Here’s the Way

Psalm 1:6 | February 16, 2020

Have you ever felt lonely?

Two years ago, Chloe felt lonely after she moved to Salt Lake City from Pittsburgh.

She was having a hard time with a new life in a new city.

But then she remembered a unique habit she had back in college and decided to start doing it again.

What was her habit?

She randomly left anonymous love notes in different places hoping to encourage a stranger.

The notes usually have a simple line that says:

 

Note

If you are reading this note, please know that you are loved.

According to an article by Cathy Free of the Washington Post, Chloe started leaving her notes around Salt Lake City and then told a friend and now they have a few dozen people that gather twice a month to write notes and distribute them in coffee shops, grocery stores, art galleries – even the Home Depot.

Their group is called “Love Letters” – one of the members shared:

Bahaa Chmait

With loneliness so prevalent, it’s hard to just walk up to someone and say, “Hi, would you like to be my friend?” A handwritten letter is a lost art form that anyone can appreciate. It lets people know that somebody out there cares.

One day recently Chloe was having a rough day.

She went to a coffee shop down the street from her house and when she sat down at the table, she noticed an envelope.

She immediately realized it was a note left by someone in their group and she opened it and the message began with this:

Note

Dearest human, this note may find you by happenstance, but it was meant for you.

Sometimes in life, we need some “happenstance”, right?

Why?

Because as much as we try to avoid them or ignore them or wish that they never happen to us – difficult things happen in life – and sometimes terrible, awful, evil, unthinkable things happen to us or around us.

Our community has experienced that in a uniquely heartbreaking way this week.

And when hardship and heartbreak find their way to the doors of our minds or our hearts or our homes:

• We need a random act of kindness
• We need a random note of love
• We need a random reminder that something was meant for us
• We need a random reminder that life has meaning and purpose

But we also need something that is not random.

We need a note of love that is not just written to a stranger, but a note that is written directly to us.

• A note that brings clarity and perspective
• A note that helps us feel what our hearts hope to feel
• A note that helps us see what our souls long to see

What does a note like that sound like?

Let’s find out.

Listen to Psalm 1, verse 6:

6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

That is one of the most loving and powerful and comforting truths in the universe.

God knows the way of the righteous.

• God knows the way of those who are right with him
• God knows the way of his children
• God knows the way of his own

Dear Christian, God knows where you are – he has not lost sight of you – not even for a millisecond.

He fully knows where you are, and he fully knows where you are going, and he fully knows what is happening to you every step of the way.

This is just some of the language that God included in the Bible, his book, to let us know how much he fully cares for believers and how much he fully knows us and knows our way.

Psalm 139:1-2

O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.

 

Psalm 139:3-4

You scrutinize [intensely inspect and look at] my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.

Psalm 139:5-6

You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Psalm 139:7-8

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

 

Psalm 139:9-10

If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

 

Psalm 139:11-12

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.

Are you afraid of the dark?

I mean most of us if we are in a haunted field in the middle of Siberia at 3 AM we are going to be a little afraid of the dark.

That moment is impossible for God.

He sees everything as if it is the brightest day of summer.

Now, there are two implications of that truth.

First, you can’t hide anything from God – no one can hide anything from God.

Sin, evil, arrogance, rudeness, gossip, slander, immorality, lust, cheating, defiance, and anything else you want to add to that list cannot be hidden from God.

God sees all of it clear as day.

About 600 years before Jesus was born, God told the prophet Jeremiah to write down this quote:

Jeremiah 23:24

“Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?” declares the LORD. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.

We cannot hide anything from God.

The Apostle Paul said it this way to the folks in the ancient city of Ephesus:

Ephesians 5:13-14

…all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.”

Ephesians 5:15-17

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

This week, through the tragedy in our community or the tragedy on the other side of the world through a deadly virus we have been reminded that the days are evil.

So today, right now, make the most of your time and understand what the will of God is – and the will of God is that you would wake up and come to Christ.

If you are not right with God, please know that you are not spiritually asleep in the dark – you are asleep in the light because you have already heard the truth of the gospel in the songs and the prayers thus far, so, wake up, sleeper, and come to Christ.

One implication of darkness and light being the same to God is that nothing can be hidden from him.

