You know, I admire people like Jesus to stand up for a cause. I want to go through a few names. People who lived their life for something that was meaningful to them. They had human flaws, but they stood firm. They stand, they stood up. So I think about Jesus. My, sermon today is those two words.
Stand firm. I want to talk about, I read a biography on these people. It moved me because again, it's not who I am. You know, Martin Luther King was born Michael King, he was born Michael King Jr. But, when he was young, about five, his dad went to Berlin on a, as a minister, on a tour, a multinational tour.
He looked into Martin Luther, and he was so moved by Martin Luther's effort to change the traditions of the church at that time, that he came back and changed his name and the name of his son. So, Michael King Jr. became Martin Luther King. Later, he joined a debate team, and he learned how to, how to speak from his father and from this, these experiences. He obviously became a great spoken man, a man who made a mission, whose mission stands today. He did this through peaceful demonstrations. Cesar Chavez organized Mexican and Philippine workers, farm workers, who were being taken advantage of, who were working under harsh conditions of labor, low pay, around chemicals, pesticides and other things.
He organized peaceful boycotts and it changed, it changed things. It gave people hope and a future. It gave them a better life and he stood for that. But again, peacefully, Abraham Lincoln, after winning the southern capital of Richmond, Virginia, he told his security that he wanted to walk the streets and they said, we can't let you do that because you're the 6 foot 4, which is pretty tall in that time.
Then you had the hat on top of it. It was the perfect target.
All the people who had been emancipated were surrounding him in joy. But the people that lived in the city were scowling at him. He was a target, but what he's looking for is peaceful reconstruction. He wanted to rebuild what had been done, and he wasn't worried about himself. Mother Teresa learned five languages to be effective.
In fact, she moved to Ireland to learn English. She could have had a peaceful, restful life there. She was even involved in missionary stuff in Ireland, but she didn't want to stay. Her heart was in India. She moved back there, and she established 4, 000 nuns in 133 countries with peaceful compassion for those that didn't have hope or future, the poor, the children, the lepers, those that felt like there was nothing to live for, she gave hope.
Then recently, Alex Navami. In Russia, I read his story because it really, it moved me because in August of 2020, he was poisoned and it was pretty obvious what had happened that he had gotten poisoned for his stance on anti corruption, but he had a family. He had a wife and 2 kids, he could have stayed in Germany where he was recouping and recovered from that poisoning, but he wanted to go back to Russia.
He wanted to make a difference. A few weeks or last week at 47, he died after peaceful resistance. He chose to go back.
You see a short testimony about me. I'm a quitter. I'm the oldest of five. I grew up in Minnesota. I quit. I quit everything. I had one hero in life. It was my grandfather when he died in a fire when I was in middle school.
I didn't care. I didn't care about school. I didn't care about family. I didn't care about friends. I went into a deep, dark hole. For the rest of that time in high school, I was bullied. I got bullied, you know, every day. I hated going to school. Every day was a bullying session. I felt hopeless, but I started to make some changes.
I joined the military. It was the one place where I knew I couldn't quit. They wouldn't let you quit. You woke up in the morning and there's fences. The fences aren't to keep people out.
They kept me in. But, I learned not to quit. Then, instead of going back home to Minnesota, where my friends were still not doing a great thing, I took a chance to move to Arizona. Traveled around, found a place. No job, no girlfriend, no friends, no home, just showed up with a backpack after the military and started over.
Then I met Susan. If you know my wife, she's the non quitter. I think opposites attract, because the non quitter kept the quitter from quitting. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm up here right now. Sorry. That was on me. You know, then I found a church, this church and God. I say it in that order because I would come to church, but I really wasn't connecting with God, but over time and sticking with it, I got involved in knowing that I have a true relationship with God.
I'm so happy to have been part of this. No matter what you're facing right now, no matter what you feel, don't give up. Stand firm. I want to talk about four verses. I'd like you to look at four verses today. I'm going to try to give them to you in advance. James 5. There's four very key people in the New Testament.
There's actually more, but we have James, Peter, Paul, and Jesus. I want to read a scripture from each of them pertaining to standing firm. In James chapter 5, starting in 7, it says, Be patient then, brothers and sisters. Until the Lord's coming, see how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.
