LBC SBC 2022 Where Is Christ In A Time Of Crisis?

Announcements this morning once again potluck dinner after church and then at.

2 p .m. adult choir practice. We'll start these or this Wednesday morning clock is at 1030 and then we have the annual business meeting at 7. I believe the flocks are organized geographically and you can find where you go in the bulletin based on where you live.

Friday at 630 p .m. the women's Bible study will start and then Saturday at 2 p .m. the Red Cross blood drive will be held here. I believe you can talk to Lindsay if you have any questions about that.

And then men of faith and the preaching class as well and then looking ahead. April 12th and the 22nd LCA will be meeting here as well and then April 15th Good Friday and.

Then April 17th sunrise service on the green. Steve this is a quick note that.

Keeps getting longer every year. The CDs for the Bible conference to sign up on the sheet. Back there. There are various ways of watching the Bible conference this year or what you're listening or whatever.

We have the CD sign up we also have it on the website. The first three sessions are already on the website. The videos that I recorded. We had some issues with the streaming but I was able to record all the videos here and I'm going to upload those today after service it.

They probably won't be on the web on YouTube until probably late tonight so look for them in your stream and your and all your on your phone and all that that comes up. And hey if anybody needs it if you might if you might.

You know needs to listen to this Bible conference. I know I did. You'll have plenty of links that you can link them to you. Hey you watch the video you.

Can listen to it so there you go. Good morning. So good to see you here today. I.

Hope you've come anticipating the blessings of God. I just want to mention the walk for life on Saturday May 7th. Note that be there. We're hoping that this will will be a great opportunity for us to to raise money for new path so it's also a great time of fellowship.

Now we have a good time doing that walk. And so you you meant mark that and and be there for that women notice your Bible study schedule. Okay. Pay careful attention to that to the two times your meeting on Saturday two times on Friday evening so take special note of that take that out of your bulletin and so forth let's give you an update on what's happened with the money that we sent to to Romania.

You recall that we had a collection of twelve thousand six hundred and forty two dollars and fifty cents that we sent to our brothers in Romania when they got to the border. There was just so much there that they said look we're not going to do much good here so let's regroups.

They brought everything back and the plan is right now that when the fighting lets up they're going to go into Ukraine to the churches that they know there and help the brothers and sisters in Ukraine so you keep that in prayer.

Benny just sent us word on that recently and so that's where the supplies are going to be going. They're going to be going into Ukraine now to the churches that they know in that country which if you're not familiar with her in certain cities are destroyed completely and so we're gonna help directly with some folks in Ukraine.

So we thought we needed to let you know that give you an update. Benny's going to keep us updated let us know when things are going to happen when they're going in and all that sort of thing. Okay. Well we've gathered today to worship.

We're here not by accident but by God's providence. I hope you're here because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross and helping us to are just opening the way for us to draw near to God. And so let's just take the last few moments to finish our preparations for.

Preparation for Worship and Prayer

Worship as we think about coming before God as a congregation. Let's pray dear.

Lord I thank you again for bringing us here this morning Lord. I pray that today as we sit through another sermon Lord that we would as Lance said this morning we wouldn't be ashamed or offended but we would be singing praises aloud to you Lord.

And I pray that we would take these things throughout the week on to work in school or whatever we go about throughout the week Lord that it would stick with us Lord that we would still continue to sing praises throughout the week and pray these things in your son's name.

Amen. Now this is the commandment the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you that you may do them in the land to which you are going that which you are going over to possess it.

That you may fear the Lord your God you and your sons and your son and your son's sons by keeping all his statutes and his commandments which I command you all the days of your life and that your days may be long here therefore Oh Israel.

And be careful to do them that it may go well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord your God and your fathers has promised you. And a land flowing with milk and honey. Hero Israel the Lord our God.

The Lord is one. Excuse me. Please stand and turn on your hymnals to. Page 35. Oh great God.

From Psalm 32 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go I.

