book that has everybody's name written in it who will ever be created.

[27:02] And then if those people at some point, maybe it's an age of accountability, they sin or they reject God, then their names are blotted out because there's actually no reference anywhere in the Bible to anyone's name being added to the book of life.

[27:17] And so I think that's where that idea comes from. Here's what I'm going to say about all this. I think that this concept of a book of life is probably just a metaphor.

[27:31] It's a poetic way of saying, hey, God knows and he has registered those who are his. He's going to give them eternal life. And so it's as if their name is written in a book called the book of life and God will at the end, at the last day, receive them unto himself to receive that eternal life.

[27:56] And you know, as we read some of the requirements for getting into the book of life throughout the scriptures, the requirement from Moses, we have to keep in mind, right, the age in which they lived.

[28:08] God has demanded different things for people to inherit eternal life throughout the ages of the history of the world. So when it came to Moses talking about this book and the people being in the book, they were removed because of their sin.

[28:28] And that was one of the requirements of having eternal life in the covenant of Moses.

[28:39] You had to keep the covenant, you had to keep the commandments. Here's what Leviticus 18.5 says, it's part of the law of Moses. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them.

[28:57] That's a reference to having life. You shall have life if you do the commandments, if you keep the judgments. Even on into the Gospels with Jesus Christ and his ministry.

[29:11] Jesus was born, the Bible says, under the law and he taught people to continue and he went to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and he taught people to continue to keep the commandments.

[29:22] In Matthew 19, verse 16, somebody comes to Jesus and asks him, what must I do to inherit eternal life? How do I get my name, make sure my name is in that book, the book of life?

[29:35] And what did Jesus say? He says, if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. That's what he said. One of the things you need to do is to keep the commandments that Moses gave you.

[29:51] Now, there was more to do it than that. Jesus also said, and this is in John 3, 16, that famous passage, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have what?

[30:07] Everlasting life. To get your name in that book, you need to believe in Jesus, the Messiah who came to save Israel.

[30:17] So that was required as well. But then, what about for us? Do we need to keep the commandments? Do we need to keep the covenant of Moses? Well, here is what Paul says.

[30:33] Romans 6, verse 23, says this, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God, a gift, a free gift, is what?

[30:44] Eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Through Jesus Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, we can have a free gift of eternal life.

[30:56] Not through keeping commandments, not from avoiding sin, but as a gift of God by trusting in him. Another passage that just brings that point home even further, Titus 3, starting in verse 4.

[31:12] But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that having been justified by his grace, again, grace is a gift, we should become heirs according to the hope of what?

[31:42] Of eternal life. So we get our names in that book, whether it's a metaphor, or I guess there could possibly be an actual book out there that God is keeping a registry of.

[31:56] We get our names in there by putting our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then finally, as we read all these passages in the book of Revelation, God kind of returns back to the Mosaic law.

[32:13] And so the people of Israel during this time of testing, of tribulation, they have to endure to the end. They have to make sure that they avoid many of the temptations that will come their way during that time of tribulation.

[32:27] And so you see several references to that book of life in the book of Revelation. And it's clear that during that time, they need to remain faithful.

[32:39] They need to keep the covenant with the Lord and avoid some of the sinful temptations that will come their way. But it's so important, right? When we look at this book of life that we remember, regardless of how people in the past or people in the future will make their way into that book of life, we need to know how we today make our way into that book of life.

[33:05] In this age of grace, God says, put your trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And your future, your eternal life, your name in that book will be guaranteed.

[33:20] Let's continue on looking at verse four here, Philippians four. And Paul says this again. Again, Paul's just kind of like hitting some different points.

[33:32] But I just find it so amazing that he says this again. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Paul, you just said that like three paragraphs ago.

[33:45] Why are you saying it again? And then, not only does he say it again, but he says, and then I'm going to say it even one more time. Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord.