You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. You know, in today's world, we've kind of created an instant society. When I was growing up, there was no microwave. It was a stove. When we did go to church, which wasn't very often, my mom would take a roast and put it in the oven on slow cook.
When we got home from church, that roast took up the whole house. It just made your mouth water. But I remember that. I can, if I smell that smell. You know how certain smells bring back memories? If I smell roasted meat, that's kind of being back in my kitchen. You know, we had encyclopedias and dictionaries.
There were people that made a living coming to your door with encyclopedias. Just so you know, if you're younger, people would haul these wagons of books up, and you could go through them and then buy a set that would last for life. But you had to do that. You had to go to dictionaries to look up words.
It wasn't the internet. Certainly it wasn't. We had landlines. We had landlines with cords.
My mom, who loved to be on the phone, was so excited she got a 30 foot cord. She could travel the whole kitchen. That was her domain and be on the phone, and as kids, we'd just duck under the wire.
We didn't have answering machines. If you missed the call, you had no idea who called.
We, we went to the store. We didn't do anything online. You had to go touch, you had to, I don't know how you buy fruit and vegetables online. You gotta shake it, you gotta squeeze it.
We wrote a check. We, we didn't tap a card. You had to get the checkbook out and write something out. And then they verified it with your license to make sure that it was there. It was time consuming. Now we have drone deliveries coming out. We have home robots, self driving cars, the AI, like I mentioned, to do your work or schoolwork.
We have virtual reality. So how lazy are we going to be? You sit in your chair, you have the remote control, that's covered, you can order online, it's delivered, it's paid for, the home robot gets it, brings it to you, cleans up after you, sit in there, you can walk around with your Vision Pro on and live in a different world.
How lonely and empty are we going to be? When is it going to end? You know, everything is so instant that I think we forgot that patience isn't a bad thing. The Bible talks a lot of patience. Noah, a lot of patience before that, the ark was built. Abraham to become a father. The new, the promised land.
Everybody goes, oh, they had the promised land. You know what, the promised land had to be fought for. They waited 40 years and all those people disappeared. And the new group had to go in and fight for it. It wasn't given to them. They didn't walk in, everybody cleared out of the way. Had to fight for it. We don't have patience.
But I've seen in this congregation over the years, the people that did have patience that waited and were taken and I'm going to mention some names today. Please forgive me. I can't mention everybody in every way. These are just things that came out, but if I, if I think of the people that were here that are now gone, I think of Angela who left last week.
Incredible amount of pain. Sometimes you just, you're almost happy for them because they're not facing what they were facing. Jerry Jones, Joe Reed, Jeanette Shields, Rose Champion. Quick story about Rose, she just smiled. She lived in a big iron chair, but she could come to church and she just drew people to her because she smiled.
Same with Donald Powell, confined to a wheelchair his whole life, given odds of not making it through childhood, and he lived up until his fifties. Dani Curns, and again, it's not a complete list. I want, as I finish up with this part, to turn to 1 Corinthians 15. Because patiently waiting on each other, I mean, I just think we're losing something that Jesus considered valuable.
If we have patience, Then we can bear with it with one another when somebody does something that irritates us. We can look after one another. When you don't see somebody, you can actually go find them and say hi to them. Give them a hug. This, this, everything being virtual is scary to me. 1st Corinthians 15, 58.
This is Paul. Paul's turn. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. No, he's watching. Sometimes we want acknowledgment from people. I do. If I'm going to put a tip in a jar, I'm going to make sure they're watching me do it.
You ever seen, I don't know if there's any Seinfeld fans, but the character George is going to put a dollar and he's waiting for the guy to look at him, so he's got the dollar over. The minute he drops the dollar, the guy turned around. So now he's, he's thinking. Wait, I want him to know I gave him a tip, so he reaches his hand back in the jar to pull the tip in so he can re put it in, but gets caught and gets accused of stealing the tips.
I want the wave. If I let you in the traffic, I want that. Hey, thanks buddy. They don't have to know my name. They don't have to stop and shake my hand. Just say, just give me the wave. If I open the door, just say thank you. You know, I want that kind of thanks, but then I want mercy when I goof up. Now God sees it all.