Will counsel you with my eye upon you be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curbed with a bit and bridle or it will not stay near you. Many sorrows many are the sorrows of the wicked.

But steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Let us confess our sin to the Lord. Oh Lord our God we are stubborn blind people who repeatedly and willfully stray away from you. We will not stay near you.

Some of us are blind and emotionally unaffected by our sin and indifferent to the cost of our rebellion. Some of us are so undone by our habitual falls into sin. We can hardly look to you for help. Thank you for Jesus whose blood speaks righteousness for us and gives us confidence to confess our failures.

By your spirit create in us clean hearts that truly break for our remaining struggles with sin. Yet utterly confident that your love which is the foulest sinner who trusts in you. You're now the good news fulfilled in Jesus.

This I call to mind and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing.

You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. That my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. Well Lord my God I will give thanks to you forever. Amen.

I'm heads with me. Would you please father God we come to you and just praise you and thank you that we can come boldly into your presence through the blood of Jesus Christ for it is his sacrifice for us that takes away our sin.

Without the shed shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. And father we know that was through your son Jesus Christ who lived a perfect life that we can't live. Father we praise you for Jesus Christ because our hearts our lives are sinful.

And father in order to hear your word we need to acknowledge our sin. We need to confess our sin daily. And father just ask for forgiveness that we don't even do that. Father our minds and our hearts has to be surrounded around Christ and for what he's done for us not around the things that please us and please our flesh and satisfy our personal desires.

Father would you help us in that. That you would forgive and we bring before you the fact that we turn our backs on you on your spirit on your word so that we can spend time with what we desire to do.

We just ask for forgiveness of that. Father forgive forgive us for not being in your word. Forgive us for not loving your people and caring for your people. Father pray that you would help us to rid our hearts and our lives of sin in order that we would have a desire a heart for you for your word for your son for what he has done for us.

Turn our hearts. That we would hear your word. That we would hear your spirit as you speak eternally through your word. Father I pray for this body today. That our hearts would be focused on you. That we would bring thing you in order to have our relationship right as believers.

And father we know for those who don't know you. Father would you bring conviction. And that you would be glorified through your word through your son. And we just ask Lord that you would do this work in our hearts.

Thank you for Christ who redeems us. Thank you for the joy that there is when we bring our sin before you and are made right before you. And and the relationship is right before you. Father we know that pleases you and it should please us.

Father help us to realize that not only is our sin forgiven but our guilt is forgiven as well. So we praise you God that you were the only one that can do this that can redeem us and forgive us and make us right.

We praise you for Christ because of his work. We pray in your son's name. Yeah. It's good to grab your hymnals. Once again stand turn to page 189. Depth of.

Mercy Old Testament reading this morning is the 39th Psalm and your pew.

Bibles that'll be page 467 if you'd like to read along. I said I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I will guard my mouth was with a muzzle so long as the wicked are in my presence.

I was mute and silent. I held my peace to no avail. And my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me as I mused the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue. Oh Lord make me know my end and what is the measure of my days.

Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold you have made my days a few hand breaths and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. Surely a man goes about as a shadow.

Surely for nothing they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth and does not know who will get who will gather. And now Oh Lord for what do I wait. My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions.

Do not make me the scorn of the fool. I am mute. I do not open my mouth for it is you who have done it. Remove your stroke from me. I am spent by the hostility of your hand. When you just when you discipline a man with rebukes for sin.

You consume. You consume like a moth what is dear to him. Surely all mankind is a mere breath. Hear my prayer. Oh Lord and give ear to my cry. Hold not your peace at my tears for I am a sojourner with you a guest like all my fathers.

Look away from me that I make that I might smile again before I depart and and am no more the New Testament. Reading this.

Morning comes from the 24th chapter of Luke. I will begin reading in verse 13 that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.

While they were talking and discussing together Jesus himself drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk.

And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days. And he said to them what things.

