Nothing in your hands can ever be secure. Everything in his hands must always be secure. So the way to victory in your life and in mine is to get as quickly as possible everything out of our hands and into his hands. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And Colin, we hear that and we know that we should be doing that, but sometimes it’s really hard to put everything into Christ’s hands. There’s part of us that really wants to hold on to certain things too tightly. Isn’t that true of us all? But we’re going to get to the key as to how we can release things into the hand of Christ. And the key is knowing that he’s able to guard what we trust to him. That when we put things into his hands, he doesn’t let them fall. And that conviction is the means by which we come, I think, to greater freedom in being able to trust the Lord. He is able to keep what I have committed to him. That’s what Paul says. And the more clearly you grasp that, the more you’re going to be able to trust what burdens you into the hand of Jesus Christ. So there’s a tremendous freedom that lies ahead down this path. So let’s get into the scripture together. So we’re in the second book of Timothy, chapter one. As we continue our message, final security. Here’s Colin. I want you to imagine yourself on the basketball court. And let’s just for effect, imagine that it is the last minute of the seventh game in the NBA finals. And you are under big pressure. And at this critical moment, the ball is passed into your hands. And for a split second, you can see an open path all the way to the basket. So you know exactly what you have to do. You have to take one, two, three steps and get yourself airborne and slam dunk that thing with all of the strength that is in you. Now, for those of us who have never been able to get close to a slam dunk, I am asking you to use your imagination. But you get the picture. What we’re going to try and do this morning is to take three steps that will get you airborne and bring you to a position of victory that Paul was experiencing in his own life in very, very difficult circumstances. So here we go. Step one. I have committed everything to Christ. Now, you see what he’s saying here if you look at this text? That Christ is able to guard what I have entrusted to him. He’s able to guard what I have entrusted. So there has been an act of entrusting on the part of the Apostle Paul. And the question, of course, then is what has Paul trusted to Christ? And the answer, of course, is his whole self, everything about him. Body, soul, spirit, life, ministry, friends, everything. What I have entrusted to him. I find it helpful to put what Paul says here alongside the verse that we’ve just read, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23. Paul there says something very similar to what he says to Timothy. He says to the Thessalonians, may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you see, that reminds us that being a Christian involves committing your whole self to Jesus Christ and then Christ keeping what you’ve committed to him. And Paul says that includes body, soul, and spirit. Let’s think about body, which is the easiest one, committing your physical life to God. Now, the Apostle Paul, of course, speaks about this in Romans chapter 6 and verse 13. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather, he says, offer the parts of your body to Christ as instruments of righteousness. So we’re being called as Christians to offer, to entrust our physical capacities into the hands of Jesus Christ. Then think about committing your mental, emotional, and spiritual life to God. Have you committed your mind to God? Lord, here is this mind. Let it think under the authority of your Word. What about your imagination, your creativity? Lord, you are the creator. I give the creativity that you have given to me. Let it be used to create that which is good and that which is worthy of you. What about your hopes, your dreams? Now, throughout your life in this world, your body, soul, and spirit will be subjected to great strain. You will be tested, you will be tempted, you will face great trials, and sometimes you will wonder, how can I physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually stand up under the pressure of this? How in all the world will my faith survive? Now, here’s the marvelous truth. What you’ve committed to him, he will guard. Isn’t that good news? What you’ve committed to him, he will guard. What about ministry? Commentators on this letter point out that what Paul committed to the Lord was not just himself, but everything that pertains to his life, his ministry, his teaching, his evangelism, his church planting, his converts. I mean, here is a man who knows that he has only a short time left to live, and he’s going to leave behind this legacy of ministry, people who have come to Christ, and so forth, and he’s in this position where there is so much more that he would like to have done, and how is he to find peace? And he finds peace by committing his ministry into the hands of Christ. It’s all come from his hands in the first place. Lord, here is my life’s work I committed into your hand, knowing that you are able to keep what I have entrusted to you. And don’t you think that as Paul prayed for Timothy, the younger man, every day, that Timothy also was included in what Paul committed into the hands of Christ? Timothy, I have committed you into the hands of Christ, and I am convinced that he is able to guard you as he has guarded me. You know, it is a marvelous thing to be able to commit your loved ones into the hands of Christ. To have a son or a daughter who worries you so much, and to lift him and lift her into the hands of Christ as an act of faith, and to say, Lord, I’m placing him there. Timothy, I know whom I have believed and persuaded that he’s able to keep what I’ve committed to him. Against that day, nothing in your hands can ever be secure. Everything in his hands must always be secure. That’s the principle. Paul is able to say, I have committed everything to Christ. Now, can you say that? I mean, what are you holding in your hands that’s not yet committed to him? See, here is the first step to freedom and to victory. I have committed everything to Christ. What a powerful challenge that is. