WWUTT 1495 Q&A Not Eating With Family, Masks and Vaccines, Praying These Days

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What if we have family members that aren't Christians? Should we not eat with them too?

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Is wearing a mask or getting a vaccine love your neighbor? And how do we pray in these uncertain times?

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The answer's when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today. It really is difficult for her to get up and around.

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She's 35 weeks pregnant. We're coming up on our last month here. The due date is

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September 8th, and Becky has always been late. So we're gonna be induced on that day.

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Well, she's gonna be induced. I just stand there and say, babe, you're doing great. Anyway, if the baby hasn't come by then, then that's the date that we're gonna make this thing happen.

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Expecting a little boy. Be in prayer for Becky. Good health all around. The G3 Conference is coming up September 30th through October the 2nd in Atlanta.

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I can't remember the name of the place. It's at a different place this year. Anyway, you can find out all the details by going to g3min .org.

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Now, if you're a pastor, you need to sign up for the Expository Preaching Workshop that's going on the couple of days before.

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That'll be September 28th and 29th. Tom Buck is gonna be leading it. Conrad Mbewe is gonna be there as one of the guest speakers.

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I'll be there as well, and some of the other elders from our staff are gonna help lead it also. You gotta go to one of these.

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It doesn't matter how long you've been preaching. We could all use a tune -up. There's always something you're gonna glean from one of these

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Expository Workshops, especially if you've never done one before. So you can sign up for that also by going to g3min .org.

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We hope to see you there. What is gonna have a booth? It's only gonna be like three weeks after Becky has this baby, so we're not positive she's gonna be along, but I will for sure be there, and tons of great speakers there as well.

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You can find all that info on the website. Well, being Friday, we take questions from the listeners, and you can submit your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I've got two gals and two guys I'm responding to today, so let's do ladies first.

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This one is from Michelle. She says, hi, Gabe. I just finished listening to today's episode of the podcast.

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This would have been July 28th, episode 1488, and your story about refusing to go out for coffee with a professing

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Christian living in sin plus the 1 Corinthians 5 passage, that led me to wonder how far this extends to our various relationships.

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So just to kind of recap, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, but now

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I am telling you not to associate with any so -called brother if he is a sexually immoral person or greedy or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

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For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Are you not to judge those who are within the church, but those who are outside,

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God will judge. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves, or as we read it earlier this week, purge the evil person from among you.

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That's 1 Corinthians 5, verses 11 through 13. Now, last week, I mentioned that there were occasions where we had to confront a person in sin in our church, and they didn't wanna go through the disciplinary process.

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So they just, hey, I'm outta here, right? And then we would bump into each other in town or something like that later, and they would say, hey, let's get together for coffee.

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Let's go out to eat sometime. It'd be good to catch up. And I'd have to tell them, no, you refuse discipline.

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You were in sin, and you refuse to repent and be disciplined by your church.

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And so we have no fellowship with one another. I cannot be seen eating with you based on what is said in 1

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Corinthians 5. And Paul comes back to this also in 2 Thessalonians 3, where Paul says, if anyone does not obey our word in this letter, and of course, he's talking about the context of the church, not just anybody, okay?

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But these people who have heard this letter, and they're there in the church, they're there in Thessalonica.

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If they do not obey our word, take special note of that person to not associate with him so that he will be put to shame, and yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

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And I think that's very, very important because I'm sometimes troubled with how easily

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I'll see people do this on social media, especially, where someone else will make some sort of a liberal or leftist statement, and immediately there's a few

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Christians that will say, oh, well, they're not a brother, they're not a sister, they're going to hell. And I'm just going, whoa.

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And where does that condemnation come from? How quickly and easily we're ready to jump into that.

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But remember the instruction that Jesus gave in Matthew chapter seven, the instruction we have in Romans two, that the measure you use to judge somebody else will be used against you.

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Are you using a measure that is according to what Christ has said in the Bible? Or are you just jumping immediately to,

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I want to write that person off as not being a brother or sister in the Lord. So we need to be careful about that because the instruction regarding these disciplinary matters, confronting a brother or sister in sin, even somebody that is doing something as awful as sleeping with his father's wife, which is the occasion that we have for the rebuke in first Corinthians chapter five.