And they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man who was a prophet mighty indeed and word for God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes. And besides all this it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning.

And when they did not find his body they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but him they did not see and he said to them oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets prophets have spoken was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory.

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if they were going farther.

But they urged him strongly saying stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them. So when he was at the table with them he took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.

And their eyes were opened that they recognized him and he.

Vanished from their sight. You may be seated. Pray with me brothers and sisters. Oh God in heaven who can measure their.

Implications and the extent of their sin. God in heaven as we consider you and your mightiness your holiness your perfections and all your ways we consider you Lord and we look upon ourselves and we see just how much we fall short of your holiness your glory.

God in heaven who can measure the extent of our rebellion of our own sins of our own desires that we follow and as we see that it wastes us away it does nothing good for us but yet Lord we are enticed by our own hearts to continue down the path of rebellion.

God this sin and its implications is overwhelming to our hearts to our minds as we consider just the costs it is to follow our own desires and not to submit to you. God in heaven it overwhelms us but also God as we consider that you have been kind to us that you have delivered us from our sins that you hold out Jesus Christ the risen Savior the one who brings healing to our bones and healings to our spiritual well-being God that we no longer have to live according to our rebellion but instead we can submit to Christ Jesus our Lord.

What a great gift you have given to us. How can we be a people grumbling in heart or murmuring within our souls. But there's only joy and worship left for us because even though we have rebelled against you and sin and the great cost that it involves we know that Jesus Christ has been given to us as a great love offering from you to us so that we can receive Christ and return worship to you.

What a great reality and truth. How can anyone deny such a great and beautiful gift you have given. Let us be a people here at LaRue Baptist Church. Let us be a people in which we proclaim the excellencies of Jesus Christ and all that he is and all that he has done and all that is proclaimed about him and all of scripture let our hearts worship him even in this moment.

But alas Lord even in this moment we have sin still creeping around the corner still wanting our eyes to be focused on other things God the things of this world. I pray Lord that you would give us the help of the Spirit to apply the work of Jesus Christ to our hurting hearts so that you will receive even more glory as we grow in sanctification.

Oh Lord let this be our identity the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you Lord for our brothers and sisters around the world. We thank you God for Pastor Glenn and the flock that he's over at Cornerstone Bible Fellowship in North Ridgeville Ohio.

I'm thankful for all that he does for fire all that he does for biblical counseling God and his ministry. I'm thankful they opens up his church to train people up to learn to counsel so that people can turn away from their sins and learn what it looks like to apply Christ in every single aspect of our lives.

And so I'm thankful for his ministry. I'm thankful for their ministry there. I pray that you'd strength strengthen them in the coming months. You'd be with them Lord as they seek to reach the lost with the gospel.

I pray that you'd be with their elder Mark and his wife as she undergoes health issues that's causing her to be in a wheelchair God in heaven. I pray that you would strengthen them as they go through that hardship.

Thank you God that you are God of all comforts. And we know that that is seen most potently in Jesus Christ how he comforts us by forgiving us of our sins. And so let it be what we celebrate even here in this moment.

And I pray that you would be with the preaching the proclaiming of the word let it have its way within our hearts and let us see that Jesus is all the more beautiful than we can ever imagine and let us go to him and his throne of.

Christ in the Emmaus Road Narrative

Grace in Jesus name. Amen. Excuse me please stand. Turn on your.

Hymnals to page 368. Speak O Lord.

The last session of our Bible conference for this year. We have had a tremendous time around the world with Lance and I'm just thankful for how he's ministered the word to us here and frankly how he's ministered to some of us as we spend time around the table with him and and have gotten to know his heart and his life.

It's just been a really really good weekend. Some of you haven't been here you don't know. Lance I can tell you a little bit about him. He began ministry as the senior associate pastor with John MacArthur.

