When God gets the Gold medal, you get the blessings!

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Welcome back to the Iron Saints Podcast with your host, Dan Willis.

Welcome back, saints, and I am happy to say welcome to the 50th episode of the Iron Saints Podcast. For all of you that have been here from the go, a huge thank you to you guys. To all of you that are just joining in now, welcome. So for those of you that are new, it is a daily podcast that we do.

We've been walking through the Book of Luke.

Eventually we're going to get to the end of Luke here, and we're going to head into Acts, and then from there, sky's the limit. Probably head into the epistles and go through those, but we'll we'll see where we're at after we get through Luke and Acts. If you want to go back and start from the start of Luke, please go ahead and do that. I have made a point to break down the podcast episodes by season, so season one will be Luke, season two will be Acts, and then from there I'll have them listed out. But if you're happy to just hop in wherever we are, great, no problem. Glad to see you there again, guys. A huge thank you to all of you who have been leaving reviews, who have been sharing the podcast out. It's definitely showing, and I'm really loving a lot of the feedback that is coming in on this. So thank you so much for that, guys. But now let's get down to it.

50th episode, here we go. Grab your Bibles, grab your coffee. Let's do this. As always, guys, I will be reading from the ESV. You're welcome to grab your own Bible and your favorite translation or paraphrase.

For those of you guys that are on the road.

In the gym, obviously, this is for you. For me reading it out loud, we're going to start where we picked up from last episode. We were talking about Jesus speaking to fear and where fear is supposed to be placed, and and who God is and who God should be in our lives, and that the Pharisees would come against you, or those who would in our modern-day Pharisees, those who would persecute you will come against you and. How having your fear in the right place can alleviate some of that tension, some of that anxiety. But he keeps going here, so we're going to get back into some parables here and a little bit more teaching. So someone in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich A rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, what shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. And he said to his disciples, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more in value are you than the birds? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do a small thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you? Oh, you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, Seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in heavens that does not fall, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart also be. So how is that for an interesting twist?

We go from Opening up Luke 12 with a diatribe on fear, a lesson on fear and hypocrisy and where that should be.

And here we get smacked right back with a fear not. And again, it always plays together, right?

It's great.

And especially in Luke, I find this all the time that these, these are all grouped together and you almost wouldn't see it in the parable of the rich fool. You also don't see it as he's talking about, you know, your needs. You've got this, you've got that. Don't worry, the Lord will provide for you.

And then bam, fear not.

But again, we have to take that in context of what we had just read. When it comes to fear, what we read at the start of Luke 12 was when you have your fear firmly fixed on God, the fears of this world are that much less. And here where he's saying fear not, he's not saying have no fear.

He's saying don't fear where your wealth is going to come from, where your posterity, your clothing, your food, your worldly possessions—

don't fret those things.

Don't be anxious about those things. Instead, be anxious about me.

Put me first and all the rest will follow.

Put everything else first, And you're in a rut, you're stuck.

I know for myself, guys, I have done this over and over again.

I can see the ebb and flow over the last 15 years where in a season of doubt, in a season of trial, I cling very closely to God. Our family clings very closely to God. And then for a short season, we see things come back our way and we are blessed.

But in that time, I wouldn't say that we cling nearly as closely to God as we had been through the trial. And where do we end right back up?

Back in the trial.

And I—

there are some folks that are able to just constantly be clinging to God endlessly.

They don't get distracted with the things of this world. And power to you guys. Uh, you're stronger men than I. Um, for those out there that are struggling daily with, where am I going to get a job? Where am I going to get work? How do I provide for my wife, my kids, myself?

I understand what it's like to have that pile up. The only assurance I can provide you here is first scripture saying, if we focus on God first, hit prayer, hit scripture, do the thing he's calling you to do. If you're working a job that in no way uses the God-given gifts that he's supplied you with, maybe that's him telling you you need to pursue that.

Maybe if—

I mean, there's so many things out there, guys.

Yeah.

All I know is this: when you do what Scripture says, amazing things happen. What he's asking for you to do here is understand he cares for the things that don't matter.

He's going to care for you.

All you have to do— and again, this isn't a salvation thing. You have to do this to be saved.

There's nothing that you have to do in order to be saved.

This is about your fret, your fear over worldly things.

God's saying you don't have to.

Don't have to do that. It'll be okay.

I have you. I'll hold you. You'll be all right. Just put me first and the rest will be okay.

So challenge for the day: check your priorities. What's number one for you? What's number two? It's going to make all the difference in the world. And if you don't have the things in the proper priority, don't be surprised when the trials come your way. And when you do, don't let it slack. Just because things are going good doesn't mean that trials aren't around the corner.

Let's get to prayer here, guys.

So we are still regularly taking prayer requests. Uh, the social media, email, all that stuff is down below.

If you go on the website for the podcast, there is a form there that you can fill out if you have a prayer request.

I have made the decision to do the prayer requests anonymously.

It seems like the majority of prayer requests that come in ask to remain anonymous, so I'm going to honor that and just make it a general rule. That way everybody has that reassurance. Unless somebody explicitly asks to be prayed for by name, I'm going to be praying for people anonymously moving forward. But, uh, if you do have prayer requests, don't hesitate to reach out on social, reach out by email or the website, and I'm happy to include your prayer requests in each Episode. Lord, thank you so much for today. Just thank you so much for all the men that are listening. Thank you for you and putting you first and all the amazing things that come with that, Lord. Thank you for the blessings that you show us. Thank you for the trials that you give us. I pray for the men today that have you first, that they would continue to cling to you, Lord, that they would hold you first in all things. They wouldn't waver in that. For those that have placed you second or third or fourth, Lord, I pray that they would come back to you today, that they would come back to your word, they would come back to prayer, they would honor you, Lord. They would find so much pleasure and so much joy in giving you the glory. Thank you so much for the conviction to start this podcast, Lord. Thank you for the thousands of men that have listened. From all over the world. Pray for the persistence to continue to be here and to continue to do this, Lord, that I place you as a priority. I pray, place this fellowship of men as a priority. In your name we pray.

That's it for today, guys.

I hope you have an amazing day and I will catch you tomorrow with another episode.

Thank you for listening to the Iron Saints Podcast. If you are looking to share your prayer requests, check the description for social media or email to contact the show. Blessings on you all until next time.