Leaning

[00:00:09] Hey, everybody. Pastor Chuck Allen here with another weekday podcast. And today I want to talk about arms. I know that sounds a little weird, but don't you remember the hymn when you were a kid growing up in church called Leaning on the Everlasting Arms? This week at Vacation Bible School here at Sugar Hill Church, our kids have been relearning that old song with a new tune, and it sparked something in me. So good morning or afternoon or whenever you're listening to this. I'm really glad you're here today. As we talk about arms, specifically arms that hold you, let me remind you again about this old hymn. You've probably sung it maybe a little. Little, you know, clapboard church somewhere, maybe a funeral, maybe at a camp as a kid. Maybe you're. Some guy was playing guitar slightly out of tune, or organ or piano, it didn't really matter. But the. The song Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. But Alicia Huffman wrote this. In 1887, the friend named Anthony Showalter had just received two letters on the same day. Two different friends, both had lost their wives on the same day. And Showalter didn't know what to say. [00:01:20] So he wrote to Hoffman and he said, what do I tell these men? And Hoffman wrote back and quoted, Deuteronomy 33:27. The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. [00:01:35] Let's just stop and let that sit for a minute. Deuteronomy 33:27. Let me read it again. The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. Did you get that? Under you? Not beside you, not ahead of you, under you. Think about what that means for a second. When everything drops away, when the bottom falls out, when you get that phone call or that diagnosis, or you sit in your car in a parking lot, you don't even know how to go back inside. [00:02:05] Under you, the arms are already there. This is what the hymn is trying to say. Not that life won't hurt, not that the hard things won't come, but that underneath all of it, underneath the grief, underneath the anxiety, underneath the weight of whatever you're carrying today, there are arms, everlasting arms. [00:02:25] So think about those everlasting arms. The apostle Paul understood something about this. In Romans, chapter 8, he asked this wild question. He says, can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? [00:02:37] And then he just starts listing things. Does it mean he no longer loves us? If we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger? Or threatened with death. He's not being rhetorical. He's naming real things, real suffering. He's naming real fear. And then he says in Romans 8, 35, and 37, no, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ Jesus, who loved us so. Overwhelming victory. I'm not barely surviving, not quite knuckling through it all. Overwhelming, because you're not holding on alone. The hymn has this great line, what have I to dread? What have I to fear? Leaning on the everlasting arms. And I love that because it's not saying fear doesn't exist. It's asking, given this, given these arms, given this God who is underneath you right now, what is the fear, Fear actually up against? [00:03:33] And the answer the hymn keeps landing on is this safe and secure from all alarms, not from all difficulties, not from all pain. Safe, secure, hold. [00:03:45] If we just hold right there, we realize we're held. [00:03:49] So hold on to that. You're held. [00:03:51] Jesus put it this way. In John 10, he said, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he's more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them. That's you. That's your name in that sentence. So wherever you are today, whether you're doing great and just need a reminder or whether you're hanging on by a thread and you needed someone to say this to you this morning, here it is. You are not failing. You are being held. The arms were there before you needed them. [00:04:30] They'll be there long after that. [00:04:33] That's what everlasting means. Lean into that today. Literally. Take a breath, let your shoulders drop, and lean into the eternal. God is your refuge, and in his everlasting arms they are under you. [00:04:49] The verse that started a hymn, the hymn that's been sung for 140 years, because some truths just keep being true. Have a great day, y'. All. Thanks so much for listening in on today's weekday podcast.