What is a second implication?

Well, let’s think about it this way:

What is the darkest moment you have experienced in your life?

What is the darkest moment you can imagine experiencing in your life?

God sees that moment in the light.

Fanny Crosby was struck with blindness six weeks after she was born.

Her father died when she was six months old and her mother and her grandmother raised her.

They invested the beauty of the gospel in her life every day and Fanny came to faith in Christ as a young girl.

She experienced life-changing loss as a baby, but there was no evidence in her life of anger or bitterness or questions like “Why would God allow something like this?”

She spent 94 years in the dark, but she knew that was not true of her Redeemer.

She knew God saw every moment of her life in the light of his glory and grace.

She knew she was right with God, so, she was confident God knew her way.

And she wrote about that confidence in more than 8,000 hymns – here’s some of those words of confidence she wrote in 1875:

Fanny Crosby

All the way my Savior leads me,

What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt His tender mercy,

Who through life has been my Guide?

Fanny Crosby

Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,

Here by faith in Him to dwell!

For I know, whate’er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well;

Fanny Crosby

For I know, whate’er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well.

That is a pretty powerful love note – and it’s not random.

Her ultimate and primary love was directed toward God.

Why?

Because she was right with him and he knew her way.

And how did she get right with God?

Through Jesus.

The birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, is not a cute fable designed to help churches build nice buildings and pay the staff.

The story of Jesus is the power of God to those who are being saved – to those who are right with him.

The story of Jesus is a constant flow of hope and confidence and stability and love in and around and under every single moment of life.

Fanny Crosby could write a love note that says “Jesus doeth all things well” – even he allowing her blindness – because she knew that Jesus had done the one thing she needed the most and that one thing covered every other moment of her life regardless of whether that moment was terrific or tragic.

And what was that one thing Jesus did?

Simon Peter said it this way:

1 Peter 2:24

…and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

If God, through his infinite grace, would purpose and permit and propel his one and only Son to go the way of the cross, to bear our sins in his own body – to satisfy the justice of the universe and to bring mercy to that same universe through that justice – to do the one thing well that our very souls depend on – then we can trust him!

We can trust Jesus to do all things well because he did the one thing we desperately needed him to do the most.

So, does the Lord know your way?

Remember, he knows your way either way because even the dark is light to him – you cannot hide from God.

But the does the Lord know your way?

Is he intensely and joyfully watching over your life – singing over your life – as you make your way ultimately and undeniably and eternally to him?

Civilla Martin was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1866 and died in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1948.

Like Fanny Crosby she was a hymnwriter and in 1905 she wrote this love letter:

Civilla Martin

Why should I feel discouraged,

why should the shadows come,

Why should my heart be lonely,

and long for heav’n and home,

When Jesus is my portion?

My constant Friend is He:

Civilla Martin

His eye is on the sparrow,

and I know He watches me;

His eye is on the sparrow,

and I know He watches me.

But many people take offense at this notion that there is some God watching our every move.

They take offense because they don’t want to be watched.

Or they take offense because if he is watching then what kind of God is he to just sit up in heaven and watch evil things happen in the world.

In his book “The Problem of Pain”, C.S. Lewis wrote:

C.S. Lewis

Not many years ago when I was an atheist, if anyone had asked me, “Why do you not believe in God?” my reply would have [been]: “Look at the universe we live in.”

C.S. Lewis

History is largely a record of crime, war, disease, and terror…The universe…is running down…All stories will come to nothing: all life will turn out in the end to have been a transitory and senseless contortion upon the idiotic face of infinite matter.

C.S. Lewis

If you ask me to believe that this is the work of a benevolent and omnipotent spirit, I reply that all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

C.S. Lewis

Either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit.

You can mumble and grumble and argue and debate and be angry and protest all kinds of things in this world, but in a sense, Lewis has given us a pretty good final exam question and he’s made it multiple choice.

Here are the options:

• There is no God
• God is indifferent to good and evil
• God is an evil spirit

Now, many, if not most, people in the world can run with one of those and be fine.

In other words, they are comfortable believing one of those ideas.

But the problem is you must do something with Jesus.

Jesus made clear and bold statements about the character and nature of God and then Jesus made a clear and bold sacrifice for the sins of the world.