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The instruction is do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

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Then if after that admonishment, if after going through the process of church discipline, that person refuses to repent, then you can see he or she is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

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Or a false convert. This person claimed to be of Christ, but really was not. You know, some things that Paul, or sorry,

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John says in first John chapter two. So anyway, so coming back now to the occasion that we were reading about in first Corinthians chapter five, very similar to what

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Paul said to the Thessalonians. He says in chapter five, verse five, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

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Lord. And where we have in verse 11, but now I'm writing to you, not to associate with any so -called brother, if he is a sexually immoral person, greedy and idolater, a reviler, a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

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Now, Paul is very qualifying with that. How he addresses that person.

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He says, so -called brother, doesn't directly call him a brother. It seems to be a little more directly called a brother or sister in second

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Thessalonians three, than what is said in first Corinthians chapter five. But then after that process of discipline, if that man does not repent, then he's gonna demonstrate whether or not he is truly in the

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Lord. If we are in Christ, then we are going to demonstrate an ongoing pattern of faith and repentance.

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It's not just something that you did at your conversion and then you're good and you can live however you want. But throughout our lives, we are growing in our faith and we are convicted over our sin and desiring holiness and to be sanctified in Christ Jesus.

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So those who are truly in Christ will be growing in this way. Those who are not in Christ may give some kind of lip service to Christ.

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But Jesus said in Matthew seven, you will know them by their fruit. So Michelle is asking this question here.

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Well, I didn't finish the email, did I? So that was just kind of a recap of first Corinthians chapter five.

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And what I talked about last week, have having nothing to do with those who refuse discipline or they refuse to repent of their sin, not even to eat with such a one and doing this so that they may feel ashamed.

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As Paul says to the Thessalonians and to the

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Corinthians, he says, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

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Lord. So Michelle goes on in her email to say, I have a large extended family, most of whom were raised and baptized in fairly decent churches, and most of whom would claim to be

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Christians. However, it's obvious by the fruit of their lives, exactly what I mentioned, the beliefs they hold and their angry responses toward me and my immediate family whenever we express a biblical thought, that most of them are false converts.

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They recently held a large family reunion that we were invited to, but were unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict.

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If we had been able to attend, should we have declined the invitation based on 1

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Corinthians 5, 9 through 10, since the context seems to refer to the church, none of these family members have ever attended my church.

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You know, whenever I talk about this subject, this is a very common question that comes up. So if we're not supposed to eat with such a one, like, does that mean my family members also, would that also extend to my family?

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Now, in the story that I gave earlier, well, when this week, it was the week before, about, you know, somebody coming up to me and saying, hey, let's get together and go eat.

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I have to tell them no, and I'll tell them exactly why. You sinned and you refuse to repent and refuse to be disciplined over that.

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So we can't get together. I mean, I don't know that you're a brother in the Lord. I don't even know that.

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I don't have any affirmation of that. And I'll tell them, you know, if I have to explain myself in that way,

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I will tell them that you need to repent. I still encourage you to repent. Come back and talk to me at the church.

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You know, we can go through the church disciplinary process, which you refused the first time and would be happy to walk you through that and show you where you were in sin and why you need to repent because I want to see the grace of God in your life.

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I want to know that you have received grace and you are showing grace, that you are not a slave to sin, but you are a slave to Christ as Paul talks about in Romans 6.

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So, you know, those kinds of occasions for me, especially because I'm a pastor, I need to be especially mindful of what people see me doing and who they see me associating with.

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I do have to be mindful of that. But again, anytime we talk about these disciplinary matters, it always seems to come up.

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Somebody asking, well, how does this extend a family? So I know that if somebody's been disciplined in the church and they've been put out of the church, well, yeah,

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I'm not supposed to eat with such a one, but how about members of my family who are clearly not believers? Well, I've come from a family that has plenty of unbelievers, but I also have in my family believers.

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So when we have those reunions like that, when family gets together, I go because we've got family that is

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Christians, we have family that are not. This isn't a church gathering, most especially. I have to be very, very careful though with the topics that we talk about.

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There are certain family members that I won't bring spiritual things up with.

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Now I say that and some of you are probably going, whoa, what? I mean, don't they need the gospel? You need to be sharing the gospel with them.

