I thank God and praise Him for giving us again this special privilege of worshipping Him together this morning.

As most of you know, St. Paul wrote lots of letters to encourage Christians while he was in jail. And, this letter to the Philippians is one of them. I am sure that while he was writing these letters his trial had been postponed for quite a long time. But, the amazing thing is that he was not at all discouraged by this. He must have been very weak and close to death, however, he was not knocked out! Circumstances did not influence him at all. In other places in the Bible, he said that everything would turn out for the good.. We tend to be deeply influenced by the situations we find ourselves in. Paul was somehow different.

I remember the great speaker of God, Charles Spurgeon. For some reason, his original plans had not worked out. He couldn't enter a university he wanted to be in. Instead, he was sent to a church with a fellowship of only 14 people. That area, where this church was located, was infamous for having many "sinners". And, once in a while, drunken people would come to interrupt the church services, or so it seemed..

However, God's hand was with Spurgeon; in a few months, over 200 people began to gather together there to worship the Lord! Charles wrote a letter to his parents, which read, 'going to university was not good for me. Now God's blessing my work in this church.'

Here is another Christian who succeeded under apparent hardships: Miss Fanny J. Crosby was a blind woman. She could not see at all. We can find her name beside many of the hymns in our hymnbooks today. It must have been a great burden for her not to see. We would expect it to be easier to compose music or lyrics when we feel happy. However, being under this dark situation, Fanny was still able to write songs praising God one after another. She had endless joy coming out of her from within.

I know many other Christians who have been victorious in hard situations. As Christians, we can still find lots of things to feel happy about. However, visible, and sometimes invisible, things change easily. Then, we tend to feel sorrowful, or depressed. Yet, here is one thing that we can definitely always feel happy about: refer to Lu.10:17-20. We experience many happy things, but the truth that our names are registered in Heaven among those who will live forever with God is by far the greatest. What good is anything if we cannot gain life in Heaven? Our unchangeable joy is that we are saved! And this is the security that everyone should have.

In some church in the United States, they had a play that had something to do with this salvation; very suddenly two people died in an accident. They stood together in front of the gate of Heaven, and met a guard, who checked to see if their names were in the Book of Life. Of course, one of these two did have their name in the book, but the other did not. The one whose name was found was quickly admitted, but the one whose name was missing was told that their future was to go to the dark place. The play ended there, and the pastor of that church then asked those who were watching if they wanted to accept Jesus Christ into their lives. Through this ministry, many people turned to the Lord, and came to know Jesus. Eventually, a revival occurred in that church. Yes, our firm joy is that our names are in the Book of Life!

St. Paul was happy about everyone who was serving God by preaching the Gospel, even though some of these people were acting out in jealousy to Paul. As long as the Good News was being spread out, helping them to find their true salvation in Jesus Christ, it did not matter to Paul why those preachers were preaching the truth. Good was still being accomplished. Any kind of way of approaching people about the truth of our salvation through Jesus is possible. Distributing tracts to the same house for a week or so, might lead to the occupants becoming curious. There are so many ways to reach out to people! We must not be discouraged; there is a way! Pray to God for ideas!

This month, a certain singing group is going to be singing gospel songs in Oita. This group is non-Christian. I hope and pray that through their singing, even they will come to know the REAL God.

In our own ways, let us reach out to the people who haven't found Jesus yet.

Translated by Junko Okamoto - Edited for the Net by Shido
For another sermon see: Oita Evangelical Christ Church
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