He was the pastor at the Bible Church of Little Rock Arkansas for 15 years went back to California was involved in church planning planted Bethany Bible Church in Thousand Oaks California and now he is the vice president for the Expositor Seminary kind of headquartered in the in the church that he is a part of in Jupiter Florida.

Lance is a good friend and he's not just my good friend but he's been a friend to all of us here as he's ministered word. So Lance we're.

Anticipating God's blessing. Well thank you my dear brother to know Tim Pasma is.

To love Tim Pasma and it has been a joy to be with Tim and Becca their family. What a joy what a wonderful church. It's been a real thrill and privilege for me to be among you as I brought the Word of God to you.

And as we culminate our Bible conference on this day as we open God's Word if you would please open to Psalm 39. Psalm 39 it has been read this morning to you and so I won't read it again in its fullness but we will go through it.

Exposition Lee under the title a humble perspective of suffering. A humble perspective of suffering. That title and that idea of humble suffering has never been more acute in my life than in these days.

You can read in Psalm 39 the phrase that King David gives to us. And that is life is a vapor. Life is a vapor. How true that is. You think to yourself one day that you have the whole of your life to live.

You are young and free and excited about the future and you presume your whole life is in front of you. And that would be normal of course to think about and to anticipate. None of us can measure life by its years its decades because the Bible clearly tells us that life is a vapor.

You and I can presume that we are going to live to a ripe old age. That we are going to be married if we are for many many decades. And of course that's natural to think about because you and I presume that we are not going to be in categories of the shortness of life the tragedies of life the challenges of life.

I was the same way I just assumed that I was going to be living for many many decades and that I would presumably be married that I would have children that those children would have children and that I would die in that ripe old age with all of my children and grandchildren around me.

And that's presumably what so many of us would assume about the way would be if we were in charge. When I was just approaching the decade of my fifties I saw how vapor like life really was. And for the next decade and a few years even into my sixties I've come to realize that life is not only a vapor but life can be extremely challenging and that suffering will hit me at an apex in the decade of my fifties.

In 2009 just as the fifties of my life were dawning my stepfather died. He wasn't someone that I lived with. I didn't actually live with a father. My parents were divorced when I was just four years old and I didn't even meet my biological father until exactly forty years later when I was forty-four and so this man my stepfather had come into my life.

My mother had been married four times and this being the fourth and he died at an older age. But it was the first in my family that I could recall where someone very very close to you has now died. And after he died my own mother died.

She died on Christmas Day of 2016 of a massive heart attack. She did not know the Lord. She was a restless wanderer. My growing up years were very volatile. Arguments spats uneasiness conflict all of those things were how I lived and how I grew up.

My sister and I were always having to to duck and to evade the challenges of our mother because she was so angry and so distraught about life itself not growing up with a father seeing that stepfather die and then believing that my mother would actually become a Jehovah's Witness would maybe someday later repent and have her life transformed.

Very very saddened when I was about to preach on a Sunday morning in California and Christmas Day was on a Sunday that year to get a phone call early that my mother had gone into a hospital in the Little Rock Arkansas area where I grew up in the state of Arkansas and was told that somehow in some way she had a massive heart attack in the middle of the night and she had died.

She was being treated for a blood clot behind her right knee and so it seemed routine but either apparently that clot had been that which she succumbed with a stroke or a heart attack. It was very sad to me and I thought well possibly since these are a little bit older of persons that my family wouldn't have a death for a long time to come thinking of course and knowing and affirming that life is a but you assume that that's probably true.

More so of other people. My wife was diagnosed with very serious cancer on December 2nd of 2017 just not too long after my own mother's death and in the midst of caring for her and all of her treatment for very serious non-smoker lung cancer we had a sweet little baby boy who was born to our family from my oldest son Calvin Theodore Quinn.

He was precious. He's born a little bit early but not too distressingly and he was doing fine. He was in a NICU unit in a hospital that's only two minutes from my house. We were rejoicing and the particular couple my son and his wife my daughter-in-law had already had one son already and he was so excited about his little brother and around day four of this little one's life Calvin Theodore unbeknownst to all of us including even the medical care workers they wanted to put a PICC line into his little body to give him a little bit more nourishment and get his weight up a little bit though.