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No, I don't because they've heard it and they have rejected it. And whenever it comes up again, they will blaspheme

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God to my face. What did Jesus say about this in Matthew 7, 6?

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He said, do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.

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So we actually do have to be discerning about who we share the gospel with and who we withhold it from.

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Pastor Tom, by the way, Tom Buck just preached a terrific sermon on this just this past Sunday.

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And if you go to fbclindale .com and click on sermons, you'll find it there because it was the most recent sermon.

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So it would have been the August 1st sermon. The audio is there. I don't know if the video got uploaded yet, but anyway, you can go and listen to the sermon at least.

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And so he talks about this, talked about it in last week's sermon that you can get together with family, but there's some members of your family that you're gonna withhold speaking about any spiritual matters with because you know what it's gonna turn into.

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I mean, my faith in Christ is very important to me. It's very personal to me.

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And I'm not just gonna extend it to a person and make it a target for them to start striking down and further heaping condemnation on themselves because of the hardness of heart that they have toward God.

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I don't want them talking that way in front of my children. I don't want them talking about that way in front of other family members that are

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Christians. So there are some people that I will talk about Christian matters with and others I just absolutely won't.

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I'll withhold that from. I think you have to be discerning in this no matter what, whether it's a person who has refused church discipline, they won't repent of their sin, they've been disciplined by the church and removed from the church, or you're talking about believers, professing

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Christians that go to other churches, but those churches aren't sound, so on and so forth. I think we have to be discerning in all those different kinds of relationships.

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It's gonna be circumstantial sometimes. In some places, it's easy to say don't associate with these people.

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And then in other places, it's hard to say whether you should have a relationship with them or not.

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There is much wisdom with many counselors. So in each respective situation, you're gonna have to assess it properly in a right way and make the best judgment.

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Give all glory to the Lord, seek his wisdom in all things according to his word. This next question comes from Angie here in Texas.

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She says, hello, Pastor Gabe, question for your Friday Q &A. You may have addressed this question in the past, but if not,

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I'm curious what you think about the direction we seem to be heading in regarding mandated vaccinations for COVID and now the

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Delta variant. Do you believe it's totally up to the individual or do you feel like Franklin Graham, who says that if Jesus were here, he would take the vaccine because it means we are loving our neighbor.

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Other well -meaning Christians view getting the vaccine as the equivalent of getting the mark of the beast, albeit unknowingly.

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What would you say to those who are refusing because it is predominantly the evangelicals who are the holdouts and see this issue as a spiritual one?

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Do you have a biblical opinion? Well, yeah, I've got a biblical opinion. My biblical opinion is that Franklin Graham is wrong.

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Getting the vaccine or wearing a mask is not loving your neighbor. And really,

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I'm quite tired of hearing that. Hearing Christians impose something with scripture that scripture does not say.

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So they're binding a person's conscience to believe you have to get the shot, you have to wear a mask.

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And if you don't do that, then you're sinning. Well, no, they're sinning by using scripture to justify that action when scripture says absolutely nothing about that.

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On the contrary, Jesus exactly rebuked that kind of approach to adding commands to scripture that are not there.

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So let me read to you here from Mark chapter seven, beginning in verse one. The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Jesus when they had gone from Jerusalem and had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with defiled hands.

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That is, their hands were unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders.

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And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves. And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.

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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with defiled hands?

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In other words, the Pharisees are asking Jesus, why don't your disciples wash their hands? I mean, this is kind of gross,

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Jesus. Why are they not obeying the commandment that we've laid down, that they have to wash their hands to eat?

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Do you have to wash your hands to eat? You tell your kids this, right? It's right before dinner is ready. Kids, go wash up, go wash your hands, and it's time to eat.

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And if they don't wash their hands, then they're disobeying mom and dad. That's different. They didn't wash their hands.

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The sin is that they disobeyed mom and dad, not that they didn't wash their hands. There's not a commandment to wash your hands.

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The Pharisees are imposing this upon the disciples, upon everybody. You have to go wash your hands.

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Where in the Bible does it say you have to wash your hands before you eat, or else you eat defiled food because you eat it with defiled hands?

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That's not in the Bible. So the Pharisees are asking Jesus, why do your disciples eat with defiled hands?