That’s why Lewis also wrote this:

C.S. Lewis

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell.

C.S. Lewis

You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a mad man or something worse.

C.S. Lewis

You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.

C.S. Lewis

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

And because of Jesus, Lewis could not remain tied to his irrational multiple-choice options.

The birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus displays the most benevolent, omnipotent act of love that has ever been displayed because he was perfectly innocent and yet he bore our sins in his own body on the cross.

Listen to how Lewis describes coming to God:

C.S. Lewis

I had a notion that somehow, besides questing, I was being pursued.

C.S. Lewis

You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.

C.S. Lewis

That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

C.S. Lewis

The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet.

C.S. Lewis

But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?

C.S. Lewis

The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

Did you hear the sounds of Psalm 1:6 through all of that?

The kindness of God was sovereignly pursuing him and showing him the way.

Listen again to the words of this sweet love letter:

6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

But there is a second part – listen to what the psalmist says next:

6 But the way of the wicked will perish.

Whoa!

We just left the love letter for sure – or did we?

Let me ask you a question – who do you trust more in life – people who lie to you or people who tell you the truth?

Jesus was a way-maker and a truth-teller and he said this:

Matthew 7:13

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

Matthew 7:14

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

There are only two ways to live:

• Through the wide gate that leads to destruction
• Through the narrow gate that leads to life

Which gate have you gone through and which path are you on?

King David said it this way:

Psalm 37:20

But the wicked will perish; And the enemies of the LORD will be like the glory of the pastures, They vanish – like smoke they vanish away.

Because many folks in our area spend time at the lake and lot of you love the beach, listen to how Spurgeon describes this:

C.H. Spurgeon

…as for the wicked, he ploughs the sea, and though there may seem to be a shining trail behind his keel, yet the waves shall pass over it, and the place that knew him shall know him no more forever.

Dear listener, I graciously ask again:

Which gate have you gone through and which path are you on?

And dear Christian, what do we do with the truth of these two ways – the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked?

Two quick thoughts:

I saw a story this week about a husband and wife who live in an Islamic country where it is dangerous to share the gospel.

How dangerous?

Jon Bloom

Each morning, when this husband and wife part ways, they acknowledge to one another that it might be the last time they see each other.

And yet every morning they leave the house hoping and praying and speaking so that they might help people find the way to the narrow gate.

A number of years ago they lived in the United States for a time.

After a while the wife started pleading for them to go back to their Islamic country – the place of great danger to them both.

Why?

Wife

It’s like there’s a satanic lullaby playing here, and the Christians are asleep. And I feel like I’m falling asleep! Please, let’s go back!

Dear Christian, the wicked are on the way to destruction and we have the only good news that can set them free.

Let us not listen to the lullaby of the Enemy and fall asleep.

With grace and mercy and love and truth let us live out and share the good news of the gospel.

I was walking out to my car the other night here at the church and out of the corner of my eye I noticed someone had written something in the sand beside the playground.

It simply said, “I love you!”

I don’t know who that note was meant for, but I just went ahead and took it personally.

It’s good to be loved, right?

But as the week has gone on from the wind and the rain and the constant use of our campus the sand has been moved around and the words have almost disappeared.

Listen, when God saved you, he did not write you a love letter in the sand.

He eternally carved his love in the Chief Cornerstone, the risen, resurrected, Redeemer – the Rock of all ages who cannot change like shifting sand – he is the King of kings and he is the Lord of lords and his name is Jesus – and his love is not random – it was and it is meant for you!

Message by Dow Welsh |

February 16, 2020 © Holland Avenue Baptist Church

 

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Above are pre-sermon manuscript notes, not sermon transcript

Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Weekly help from Bruce Hurt at www.preceptaustin.org

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/satan-will-sing-you-to-sleep

 