He sees, He knows what counts. And while we're looking after, a lot of times the people on the stage get all the credit. Sometimes good, sometimes not so much. But there are so many of you that have served in children's ministry. Some of you raised in children's mouths, but it goes on and on. I think of all the people helping with sound and all the people helping with ushering and David back there, David and Ryan.
David is always picking things up. David's probably the tallest guy in the church. If you can't find them, just look above everybody else. He's always serving, always smiling, never. Darren Smith, who stands in the back, always ushering. Eric Southern did that for years, and Eric's down here right now, and he can't right now, but he would.
You'd have to pry him out. I think of Virginia and Rachel and my daughter in law, Tana, went to Atlanta, somewhat on their own dime, just to learn more about children's ministry. Stand firm. God's watching. As we look at what Peter says in 1 Peter 5, I want to commend you. This is not a spectator church.
This is not a church you just come in, fold your arms and go, Oh, I didn't like that at all. They're going to be lucky if we ever come back because that was not entertaining. That was not informative. It's about God. It's not about us. It's not about me. It's not about me today. It's very awkward. Honestly, it's very, very awkward.
It's emotional. It's awkward to be up here. Because I don't want this part of it. I like the behind the scenes part of it. 1 Peter 5 Peter challenges us to remember to stand firm when suffering. Verses 8 10 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of suffering. And the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ, after you've suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.
No, life is not fair. I remember my kids when they were growing up. It's not fair she got the bigger piece. It's not fair he got the staff laid. It's not fair he got this first. It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair. Now I just spent a week with my grandkids in Florida at Disney World and I heard it's not fair.
Now it's from my grandkids. I said, how do you like them apples? Because now it's not on me.
It's not on me anymore.
But I know some of you are hurt. Some of you are physically hurt, emotionally hurt. spiritually hurting, and yet you're here, or you're online. That's a start. Don't give up. Don't let hurt define you. There are a lot of reasons that I am standing here today, and I talked about being married to a non quitter, but we also had an agreement early on.
We had an agreement, Susan and I, that only one of us could be down at a time. We can only have one of us be in a pit, in a spiritual pit, at a time. Because if we were both in a pit, things were going to go really bad. Because then we'd start biting on each other. So, there was, I remember a time the church was in a really bad place, and real hard struggles, she was in a funk, and I go, You gotta get out.
It's my turn.
We'd laugh at that, but it worked. It kept us around. You know, we could not both be in a funk. If it was, it'd be very short and get out of it, because there was too much at stake with our kids. So many people here, so if you don't have that now, whether it's a roommate, or a friend, or a family member, or your spouse, make that part of your deal, that both of you cannot be in the pit at the same time.
It won't, it won't work otherwise. You need someone, we need each other to keep our wheels on the track. We have people going through physical hard times right now. I know Doug Hart's going through some things right now, and it has nothing to do with politics. I know that, I know that there's things going on with Katie Reed having cancer, and Arlene Hodge, and Barb, and Vern Cam, Vern's back there, my Kama'aina, from Hawaii.
There's a lot of people going through suffering. Again, I can't mention everybody. I know there are people I don't know that are going through suffering right now, that you are. Maybe it's not visible. I know Jamie Harris and others that just hurt all the time. There's just the, the body is fighting against what you want.
What you really want is to be healthy and happy and you can't have it. You just, maybe it's not going to happen physically, but spiritually, you can always be healthy spiritually. And as we go into the last verse, which will be in Matthew 24, God wants us to do more than just hang in there. We pray for each other.
I've had people come up to me and say, I'm praying for you. I prayed for. Over the time, so many of you, either in person, with oil, over the phone, by text, what, I've prayed for people, and I pray for people now, even though we're mostly up in Prescott, because I know it makes a difference. I know it makes a difference when you hear somebody's praying for you, but it makes a difference to God that you're being prayed for.
But Jesus reminds us what's ultimately at stake. In Matthew 24, some of his last words, starting in verse 10, says, At that time, many will turn away from the faith, and will betray and hate each other. Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.