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And he said to them, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites.

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Boy, that's a sharp response from Jesus, right? And the Pharisees just asked him, why don't your disciples go wash their hands?

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The tradition of the elders. It's what we've said you've got to do, so they need to go wash their hands. Why don't they? And because they asked this accusatory question,

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Jesus replied, Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

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But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.

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Verse eight, leaving the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.

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And that's what's going on with these people. Then Kamala Harris has done it. I mean, she said loving your neighbor means going and getting a vaccine or wearing a mask.

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And now apparently she and Franklin Graham have this in common if he said the same thing. So this people honors me with their lips.

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They claim to be Christians and Kamala Harris does. She claims to be a Christian, but their heart is far from me.

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Now, I'm not saying that if a person says loving your neighbor means getting a vaccine and wearing a mask,

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I'm not saying that they're not Christians, but they're certainly not following the command of Christ. They're imposing something on the text that is not there.

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Jesus says, in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.

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It's vanity to say, I'm obeying God, showing love to my neighbor because I got vaccinated and I'm wearing a mask.

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That's vanity. That's taking the Lord's name in vain. You're taking God's name and his word to puff yourself up so that others will see how much better you are because you got vaccinated, because you love your neighbor by wearing a mask.

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So the way that I've taught on this, and we've talked about this on the podcast, I've done a couple of videos on it as well.

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The way that I've taught on this is if you want to get a shot and you want to wear the mask, then do it.

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And don't let anybody tell you it's a sin to get the shot or wear the mask. I don't believe you're sinning if you get the vaccine or you're wearing a mask.

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It's not sin. I'm not gonna do it personally, but I don't think you're sinning if you go do it.

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Also, if you decide not to wear the mask or get the shot, you're also not sinning because you didn't get vaccinated and you didn't wear a mask.

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Of course, I'm gonna take that position because I'm not doing that. I believe that a church would be in sin if they require their members to go get vaccinated or wear a mask in order to come to church.

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I do believe that's sin because you are essentially barring a person from hearing the word of God proclaimed, praising

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God with the rest of the saints, and partaking at the Lord's table. You would bar them from the table just because they don't get vaccinated and they don't wear a mask.

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And folks, there are some people who cannot get vaccinated. It might kill them if they get vaccinated.

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There are some that cannot wear a mask for various reasons. I would prefer not to because after I wear a mask and I take it off,

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I have awful coughing fits for quite a while. Like, I don't know what it is with my respiratory.

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I've always believed that I've got a great respiratory system. But when I wear a mask for a long time and then take it off,

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I struggle with coughing. I'm not coughing when I'm wearing the mask, but after I take it off, I'm coughing for quite a while.

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And as a person who uses my voice quite a bit with teaching, I'm gonna be careful about that.

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And so I don't wear the mask. I'm one of those persons where it's worse for me to put the mask on than it is to not have it on.

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I think that's the case with most people. Most people don't wanna wear the mask, but with me, there might actually be a health reason why

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I can't wear the mask. And I have known people with health complications, reasons why they can't wear masks.

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So it's wrong, it's sinful for a church to require their members to do this, which the

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Bible does not say. And if they don't do it, then they can't come and worship with us as a church.

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You're barring someone from the Lord's table who is not actually doing anything sinful.

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And that itself is sin, if a church is gonna go that route. So anyway, my justification for get the shot if you want, wear a mask if you want, all of that is,

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I mean, it's a matter of conscience as we read about in Romans 14. So just like the answer that I gave before, use good discernment, get some good counsel from some wise folks around you and always consult the word of God on just about anything.

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Though the Bible may not explicitly say this, that or the other, you can certainly glean wisdom from what is said in the scriptures that we may make good and wise decisions to the glory of our

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God who is in heaven. And for the benefit of one another, you can actually not get the shot and not wear a mask and love your neighbor at the same time.

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Believe it or not, that is in fact possible. This next question comes from Marty, who says, pastor

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Gabe, thank you for your review on the rise and fall of Mars Hill. I actually read it late at night while laying in bed.

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So I appreciate you putting the transcript on your blog because your voice is kind of loud and you would have woken up my wife.