So have you ever felt lonely ever felt alone? Two years ago, Chloe felt lonely. She had moved to Salt Lake City from Pittsburgh. She was in a new city, starting a new life, and and she just felt alone and she was having a hard time. But then she remembered something that she used to do in college, and she decided that she was going to start doing it again. Well, what was this thing she used to do in college? Well, she used to write love notes and randomly put them at different places all over campus, hoping to encourage some stranger. One day, the notes usually said something along these lines. If you're reading this note, please know that you are loved. According to an article by Kathy Free of The Washington Post, Chloe started doing that in Salt Lake City. Then she told a friend of hers that she was doing it. They got together, and now there's a few dozen people that meet twice a month. They write these love letters, these notes of encouragement, and then they go out and put them in different places, like coffee houses and grocery stores and art galleries. and even the Home Depot, wherever they may be going that they can find a way to encourage someone else. They've named their group the Love Letters, and this is what one of their members shared with loneliness so prevalent it's hard to just walk up to someone and say Hi, Would you like to be my friend? Ah, hand written letter is a lost art form that anyone can appreciate. It lets people know that somebody out there cares. It's a big deal. You probably don't want me to say this, and there's Maur. But Miss Carroll Roddy is one of a number of you in our church that every day sends a hand written card or note to someone and Carol. We thank you for that because all of us have benefited from that. It's a powerful thing to get a hand written note, even if it's a hand written note from somebody you don't know. Just just the acknowledgment that someone has entered into your life with some grace and mercy in love. Chloe was having a rough day. One day she walked down the street to coffee shop near her house. She got her coffee. She went over and sat down at the table, and as soon as she sat down on the table, she looked over and she saw an envelope sitting on the table, and she immediately recognised. It was one of their cards that her group puts out. And so she opened up the card, and this is how the note began. Dearest human. This note may find you by happenstance, but it was meant for you. Sometimes in life. We need some happenstance, don't we? We need some happenstance because we may try to ignore it. We may push against it. We may hope or wish that it may never happen. Tow us. But difficult things happen in life, and sometimes it's not just difficult things. Sometimes it is terrible, awful evil things that we cannot even explain. Our community has experienced that this week, heartbreaking thing that we cannot explain. And when hardship, and when heartbreak, when they show up in our minds or in our hearts or in our homes, we need a random act of kindness. We need a random note of love. We need a reminder that something has been meant for us. We need a reminder that there is meaning and purpose in life. But we also need something that is not random. We need something more than just a random love note. We we need a love letter that's directly written to us. We need something directly written to us to give us clarity, to give us perspective. We need something directly to us so that our hearts can feel what our hearts won't. To feel something directly to us so that our souls will see what our souls long to see. What kind of love letter is that? And what does it look like? And sound like, Well, let's find out someone for six. Thomas writes this for The Lord knows the way of the righteous. This is one of the most loving and powerful and comforting truths in the universe. God knows the way of the righteous. God knows the way of those who are right with him. God knows the way of his Children. God knows the way of his own. If you're a Christian and you haven't heard this in a while, just just want you to know God has not lost your location. God has not lost you. He knows exactly where you are. He has not lost sight of you, Not even for a millisecond of your life. God knows your way. He fully knows where you are. He knows where you are going. He knows where you have been. He knows the next step and the next step and the next step. This is just some of the language that he has given in the Bible to help us understand how much he truly knows us and cares for us and knows our way. Someone 39 beginning with Verse One. Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known May you know when I sit down and when I rise up you understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize you, you intensely inspect you look at my path, my lying down You are intimately acquainted with all my ways Even before there's a word on my tongue. Behold, Oh Lord, you know it all. You have been closed me behind and before you laid your hands upon me. Such knowledge. It's too wonderful for me. It's It's too high. I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? if I send to heaven you're there. If I make my bed and she Oh, behold, you were there If I take the wings of the dawn If I dwell in the remote is part of the sea Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me If I say surely the darkness will overwhelm me And the light around me will be night Even the darkness is not dark to you And the night is a cz bright as the day darkness and light are like to you Initial question. Are you afraid of the dark and one with his different way? If any of us are stuck out and some haunted field in the middle of Siberia at three o'clock in the morning, we're all going to be a little afraid of the dark, All right, that moments impossible for God. It's It's not possible for God to ever be in the dark. He sees everything as if it is the brightest day of summer. Now that truth has two pretty big implications. First, you can't hide anything from God. Whatever you think you're hiding from God, you can't do it nothing can be hidden from God. Sin, immorality, arrogance, rudeness, lust, cheating, defiance, slander, gossip. Whatever else you want to put on that list, nothing can be hidden from God. God sees absolutely everything he sees it all is like the clearest of days. About 600 years before Jesus was born. God told Prophet Jeremiah to write down this quote. Jeremiah 23 24. Can a man hide himself in hiding places? So I do not see him, declares the Lord. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? Declares the Lord, We can't hide anything he feel fills every single square inch of the universe. We can't hide from God, Apostle Paul put it this way. To the folks in the ancient city of Emphasis visions five All things become visible when they're exposed by the light for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason, it says awake sleeper that arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Therefore, be careful how you walk Not is unwise men, but as wise making the most of your time because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish but understand. With will of the Lord, Yes, this week, through tragedy and our community this week, through tragedy through deadly virus on the other side of the world. This week, through all types of difficulties, we have discovered again that there are trials and tribulations and these days are evil. And because of that today, right now, you should make the most of your time in some ways, whatever that means. Make the most of your time because the days of evil But strategically, the way you can make the most of your time is to discover the beauty and the power of the gospel to pray that God would give you eyes to see so that you would wake up and come to Christ. God's desire gods delight for your life is that you would wake up and come to Christ. And if you're here today and you're not right with God, please understand you're not asleep in the dark right now. Here's why you have heard songs sung about the gospel. You have heard the Bible already read. You're listening to a sermon now, already up until this moment, you are not asleep in the dark. Your sleep in the light but the light is there for you. The truth of who Jesus is has already been presented and by the kindness and mercy of God, you've heard a little bit and the call is still the same. Wake up sleeper and come to Christ, Wake up and come to Christ. One implication of darkness and light being the same to God is that we can't hide anything from God. There's a second implication. Maybe we can think of it this way. What is the darkest moment that you have ever experienced in your life was the darkest moment that you have experienced. Or maybe ask another way. What is the darkest moment you can imagine ever experiencing in life according to the character nature of who God is that darkest moment for God, He could see as clear as day the light of his glory and grace. We're a pun that moment. God sees all in the light. He does not see the dark. Fanny Crosby was struck with blindness six weeks after she was born. Her father died when she was six months old. She was raised by her mother and her grandmother, who deeply both loved Jesus and They poured the Gospel into Fanny's life. And that's why she became a follower. Jesus. At a very young age. Her whole life was completely altered. She experienced loss before she even knew what loss was just as a baby. But there is no evidence in her life that she was ever bitter or angry. Are constantly saying, God, why would you let something like this happened? For 94 years she lived in the dark, but she knew her redeemer did not live in the dark. She knew that God could see everything. She knew that the God knew her way and she knew that her life was always lit up in the glory and grace of God. She was confident of who he waas. She was so confident that she wrote almost 9000 hymns. Let's just let's just take a gander at this. Oh, all right. Our hymnal has I think it's 600 something another close. Six. Um, I can do this faster than me. This is what I'm saying. Wednesday nights, everybody 6 74 All right. We have 674 hymns and our hymnal. She wrote almost 9000 hymns in her lifetime. And here's just a few words from one of those hymns all the way My savior leads me. What have I to ask? Besides, cannot doubt his tender mercy. Who through life has been my God heavenly peace divine? It's comfort here by faith and him to dwell for I know what air before me Jesus do If all things well, listen that again because let me just confess for us. Most of us will sing that song in this sanctuary and go, Oh, this is a great all him. I love it. It's one of my favorite and we will leave this building and we will not believe what we say. So listen to it again. Four. I know what air before me Jesus do with all things Well, that is a pretty powerful love note from a woman who never saw in her life. And it's not a random love note either. It is directed. Her love was primarily directed to God. Her ultimate and primary love was focused on God. Why? Because she was right with him and she knew that God knew her. Wait, she knew it. And how did she get right? with God when she got right with God through Jesus. The birth and the life and the death and the Resurrection and the ascension of Jesus is not just some cute fable that was made up so that churches could build buildings and pay their staff. Now the story of Jesus is the power of God. To those who are being saved to those who are right with God, the story of Jesus is a constant flow of comfort and hope, of love, of stability for every moment, for any moment in life. You see, Fanny Crosby can write a love letter that says Jesus do with all things well, including even him, allowing her to be blind for 94 years. He does