In this devotional sermon, M.t. Clark opens with a photo of a shoreline path, using it as a metaphor for the journey of Christian discipleship. He reflects on recent personal loss—a memorial for an 80‑year‑old relative—and shares his own deep grief from the death of his infant son in 2002, describing how that tragedy led him to abandon his shallow Catholic/Episcopal faith and live a prodigal lifestyle. After years of depression and material coping, he recounts a conversion experience in 2010, emphasizing that walking through "the valley of the shadow of death" is only bearable with God. Clark affirms the constancy of God—truth, love, eternal—and urges listeners to seek Him for meaning, peace, and forgiveness. He cites Psalm 31:19 (NLT) to illustrate God’s stored goodness for those who fear Him, and stresses that true security comes from Christ, not worldly pursuits. The sermon includes multiple calls to action: visit mt4christ.org, read A.W. Pink’s The Sovereignty of God, engage with discipleship podcasts (Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ), study the “Who I Am in Christ” label, and join weekly Bible studies. The talk concludes with a heartfelt prayer asking God to guide the day and remind listeners of their identity in Christ.
Chapters
To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a shoreline pathway under blue skies decorated with gossamer-like clouds comes to us from Fred Dimmick, who shared this scene from his hike along Persimmon Creek in North Carolina on social media, commenting that come spring the water levels would be up to the tree line. Just a couple of weeks ago, Fred had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix, so we are happy to see that, like this shoreline pathway, that medical episode was only temporary, as he obviously has been back on his feet and sharing his views of the world again. Well, it's Thursday, and I used Fred's photo because it highlights a pathway of sorts, and it points to the changing state of our world. As we go forward through time and space on the pathway of Christian discipleship, people and places come and go. And we, although, although we may feel, uh, that not much changes from day to day, things can happen quite suddenly that changes things forever. Yesterday I attended the memorial service for a relative who walked this earth for 80 years, and the people gathered to remember him gave testimony to the amount of people who his life touched, but his walk on the earth has been diverted to eternity. And even though his loved ones could count on his steady presence in their lives for decades, they will now have to get used to walking through their lives without him. His widow and his sons, uh, were very gracious and friendly in greeting all the people who came out to mourn the loss of their loved one, but their sorrow was evident, and their grief will continue as they adjust to the new normal without their husband and father in their life. The quick pace of our world can be rather unsympathetic, as those who suffer loss are more or less forced to move on with their lives in the face of devastating losses. I have the utmost sympathy for my relative's immediate family because I remember well the altered state of reality and depression that I entered back in 2002 when my infant son Holden died. You only get so much time for bereavement, and then the world expects you to get back to work and carry on. Everyone grieves differently, as everyone's losses are highly individual. But I know now that when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it makes a huge difference when you walk through it with God. When I lost my son, I wasn't exactly born again. My lapsed Catholic confirmed Episcopalian faith was pretty shallow. And when I suffered his loss, I was filled with sadness and anger, and I abandoned God and the church. I guess my faith was pretty conditional. After living the wild life of a prodigal, I returned home with a desire to find peace and love. I eventually met my ex, and when we decided to get married and have children, we decided that it was best to go back to church. I was thrilled with the idea of going— I was not thrilled, hang on, I was not thrilled with the idea of going to the back to the Catholic Church. And when she offered the Catholic-lite alternative of the Episcopalian Church, I enthusiastically agreed to switch denominational teams. I really liked our extremely liberal Episcopalian church, and even though my faith was no deeper than when I was a Catholic, I prayed sincerely and we attended service regularly. I had a sense that I had made peace with God. We got married in the church and began to have kids. Life was good. Um, granted, I was still a recreational drunk, but I figured me and God were good. But then my son died, and And even though I blamed myself for his death because I should have "known" that the doctor was wrong, that my son was in mortal danger despite his positive diagnosis over the weekend before his death, I still had enough bitterness to blame the Lord for not answering my prayers to heal him. So God broke our deal. I had gone to church and I was supposed to have a good life. Because God had let me down, I was done with him. I stopped going to church and I stopped praying, or praying to, or believing in God. I walked into the valley of the shadow of death with just me, with just the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. And the world became ice cold as I saw everything as temporary, as I viewed everything as on a collision course with death. The years after my son's, uh, my son's death were a blur of depression and going through the motions. Gotta make some corrections here. And going through the motions of work, raising my remaining children. Children and trying to squeeze circumstantial happiness out of, out of the excesses of materialism, creature comforts, and alcohol and drugs. Life was temporary and apparently meaningless, so it was best to live it up. I was the responsible prodigal in my own home, working hard all day and playing hard all night in the vicious cycle of trying to carry on. I eventually stopped the madness and sought a spiritual solution, but made some poor choices there, and it was only by the grace of God, years later, that I came to Christ in 2010, 8 years after my son passed. It was a long time in the desert, and I don't recommend it. So trust me when I tell you that Christ is the only way to God, and that is only in coming to know him and his ways that we find meaning, purpose and peace. The truths of Christianity are sometimes paradoxical and can be lost in the confusion of the social constructs of the— of church life. But I am telling you that if you honestly and sincerely seek the Lord, you will find him. And if you apply his wisdom to the way you live, you will see the fruit of the Spirit grow and transform your life. God is the truth. God is love. God is eternal and he never changes, although everything in his creation does. As