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and the message, Final Security. It’s the last message in our series, One Thing I Know, all about having confidence in an uncertain age. And if you’ve missed any of the series, or you want to go back and listen again, don’t forget you can always do that by coming online. Come to our website, openthebible.org.uk. You can also find any of our messages that have already been broadcast as podcasts. Go to your favorite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to the podcast to receive regular updates. Back to the message now. Here’s Colin. Here is the first step to freedom and to victory. I have committed everything to Christ. That’s step one. Remember, three steps to get airborne, that’s step one. Step two, Christ will guard what I’ve committed to him. Now, this is what we learn from Paul’s teaching, and from his own experience, as well as from our own Christ, will guard what I’ve committed to him. Listen to what he says. I know whom I have believed, and I’m convinced that he is able to guard what I’ve entrusted to him against that day. Christ is able to guard what you have trusted to him. So, if your body belongs to him, here’s the good news. You can trust him in relation to your body. You can trust him when that body is strong, you can trust him when your body is weak, and when you take the last breath into your body, you can trust him, knowing that he will raise your body to everlasting life. It’s a promise of the gospel. And if your soul is trusted to him, you can trust him with your soul. He will guard your soul, your inner life, when your mind is spinning in confusion. He will protect your soul when emotions are rising like waves in the sea. And if your spirit is trusted to him, then he will guard your spirit. How is your faith going to survive the pressures of life? Answer, because Christ will guard your faith. How can you continue to have hope when you feel despair? Answer, because Christ will guard your hope. How can you continue to love when it seems very, very difficult? Answer, because Christ will guard your love. He will guard all that you have entrusted to him. That’s where freedom begins. A group of college students were round our house recently, and the discussion got round to the ultimate summer job for a college student. Now, someone had found, a friend of his had landed a job house-sitting for a family on the North Shore. They were paying the student $100 a day for the student simply to sit in their house while they were gone on vacation. Not bad work if you can get it. Eat the food in someone else’s fridge, sit on someone else’s sofa and watch their television and get paid $100 a day just for being there. Now, I want you, because that got my imagination going, to imagine that you are house-sitting for me, though I tell you I certainly would not pay you $100 for doing it, but I want you to imagine that you are house-sitting for me while I am away on vacation. So, you come round and I show you everything that you need to know about the house, you move your case and your stuff in, you wish me well, and I head off to the airport. Fifteen minutes later, as you’re sitting in the house settling into the stuff in the fridge and into a program on the television, the phone rings. You pick it up and you hear my voice. Hi, I say, it’s Colin, just about pulling into O’Hare, just wondered if everything’s all right with the house. Yes, yes, you say nothing has happened in the last 15 minutes. Two hours later, the phone rings again. Hi, Colin here, I’m actually up in the plane now, marvellous thing, they have these phones in the aeroplane, you know, just thought I’d make a call and make sure that everything’s all right. I think I’m somewhere over Iceland and just wanted to make sure that you remember to lock the door for the night. At night, you roll your eyes. The following morning, the phone goes again. Now you are getting seriously annoyed with me. Hi, it’s me, I say, Colin here, just thought you’d like to know that I’m over in England, just want to know is everything okay with the house. Now at this point, what are you going to do? You’re going to say something like this. Now look, you will say, you have entrusted your house to me and I have committed myself to look after it for you and frankly, I’m well able to do that. Now go and enjoy your vacation and stop phoning me up to ask if everything’s okay. I am able to look after your house. Now apply that picture to our Lord Jesus Christ. You have committed your whole self and everything about you to him. Your life and everything that concerns you is in his hand and he is well able to handle what you have trusted to him, right? Now you see, that is why David could say in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And even if, even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For even there, you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You see the freedom of that? No fear. Fear paralyzes your life. And it is perfect love that casts out fear, the Bible says, and there is only one kind of perfect love and that is the perfect love of God. And when you know that your life is in the hands, the nail-pierced hands of the one who is perfect love, you are delivered from every fear. That is how the gospel works. So three steps to victory. I have committed everything to Christ. You’ve got to take that first step before you can take the second. I’ve committed everything to Christ. Second, Christ will guard what I’ve committed to him. And here’s the third step with which we become airborne. As we’re able to say with the apostle Paul that I’m convinced, I am convinced that