all things well. She could write that because there was one thing that Jesus did for her and that one thing covered every single moment in life. Whether the moment was terrific or tragic. What was that one thing? Simon Peter put it this way. First Peter, too, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds. You were healed. If God, through his infinite grace, can purpose and permit and propel his one and only son to go the way of the cross for us so that he would bear our sin in his own body so that he would satisfy ultimate justice across the universe and then give mercy to that same universe through that same justice if he can do the one thing well that our souls need the most. If God can accomplish all of that and if he's done that, that we can trust him, Jesus do with all things well, because Jesus has done with one thing that our souls needed the most. He bore our sins in his own body. So does the Lord. No your way. And he knows that. Either way, everything's light to him. We can't hide anything from me. But what does the Lord no. Your way according to how the Bible reads is, is God intensely and joyfully watching over you? Is he singing over you as you ultimately and undeniably and eternally make your way to him? Sevilla Martin was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 18 66. She died in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1948. She was also a hymn writer like Fanny Crosby. And in 1905 she wrote this love letter. Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home when Jesus is my portion? My constant friend, is he? His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. His eye is own the sparrow. So I know he watches me. For believers, that is a love letter of great hope. But a lot of people they don't like that idea at all. But they don't like the idea that God's watching over anybody. You don't like the idea that God's watching our every move or they don't like the concept that if there is a God and this God is it's somewhere up in heaven watching over everything. What kind of God is he to just watch over all of these difficult, evil things and do nothing about it? In his book, The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wrote this not many years ago, when I was an atheist. If anyone had asked me why do you not believe in God? my reply would have been. Look at the universe we live in. He goes home. History is largely a record of crime, war, disease and terror. The universe is running down. All stories will come to nothing. All life will turn out in the end, to have been a transitory and senseless contortion upon the idiotic face of infinite matter. Many people that you work with think like that. If you ask me to believe that this is the work of a benevolent and omnipotence spirit, I reply that all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Either there is no spirit behind the universe or else a spirit and different to good and evil or else an evil spirit. You can mumble on, grumble and complain and argue and debate and protest anything and everything you won't. But at the end of the day, all of us will kind of end up with an ultimate final exam question that will have to answer. And C. S. Lewis gives it to us in multiple choice for So here's the multiple choice answers. There is no God. A be God is indifferent to good and evil. See, God is an evil spirit now, many really. Statistically, most people in the world have no problem with those three answers. They'll pick one and run with it. They're they're comfortable with one of those things being right, But you have to do something with Jesus. That's that's always the ranch. It's always the problem. You have to do something with Jesus. See, Jesus demands a letter D. He demands another answer in the question, because Jesus made clear and bold declarations about the character and nature of God, the kind of declarations that demand that a letter D gets thrown in there. There is one God and there is no other. He is God, and there is no other. Jesus made bold statements about the character and nature of God, and Jesus made a bold sacrifice for the sins of the world. And that's why C. S. Lewis also wrote this. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on level with a man who says he has a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either This man wasn't is the son of God or else a mad man or something else. You can shut him up for a full. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can follow his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. And it's because of Jesus C. S. Lewis couldn't leave just those three multiple choice questions. You see the birth and the life and the death and the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus. They all combine to make the most benevolent, most omnipotent act of love that has ever been displayed. Because the one person who walked this earth, who was perfectly innocent, bore our sins in his own body. And that changes the multiple choice. Lewis goes on to describe how he came to God. I had a notion that somehow besides questing, I was being pursued. You must picture me alone in that room at Magdelin night after night, feeling whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work with steady, unrelenting approach of him, whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed. Perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England, he goes on. The prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can Dooley adore that love, which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? Listen to this the hardness of God. It's kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation. In other words, the one true Godthat no one else compares to, that God is compelled that you would be free. He's compelled that you would be free. How compelled he sent his own son to bear our sins in his body. God is compelled that you would be free. Can I just say