[33:57] And as we've said again multiple times and back in Philippians verse three, he says, for me to write this to you, to rejoice in the Lord, it might feel tedious like I'm just saying this and repeating myself like a broken record too many times.

[34:15] But he said, listen, for you, this is safe. Because this is important to how you live the Christian life. When Paul talks here about rejoicing in the Lord throughout this whole letter, it's not about just finding a way to find some happiness in life.

[34:34] It's not just about taking that frown and turning it upside down in the midst of our troubles. That's not really what he's getting at, even though it's good to do those things.

[34:48] But rejoicing in the Lord is putting our confidence, our hope, and all of our boasting in what Jesus Christ accomplished for us.

[35:03] You know, the opposite. Sometimes, in order to understand an idea, it's good to consider what is the opposite of the idea. What is it that we're not supposed to do?

[35:13] And the opposite of rejoicing in the Lord is boasting in our works, boasting in our own flesh, putting confidence, as Paul described in chapter 3, in our flesh.

[35:26] And so we need to live our Christian life, not looking at ourselves and how we're doing, and boasting in those things, or rejoicing in those things, or putting confidence in those things, but putting all of our confidence in the Lord and what he accomplished for us, and rejoicing in that.

[35:46] We'll finish up here with verse 5. Paul says this, Philippians 4, 5, Let your gentleness be known to all men.

[35:58] The Lord is at hand. So, the word here used is gentleness. Now, many translations have different words for this.

[36:10] I didn't write down which translation is which, but one translation has moderation. Another has the word reasonableness. Another translation is forbearance.

[36:24] And so those are fairly different words. As I looked into how this word is used in the scriptures, it's just used in the scriptures a few times.

[36:36] If I was the translator, nobody asked me to translate anything, but I would think that this term moderation would be the best way to interpret this word.

[36:48] Because it's all about having control over your passions, your desires, your emotions. And so I think that's what Paul's getting at here.

[37:00] Again, this is just a, these, as Paul's writing here, he's throwing out, he's getting towards the end of the book and he's just got a few different things that he wants to throw out there as words of advice, wisdom, instruction to these Philippians.

[37:15] And so here he's saying, hey, I want you to be moderate in your life and I want that to be evident to the people around you.

[37:26] I want you to be known for your moderation. And so just talking a little bit about here, moderating what exactly? I think about two things, emotions or feelings, and then also desires.

[37:46] You know, God has created us a certain way and put in us a certain nature about ourselves and many of those things, we are like God, right? And so we have desires as human beings that God gave us and they are good.

[38:03] When God created us, he called it good. We also have emotions and those are good as well. We see many of the same desires in God and we see many of the same emotions in the God who created us.

[38:18] And they are good. But, like anything, sin is when we take something good and we pervert it or we don't moderate it.

[38:31] We allow these emotions or desires to run rampant and not be controlled in some kind of way. I just have a few examples here. One, I think about anger.

[38:43] Anger. Anger is actually an appropriate emotion. Does the Bible ever speak of God getting angry? Yeah. And anger is not sinful in and of itself, but anger certainly can lead to sin.

[38:58] There's that passage that says be angry and sin not. Right? And so, anger can turn into rage and even bitterness.

[39:12] Right? You can take something that is good, that is righteous even, and it can turn into something that is sinful and destructive. Jealousy. Jealousy can and is and can be a good thing, right?

[39:28] Does the Bible say anything about God in jealousy? God says, I am a jealous God. I'm jealous for my people. I'm jealous of their love. But jealousy can be, can turn into something like envy, which is, I believe, universally disparaged in the Bible.

[39:50] I think about something like grief. We all can grieve. It's a natural emotion. The Bible says that God grieves. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. We see the Bible describing our sin as grieving the Lord.

[40:08] But we don't want grief to turn into despair, hopelessness. I think about things like rest. It's good to rest.

[40:20] God designed us to rest. Remember, God himself rested on that seventh day. But what can rest turn into when we allow it to rule our lives?