Christ will guard what I’ve committed to him. Notice what he says, there’s this expression of personal faith in these great truths and realities of life. I know whom I have believed and I’m convinced that he is able to keep what I’ve entrusted to him for that day. Now, you know, it is terribly easy to become convinced about the wrong things. And I’ve found it helpful to identify some things that I’m not convinced of in order to highlight more clearly in my own mind that which I truly am convinced of. So let me give you some examples and you will, I’m sure, resonate with these yourself and be able to add others of your own. I’m not convinced that I’m always right. Far from it. I’m not convinced that I always know what is best. Far from it. I’m not convinced that I always know what God is doing in my life. Far from it. I’m not convinced that everything in my life will work out as I would want it to. Far from it. But I am convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he is able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. Now, there’s a really old hymn that some of us know, I recall it from childhood years, that takes up the theme of this verse. And I know that some of us will have the music of that kind of imprinted on our minds. We’re not going to sing it, but I want simply to read the words of the verse and then invite us as a congregation in the sanctuary and in the gym to join in affirming the words of the chorus, taken from the authorised version of this great verse, to make it our confession of faith. If we with Paul are convinced of these things, then let us say so and declare our faith in the presence of God. I’ve revised the words just slightly to make them a little clearer for today, but some of you will recognise these words. Let me read the verse and then each time, will you express your confidence in Christ and take your stand with the Apostle Paul as aloud we affirm the truth that we have been learning together? Here’s the song. I don’t know why God’s wondrous grace to me has been made known, or why unworthy as I am he claimed me as his own, but I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. Here’s the next statement of what I don’t know. I don’t know how this saving faith to me he did impart, or how believing in his word brought peace within my heart, but I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. I don’t know how the Spirit moves, convincing us of sin, revealing Jesus through the word, creating faith in him, but I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. I don’t know what the future holds, or what’s in store for me, the joys and sorrows on the road before his face I see, but I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. I don’t know when my Lord may come. I don’t know when or where. If I shall pass the veil of death or meet him in the air, but I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. Now, do you know this final security in your life? Because to find your way through life in this world, you need this more than anything else. You need to be able to take your stand with the Apostle Paul, and therefore to be able to face anything. So, what do you need to commit into his hands today, so that as it’s committed, you can know that he’ll guard it, and knowing that he’ll guard it, you can take your stand with Paul, say, I’m convinced, he’s able, and he will not fail. And he will not fail. Pastor Colin Smith there, ending our series with the question, where is your security? Do you have the confidence in Christ so that you can face anything and everything that comes your way? In Christ, you can, and that’s what we’ve been exploring in this series, One Thing I Know, Christian confidence in an uncertain world. And if you’ve missed any of the series, you can always catch up or go back and listen again online. Come to our website, openthebible.org.uk, or find it as a podcast. You’re on your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe for regular updates. Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners, people just like you. And as we begin a new year, if you’d like to support Open the Bible in a regular way, you can do that by setting up a regular donation to Open the Bible of £5 per month or more. In return, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free gift. And that’s a book called Psalms by the Day. It’s by Bible scholar Alec Mottier. This book takes you all the way through the book of Psalms, written in a daily devotional format. Colin, what makes this book so special? Oh, without question that it was written by Alec Mottier. And I know a lot of folks listening to the programme won’t know that name. But, you know, when I was a teenager, I used to listen to old cassette tapes of Alec Mottier opening up the scriptures. I used to sit with a typewriter and I’ve still got notes that I made from all those years ago. And he has been a lifelong guide through the scriptures for me. I buy anything that was published by Alec Mottier. He’s with the Lord now, but he was a godly, wonderful, wonderful scholar and preacher. And this book on the Psalms that takes you through the Psalms, you can read one a day. He gives his own translation of the Psalms that just brings out some fresh meaning. He comments on words and applies them. And some of his devotional thoughts, just the applications that he makes from the Psalms are just wonderful. Anytime I’m speaking on the Psalms, I go to Alec Mottier as one of the sources. And I find invariably that he gives the most wonderful help. So this is a great resource. It’s something that’s very rich in my life. And it’s just a joy to me that we’re able to share it with others. Well, again, the book is called Psalms by the Day by Alec Mottier. And it’s our gift to you if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again next time. Does it feel as if your life with God has gone through a long period of disruption? Find out how to make a new beginning next time on Open the Bible.