that your spouse and your parents and your kids and your pastor and your politicians and the coolest people that you've ever known. They are not compelled that you would be set free the way the one true God of the universe is compelled to give you freedom. It's his character. It's his nature. It's who he is. Could you hear the sounds of someone six All through Lewis's story, the sovereign kindness of God pursuing him, the sovereign kindness of God helping him? No the way and find the way and follow the way. Listen to the words of the love letter again, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous. But there's a second part to Verse six. The psalmist goes on, but the way of the wicked will perish. Well, we just left the love letter part right. We've we've moved on to the non love part, right? Or did we let me ask you a question. Think of who you trust the most in life. Who's that person that you just their name, their face just last in your mind. Let me ask you, Do you trust them because they have a pattern of lying to you, or do you trust them because they have a pattern of telling you the truth, Who do you trust? You trust people that lie to you, or do you trust people that tell you the truth? Osama's is telling us the truth. Jesus wasn't is a way maker, and Jesus wasn't is a truth teller. And this is what Jesus said. Matthew, seven, enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad. That leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it many. But then he goes home for The gate is small, and the way is narrow. That leads to life, and there are few who find it. There are only two ways to live through. The wide gate that leads to destruction are through the narrow gate that leads to life. There are no other options. And so I ask you, toe, ask your heart. Which gate have you gone through? And which path are you all? King David said it this way. But the wicked will perish, and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures. They vanish like smoke. They vanish away. There are a lot of folks that hang out at the lake a lot of folks that go to the beach. Listen to how Spurgeon describes this as for the wicked. He plows the sea and though there may seem to be a shining trail behind his keel, yet the wave shall pass over it. And the place that knew him shall know him no more forever. That's sobering. And so, again, I graciously asked, Which gate have you gone through? And which path are you all? And his believers? What do we do with this? What do we do with these two trees? The truth that there is a way for the righteous and there is a way for the wicked. What do we do with these truths? I was reading something this week about a husband and wife that I live in a very dangerous Islamic country. It is very dangerous for them to in any way live out their faith and share the gospel. How dangerous? Well, this is the description I read each morning when this husband and wife part ways, they acknowledge to one another that it might be the last time they see each other because of the gospel, but not just randomly, but because they live in a place where, when they leave every morning, they acknowledged their love to one another because it could be the last time they see each other because of the gospel, because they know that if they're caught or captured or arrested, are found doing anything in the name of Jesus, they could be brutally and repeatedly abused and tortured and possibly executed and yet notice each morning. That means every morning they get up and they do it all over again. They go back out and they look for some way. They pray for some way to help someone find the narrow Okay, every day in the face of danger. This couple lived in United States for a time, and not long after they had been here, the wife went to the husband and pleaded with him, Can we please go back? Can please go back? Can we go back to the place that it is immensely dangerous for us to follow? Jesus, can we go back there and why? This is what she said. It's like there's a satanic lullaby playing here and the Christians are asleep, and I feel like I'm falling asleep. Please, let's go back Christian. We have in the pages of the Bible, not just in someone but throughout this consistent truth that the way of the wicked leads to perishing and destruction. And we have the news that can change their way. And so let us not listen to the lullaby of the enemy and fall asleep rather with grace and mercy and love. Let us speak the truth. Let us live out the truth. Let us do all we can to help others find the narrow gate. I was walking out too. My car the other night here at the office, and I got by the end of the playground and look down in the sand and someone had written in the sand. They had written this little note and it said, I love you. I took it personal, you know? I don't know who's met for, but I was like, All right, I'll take that. Yeah, that's got to be love. Yeah, all right. I was pretty happy walking out of my car, but you know, is the week has gone on and we've had some rain and some wind and our campuses is fully used all the time. That that sand has moved around and the note has started to disappear. Can I? Just with everything that isn't may let you know this. That when God wrote you a love letter he did not write it in sand. He carved it in the chief cornerstone. He made sure that his message of love could never be erased. He made his message into the rock of ages who cannot change like the shifting sand. He is the king of kings. He is the Lord of Lords. His name is Jesus and his love is not random. His love Waas and his love is meant for you. For you He bore his in his body. He bore your sins, your sins in his body, your sense in his body. There is no greater love than that. And there is no greater hope than that. And no matter what the difficulty, no matter what the evil, no matter what the tragedy, there is nothing that can ever erase love of Jesus