But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. Jesus doesn't just predict this, he proclaims it. And every generation over the years has felt like this is the time. It's now.
All the conditions are right. There's earthquakes, there's floods, there's wars, there's There's no peace. There's nations against nations. I mean, when I grew up in high school, I did not have God. My family did not go to church. And like I said, I was in a deep hole. I was in a deep emotional hole. But I watched the news, and it was images of Vietnam, and how bad things were going in Vietnam.
It was images of Martin Luther King being assassinated. Robert Kennedy being assassinated. About cities burning. About rioting in the streets. The youth going against their authority and everything getting more and more intense. We still had the USSR as a threat, but it just seemed like it was just bad news every day.
Every day was just more bad news and it felt so hopeless. How could it ever get better? I don't know, God, but this must be the time. I heard people talking. There's people out there walking around with signs. At hippie fests like Woodstock. The end is near. But, kept going. It's now. It's now with Russia and Ukraine and China and Taiwan and Iran and Israel, crime, border,civility that's gone bad on airplanes and schools.
Things that are happening that we never thought could happen. It's the breakdown of society, the breakdown of the family. It's just this endless drubbing. Before it was the nightly news, which was like a half an hour. Then you get the local news. Now it's like never ending news. You want to find bad news?
It's everywhere. You want to find good news? Good luck.
The young now are lost to suicide, to drugs, to loss of trust in relationships. There's new things out there called cyber, catfishing, phishing, Cyber bullying, Swatting, smishing, if you don't know what they are, I didn't either. Look 'em up. Keep your focus on Jesus and the Holy Spirit rely on one another. The world's always gonna have problems.
I'm watching a doc documentary right now on Netflix about World War ii and that was horrible 'cause the whole world was getting involved. Then I read something about a bi, a biography on World War I. Not only was that war going on, but then you had the. Spanish flu that was taking on just as many as the war was.
Now we have another political year. But our political years don't end anymore. After the election, they'll continue.
Politics, border, crime, climate, everything. You can take your stand on those things, but you're going to be disappointed. Because every major thing that happens usually crumbles under the weight of people. Because powerful people Become powerful corrupters. There was only one person of power that stood for what was right and didn't crumble.
Didn't give in, it didn't become corrupt. That was Jesus Christ. He's the one that says, the one that stands firm to the end will be saved. His words, not mine. You know, I said in the opening, and a few other times, I was a quitter. Kept running away, looking for things. But, 40 some years ago, I came to Arizona.
I started new. When I was at my lowest, I realized that I could run anywhere. But the person I was running from was in the mirror. And wherever you run to, you're there. Now I've had a long marriage. I've got four granddaughters. Allow me to end with this. A while ago I wrote this poem because it reminded me of my life.
I want to end with this because it has meaning to me. Because I thank God for what he's done for me, and I thank God for what I'm standing in front of. It's called West. Says a man of the church was stuck in sin. He sought changes out instead of within. I'll go west to find a new place, leaving here for a change of pace.
I know now to just trust my heart. Going to Maui will be a good start. Over there I'll find my cure. Away from my past, I know I'll stay pure. But drinking and drugs soon ruled the day. Not enough work, too much play. This time I know what I lack, I'll go west to find my way back. Manila's a fine place to go, a disciplined life will help me say no.
He lived a schedule of his own making, not of giving, but only in taking. His selfish desires caused him to fail, once again having to bail. A simple life is what I will lead, I'll go west if I find what I need. Mumbai should keep me from trouble. My effort to serve is what I will double. He followed a plan all of his own.
It proved hard to do, being alone. Then his pride overcame the good, not doing what he knew he should. I think I finally figured it out. I'll go west to overcome my doubt. In Madrid, I'll increase my knowledge. I'll find what I need if I go to college. He took many classes, losing track of time. Studying hard is hardly a crime.
But burnout from the study of books got replaced by lustful looks. At last, so tired of running away, there was only one thing left to say. I'll go west to the states once again, going to the church where it all began. Finding out that I can't be apart, knowing now I can't trust my heart. Being away, he felt so lost, living his way too high a cost.
Jesus never leaves, he always stays true. He patiently waits for our love to renew. Thank you. Please stand firm.