[40:32] Rest can turn into sloth or laziness. Things like security, wanting financial security, those are good things, but that can turn into greed.

[40:45] Companionship, a desire for companionship can turn into people-pleasing. Justice, a desire for justice, that's good, but it can turn into vengeance. Beauty, God, especially with women, designed women to be beautiful, but that can turn into vanity.

[41:06] Fear, which again is a positive thing. We don't usually think about it as a positive thing, but if you were never afraid, then you probably do dumb things that you shouldn't, right?

[41:23] You don't walk alone through a dark alley, right? Because of fear. But we don't allow that fear to rule our lives, so fear can turn into cowardice. And then the last one I have here is a desire for knowledge, to grow in wisdom and understanding.

[41:39] That's good. God calls us to do that. But the Bible also warns that knowledge can puff us up, and it can turn into pride. So when Paul here says, let your moderation be made known to all men, let's be moderate in all these things.

[41:56] All of these things are good, but we need to know, as God's people, how to moderate these things, how to control our emotions, to control our desires.

[42:08] And then he gives this final, or throws this kind of at the end of this passage, he reminds them, he says, the Lord is at hand. And what exactly is he talking about here?

[42:22] Does he mean the Lord is coming soon? Because this was written about 2,000 years ago. Was the Lord at hand? Well, you know, Paul talks about this multiple times that the Lord is at hand, and in any sense, we always need to be ready for the Lord to come.

[42:40] And you know what, really, we're going to be seeing the Lord very, very soon regardless, right? Whether he comes, riding on the clouds, or comes in the clouds, right, with the sound of the trumpet, and takes us up through the rapture, or, you know, we pass away from this life, and what happens then?

[43:00] We go to ever be with the Lord. So the Lord is at hand in our lives regardless. And I think Paul is just bringing this up to be an encouragement and say, hey, listen, we need to live our lives not just for ourselves, not just thinking about earthly, temporal things, but be looking to our future with the Lord.

[43:19] And remember that this life that we're living, it's just fleeting, it's so short, and we get to spend an eternity with our Lord forever and ever. He's coming soon, either that or we're going to Him and we'll be with Him forever.

[43:34] And that is what matters more than anything. And so we ought to, right now, live for Him because we're going to be living with the Lord forever. forever. I'm going to end there and let's end in a word of prayer and then, Sophie, I don't know if you want to play for us, but we're going to sing that song here after I get finished.

[43:57] Father, thank you for your promise that you're going to come and you're going to take us away, you're going to resurrect us unto life someday. We're so grateful for, as I look throughout all of history and what was required to get my name into that book of life.

[44:16] I'm so glad that I live in this age of grace, which all that you require of me and all of us here, everybody across the face of the earth at this time is that we put our trust in you and the Lord Jesus Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection for our sins.

[44:32] That's all that we have to do. We can have confidence. We can rejoice in what you've done. That's where our hope lies. I pray that we would live faithful lives, lives of moderation, of wisdom, because of our hope in you.

[44:48] I thank you for being a help to us to live faithful lives like that. I thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. Okay, so everybody stand up.

[44:59] We're going to finish off with this song. And I thought, what song can we end with that kind of relates to this message? Since we talked about the book of life, it's kind of like a roll call, right?

[45:13] So there's this song. In fact, I don't know if there's a, is it 774? Is that what I said? And I'll tell you what, just to keep it simple, we'll just do the first verse, or maybe we'll do the, let's just do the last verse.

[45:35] Let us labor for the master. That sounds good. So if you give us an intro. Let us labor for the master from the dawn to setting sun.

[45:56] Let us talk of all his wondrous love and care. And when all of life is over and our work on earth is done and the rock is called up yonder I'll be there.

[46:11] When the rock is called up yonder when the rock is called up yonder when the rock is called up yonder when the rock is called up yonder Amen. We'll be there because he's taken us with him.

[46:38] Aren't you glad your name is written in the book of life? Amen.