He was very very fine doing well at four days of age but unfortunately the PICC line that they used to insert into his little body was not properly sterilized and he became very very sick. And two days later he died.

Life is a vapor. He only had six days of life. It was crushingly hard. It's one thing perhaps to have certain family members die but it's entirely another when one who is your own grandson and how you watch your own children deal with the death of a six-day-old baby.

My wife was particularly jarred by that because of her own battle with cancer. His death was in August of 2018 and Beth was doing well. My wife we were having excellent scan reports. We were thanking God that even though there was such a dire initial diagnosis and a very bleak prognosis the Lord was continually giving us wonderful days together that we could maximize because life is a round.

March 1st of 2020 even as COVID was just around the corner that Beth began to feel very poorly. And we discovered around March 15th that she had another form of cancer that the oncologist didn't know about and wasn't suspecting kind of cancer that was untreatable and fatal within two weeks.

And so on March 30th of 2020 at 440 p .m. my wife died and I was again reminded that life is a vapor. She was such an elegant and classy and godly woman. She loved the Lord deeply and she loved me and she loved our children.

We have eight children five girls and three boys and they now have their children. We have twelve of them including that deceased child and I would have otherwise assumed that Beth was going to be vibrantly alive and able to enjoy her children and grandchildren.

All of them were around us within oh a few minutes and so it was again just a strange providence. Why. Because I assumed that we would be living together as man and wife or more than 33 and a half years.

I assumed we'd have a 50th wedding anniversary. I assumed that we would watch probably our other children who had not yet had children have even more children and that we would have a grand brood. So even these children that have been born since my wife's death she's not been able to touch or hold or kiss or caress.

Why. Because life is a vapor. It seemed as though that was such a crushing thing and it seemed as though just about every two years a death was just around the corner. And yet I assumed that with the death of my wife things would slow down a little bit and death wouldn't be paying visits to our family.

But less than three months later I received a call from my niece in Arkansas asking me if I talked to her mother my sister my only sister. I said well I tried to reach out to her. I sent her a message on resurrection that I just preached that had some personal references to my wife Beth whom my sister loved.

And I said she hasn't responded to my communication. Is there something wrong. And she said yes she's in hospice care and she has about a week left in life. And I said what how could that be. But what are you talking about.

She said well you know that my mom has smoked herself into very serious decline and what you and I had not known was that she was also drinking herself to such excess that her liver has failed and she's basically drank and smoked herself to death not a believer.

So I said I'll be there tomorrow. Jumped on a overnight plane and I was there in the afternoon in Dallas Texas pleading with my sister to repent and believe the gospel. She could not communicate. She was near death's door and she died one week later asking even in her final days if she could be given more cigarettes to smoke.

Life is a vapor. My friends it's here today and gone tomorrow. It's very fast. When I assumed that funeral service for my sister which was actually conducted by me on what would have been her 61st birthday was surely the end at least for now of some of this cascading repetitious moments of funerals and death.

And less than a year after that my favorite aunt died the one who I stayed with when my mother was so volatile and this aunt my favorite aunt became more of a mother to me than my mother was a mother to me.

And I received word would you come and please do the funeral service of your aunt in Arkansas because she has died as well. And so less than a year later I was presiding over her funeral also and I was reminded again and again and again that life is a vapor.

And I was thinking my stepfather my mother my grandson my wife my sister and my aunt. The decade of my 50s and in now to the early part of my 60s has been nothing but a challenge to see and perceive God's plans and God's ways.

And then I came across Psalm 39. Look at it with me Psalm 39 we've read it earlier as I said. And Psalm 39 has become a precious Psalm to me. I presume that you all love to read the Psalms they are so heartwarming so praise conscious and yet so also raw and real.