much as everything in this universe can be seen as temporary, God is the one constant, and he will never leave us or forsake us. So if you are suffering loss or lack meaning, don't run from the Lord, run to him. When you are on your own, you have no wisdom or power. When you look at the world with the belief that there is no God, there is no hope, and no matter what individual efforts you make to achieve happiness, they are doomed to failure, as you have neglected the source of all that is good and decided to worship yourself or the things of— things He created rather than the Creator. If you're going the wrong way, it doesn't matter how you walk or where you walk, you are lost in the desert. You are lost in the valley of the shadow of death. But there is hope. There is a light to follow. There is a Savior to save you— Jesus Christ. His coming to earth was God stepping out of eternity to wake us up to his presence and his love. So if you don't have Christ, pray to him and make him your Lord and Savior. He alone brings life. He alone brings forgiveness. He alone brings peace. And if you know him but have lost hope because of the changing circumstances of life or compounded losses, stop looking at the world and look to him and either learn or remember who he made you to be in Christ. In the face of recent losses, dashed hopes, and disappointments, it can be easy to focus on the bad. But when we look to Jesus we can find our way back on the path of peace and joy that he has for us. So keep walking and talking with God. He will remind you that you have been saved, been made complete, and lack for nothing. He will show you that you have already been set free and that the only thing that is temporary in his kingdom is pain, is the pain we feel on earth, and that a great deal of it can be lifted from us when we abide in him. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Psalm 31:19, and it says, "How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you! You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world." Today's Bible verse reminds us of the goodness that God stores up for those who fear him. And how he blesses those who come to him. The blessing of the Lord only— only come— the blessings of the Lord only come to those who fear him and come to him. We are guilty— we who are guilty of sin must fear his wrath, otherwise we would, we would not come to Christ to receive our forgiveness, new eternal life, and peace with God. We fear eternity in hell and surrender to the Lordship of Christ to be saved from that fate. Saved from hell sounds like a blessing to me. That's the protection we need. It's the protection that lasts forever and covers everything that could befall us, because although we may suffer on earth, in light, in light of eternity, we we can know that our pain is a light affliction because we will one day experience no more pain, no more tears, and no more death when we come into God's kingdom. However, God's peace does join us on earth. When we abide in his presence and live according to his truth, we are blessed with the fruit of the Spirit and the good consequences that come from righteous living. So fear the Lord by respecting His commands, by making the decision to obey Him, to receive the blessings of faithfully following the One who loves us and knows best, so you can see how great is the goodness that He stores up for us. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and today we conclude Chapter 4, The Sovereignty of God in Salvation, with the last bit of text from The Sovereignty of God, the Holy Spirit in Salvation. So, uh, if you want to see the concluding paragraphs from Chapter 4, go to mt4christ.org and you'll find that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, uh, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship because we need God in our life. We need his wisdom, we need his love, we need his presence. Because of the temporary and changing state of this world, we can easily be drawn astray to look at the pain, the suffering that surrounds us. When we focus on those things, life becomes bitter and, and sad. But we know the, the overwhelming truth of the Lord, who guarantees a life of peace in eternity, free from his wrath, free from pain and death. We know that God is good and that he's moving all things together for, for the good of those who love him. So when we focus on the happiness that the world can praying, we can, we can be disappointed. But if we remember who we are in Christ, we realize that we, we lack for nothing, that we have been saved, and that we have peace when we just focus on what God has already done for us and what he's already given us. And so we are encouraging everyone today to remember who you are in Christ. If you need to know, we have, you know, look up the Who I Am in Christ label off the website. Mtforchrist.org to get that list. I shared it a couple of days ago on the blog and had to read it myself. I do it as a spiritual practice daily, and there's a good reason for it, because we need to know who we are. We need to know what God's done for us and put our self-worth based on what God says about us, not based on our performance or the things we can accomplish in this world. When we do that, we, we find the fruit of the Spirit., growing in our lives. So we encourage everyone to do that. Uh, if you don't know who you are in Christ or what freedom in Christ means, we invite you to check out the discipleship classes that we put on the podcast for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They could be the game changer in your walk of faith. Um, so we invite to check those out. They're on the podcast and our YouTube channel. And as always, we encourage people to check out the wisdom of God for themselves by reading the Bible. We offer a Bible study as well with that we do once a week with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti, and you'll find all of our Bible studies on the podcast and the YouTube channel as well. Yeah, well, it's Thursday. My 1-day weekend is over, so now I got a 3-day work week and another 1-day weekend on Sunday. So these things are temporary and we'll get through them in and we'll take them one day at a time, but we're going to take it by walking with the Lord. So let's do that in prayer. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Thank you for the blessings of knowing you and your salvation that comes to us from, to Jesus, you know, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today because we need you. We need you to remind us of who we are. We need you to go before us and show us that there are good things here on earth to look at. There are good things on earth for us to do, but we need your help and guidance to see those things and to do those things. So we ask for you to guide our path today as we enter into another day of the work week and another day of trying to follow you faithfully, Lord. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