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You're welcome. I thought of something and I was wondering if you'd clarify. You said that the show's most inexcusable omission, and that's a quote from my transcript, is the lack of Bible.

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And that would also leave out any theological heavy hitters like John MacArthur who warned about Mark Driscoll long before Mars Hill imploded.

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I agree with you on all of that, but here's my question. Does the program really need it?

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If all they're doing is like an E -True Hollywood story of the rise and fall of Mars Hill, are they obligated to teach what the

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Bible says or include the gospel in every episode? Or can it just be interviews with people, no matter how orthodox or heretical they might be, just sharing their story of what went down?

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Curious to know your thoughts on this. Please don't change a thing. I love your podcast just the way it is. Thank you so much,

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Marty. Okay, so your question was, let me come back up to it here. Does the program really need it?

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Does the program need to have Bible teaching, essentially, and a presentation of the gospel?

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Or can it just be interviews with people, no matter how orthodox or heretical they might be, just sharing their story of what went down?

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Well, here's the thing with that, though. Christianity Today, which actually is harder to say than you think it would be, but it is, they are trying to do teaching with this podcast.

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Mike Kosper is trying to make judgment calls in this documentary, or they call it journalism.

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They call it reporting. That's what they say about it in the podcast. He is making judgments and telling the listeners what he wants them to think.

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And none of it is grounded with scripture. None of it is. Even when the question was asked of two editors of Christianity Today, why do we do programs like this?

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That was kind of what I explained in the review last week and what I said in my blog. So if there was anywhere, especially if there was anywhere in the program to include scripture or the gospel, or say, here's what the

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Bible says about stuff like this. Here's what the Bible says about the rise and fall of Mark Driscoll.

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If there was anywhere to put it, it would have been there in that last eight minutes of the first episode when the question was being answered, why do programs like this?

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The Bible does respond to Mark Driscoll's false teaching, to much of the stuff that they were doing in the emergent church and stuff that was coming out of Mars Hill and all this other kind of thing.

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And there've been many teachers that had pointed that out, including John MacArthur and Phil Johnson and the

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Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood who were doing reviews of some of the sermons and books that Mark Driscoll was putting out.

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There were people out there who were calling out the stuff that he was saying and doing and showing how from the scriptures, what

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Driscoll was doing was wrong. I mean, this was also a guy who would justify everything he did by saying,

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God told me to do this. God showed me this. And he even had that weird sermon that was like a sooth saying, where he was talking about how like,

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I'll be in counseling and somebody will tell me something. And then it's like a movie screen right in front of my face.

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God shows me what really happened. And I can tell them, no, that's not what happened. What happened was actually this.

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Well, how do you know that? Because God showed it to me. I mean, that was like fortune telling and sooth saying.

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That wasn't at all anything like what, that's not anything like what scripture reveals prophecy is.

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If a true prophetic gift had even been given to Mark Driscoll. See, the scripture responds to stuff like that, even.

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And yet that's not the way that Christianity today is responding. They're offering opinions from like pop psychologists who've written books about like the narcissistic pastor or a book on spiritual abuse.

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And so they'll grab those people who have written those books and they're putting those opinions in the podcast, but nobody's teaching the

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Bible. Nobody's coming back and going, here's what scripture actually says about this. That's just inexcusable.

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That the sociology and the statistics and the gurus and the psychologists, they're getting their say.

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They're getting to throw their opinions out there on this stuff, but nobody's coming back to scripture and showing here's what the

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Bible actually has to say about this. So yeah, on the one hand, Marty, I agree with you that if you're doing a documentary where you're interviewing a bunch of people, then it doesn't really matter how

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Christian they are or how heretical they are. They're sharing their account of this movement that they were caught up in and what they saw and what they experienced while they were in the midst of that.

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That is of course the journalistic approach that this particular podcast is attempting to take, but it's not neutral.

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It's not just leaving it up to these people that we're interviewing to share what they say because there is commentary that's being added into that as well.

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Incidentally, as I just shared with Fred Butler, a friend of mine at Grace to You a couple of days ago, yesterday or the day before, all the pop psychology stuff in the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

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I didn't say this in my review, but I'm saying it here. All the pop psychology stuff is really boring. It's unengaging and it's irrelevant.

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Like it adds nothing to the program. And there's been a few times where I'm probably doing something else.