And this is Psalm 39 David even talks about life is a vapor. And so when I was going through all of these death after death after death after death experiences with very close members of my family I read Psalm 39 and it was mesmerizing searching soul-searching and yet glorious all at the same time.

And when I read Psalm 39 and I looked at all of its constituent parts I realized that this is a message that out of my own experience of all of these deaths in my family it could be an encouragement to all of you.

And so if I were to outline Psalm 39 I would outline it in this way very very succinctly. Be careful be clear be contrite and be consistent. That's really the the message of Psalm 39. Be careful be clear be contrite and be consistent what do I mean.

Well let's look at the first three verses of Psalm 39 under that outline point. Be careful. Now maybe you're gonna say be careful of what. And that's what I said. Be careful of what. To what am I to be careful.

And I think it's this to be careful just to whom and just how you talk about life's difficulties. That's really the first three verses of Psalm 39. Be careful whom to whom. And just how you talk to the people around you about life's difficulties.

Notice what King David says he says to the choir master to jettison a psalm of David. This is a song. David has written a song and he says I said I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue.

I will guard my mouth with a muzzle so long as the wicked are in my presence. Now now whatever is going on in David's heart according to Psalm 39 he's saying something about his mouth his speech his tongue when he is standing around unbelievers.

That's that's clearly what needs to be interpreted here. He says I will guard my ways that I meant that I may not sin with my tongue. Well if you add that in the context of verse 4 Oh Lord make me know my end.

And what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold you have made my days. Verse 5 a few hand breaths. And my lifetime is nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath.

Surely a man goes about as a shadow. David is obviously thinking about the brevity of life how short it is how quickly life is here and then it's gone. And I take that to mean that somehow when David is around unbelievers he's saying to himself I better be careful about how I talk about life and death and about how quickly it is and comes.

I better be careful when I'm around those who don't know God. I better be careful what I say. And I think that's very very necessary and very good medicine for us. For instance just with myself all of these deaths all of these six deaths right in a row when a father figure dies and your mother and your grandson at such a tender age and your own wife the wife of your youth and your sister your only sister and your favorite aunt.

When when in rapid-fire succession these deaths occur in your life there is a temptation we all know it to say something like this God this isn't fair. I don't agree with what you're doing. And I think frankly that what's happening in my life and all I'm experiencing in these decades the this decade of my fifties is that you are arbitrary and capricious as a God.

You ever known any unbelievers who might talk like that mad forlorn irritable volatile angry at what they presume is not the goodness of God but his arbitrariness his capriciousness. Just just talk to a normal run-of-the-mill person who's who's a unbeliever who's just experienced some kind of death that they do not agree was either necessary or right or best in the context of their life.

And just listen to what they say so often you're going to hear those very words. This is not fair this is not right. And maybe even going into a place of indicting God about his arbitrariness and saying what you are doing is unfair.

And I'm gonna hold you eternally at fault for what you've done in my life. I've heard those things you've heard from unbelievers those very things. And I think in verses one two and three David is saying I've got to guard my mouth.

I have to guard my ways if necessary. I've got a guard my mouth with a muzzle as the wicked are in my presence now. It doesn't mean that you don't have your own questions. Even as a believer. It doesn't mean that you're always going to be on Rosie Street where you think that even with death being all around you.

And even though you believe God to be a good God that you still don't have any questions. I've asked a thousand questions when I'm around unbelievers. I don't act and talk like unbelievers. And that's what David's doing now.

It also doesn't mean that when you're lying in your bed in the night watches and your wife isn't there right next to you and your little baby has died and all of the people who are close to you and your immediate family are dropping like flies that everything's rosy everything's cheeky everything's great.

It's grand. It's not not. And David says in verse 2 I was mute and silent. I held my peace to no avail. And my distress what grew worse. In other words he was keeping it inside it was pinned up. It's not as though we're playing a game here with unbelievers where we're telling them oh no everything's great the death of your people.