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I might be working in the kitchen or I am working in the garage while I'm listening to this podcast.

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And when they get to the psychology parts, I'm not paying attention and I catch myself not paying attention.

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Like my brain is actually switched off. When you got to this part of the program,

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I'm no longer engaged in this. So I'll rewind it, but I'm still not convinced any of that was helpful.

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These would be perfect places to put somebody who is a theological heavy hitter to explain here's what the

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Bible says about this. You could even keep the pseudo history and the pop psychology and all that kind of stuff.

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You could keep that in there if you wanted to. I think it's silly. I don't think it adds anything to the show, but do that and then bring in somebody else too that's actually gonna tell you what the

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Bible says. But Christianity today is not interested in that. It's an interesting program.

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It's compelling to kind of hear the stories of people who were behind the scenes in the whole

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Mars Hill movement. But again, don't expect them to teach you anything scriptural as a result of the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

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Last comment that I have here, this comes from Jonathan. He says, thank you, Pastor Gabe, for your daily prayers and Bible teachings.

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I fall short every day of God's glory. I hate my sin, my flesh, my anger at times, and the thoughts when going through the day.

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I work for, and he gives me the name of the company, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I get off work late and now look forward to your daily podcast and Bible studies that come on Facebook at this late night time.

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God's word has a calming effect on me, and I thank you for breaking down everything verse by verse.

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Please pray for me as I'm struggling with what to do with what's going on here in America. I've honestly been stressed and I've had anxiety to the point of heart palpitations lately.

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I keep warning others as to what is going on from a spiritual and biblical perspective, and I get shrugged off like I'm crazy, even my own mother.

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And I'll definitely pray for you and your ministry as well. Thank you again for everything.

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Jonathan, yeah, we'll sure pray for you here at the end of the program, in fact. Let me read to you from Philippians chapter four, beginning in verse four.

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We read, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice.

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By the way, Paul is in prison when he's writing this. He's chained to a guard who's right there next to him as he's writing this to the

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Philippian church. He says to them, rejoice always.

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Paul can rejoice when he's chained to a guard after having been arrested for preaching the gospel.

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He's rejoicing in God. Shouldn't we all rejoice in the Lord when our circumstances are not that bad compared to what

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Paul was going through? And in fact, he says it twice. I will say again, rejoice.

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Let your considerate spirit be known to all men.

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The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

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And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is dignified, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, consider these things.

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Let me pray for you, Jonathan. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the kindness that you show to us.

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You give us your spirit and your spirit gives us peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding because we have peace with God.

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We're no longer at enmity with God. We have fellowship with God through faith in our

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Lord Jesus Christ because of what he did for us, dying on the cross for our sins, rising again from the grave, rising for our justification, ascending into heaven, being seated at the right hand of the throne of God where Christ is interceding for us on our behalf.

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What a wonderful, beautiful thing this is to consider, to think on these things, what

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Christ has done for us. And I pray that you would give us peace, knowing that our sins are forgiven and we have fellowship with God and we have eternal life with God in glory, that you would give peace to our spirits in such a calamitous time where so many different things are going on.

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We don't know what is in store for us, whether you're turning us over to a depraved mind, turning this nation over to a depraved mind, or if you are intending to hold back that judgment for just a little bit longer.

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Whatever it is that you're intending to do here, God, I pray that we would trust in you. Our hearts would not be filled with anxiety, but with thanksgiving, we present our request to God because we know what we have is much more than what we deserve, the grace and love of Jesus Christ that you have shown to us.

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I pray for Jonathan, that you would give peace to his spirit. I pray that as he speaks with his family, that he's able to share with them the hope of the gospel that he has in his heart.

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I pray that you would help him to focus on his job and get through the things that he needs to do today, providing for himself and for his family, that he doesn't feel overwhelmed with the changing of the times and the uncertainty of tomorrow.

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For as Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, each day has enough trouble of its own. Tomorrow will worry about itself.

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Teach us to rely on you. Give Jonathan peace in his heart as he exalts

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Christ with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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Give us that peace that surpasses all understanding and bring us into your kingdom, Lord Jesus.

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It's in the name of Christ that we pray, amen. This is When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study, When We Understand the