WEBVTT 00:00:00.801 --> 00:00:01.342 Good morning. 00:00:01.342 --> 00:00:09.015 No, jean, I was really disappointed. 00:00:09.015 --> 00:00:18.268 Alright, I'm going to give you the choice, since it was such a slow news weekend. 00:00:18.268 --> 00:00:22.894 I'm sure everybody's concentrated on today. 00:00:22.894 --> 00:00:35.685 On today Favorite chapter, jeff and I were talking Last year we did small books and I did 2 Timothy. 00:00:35.706 --> 00:00:36.527 Which 2 Timothy? 00:00:36.527 --> 00:00:43.286 Chapter 4, which I remember is where we spent most of the time is actually my favorite chapter, so I had to readjust. 00:00:43.286 --> 00:00:52.728 I've actually got two, and you tell me which one you'd rather talk about Romans, chapter 12, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4. 00:00:52.728 --> 00:00:55.594 I'm prepared for either one of them. 00:00:55.594 --> 00:01:05.774 All right, let's go with 2 Corinthians 4, since y'all, I was going to put the pressure on Gene, but I got no Gene here today. 00:01:05.774 --> 00:01:09.146 Is he still outside? 00:01:09.146 --> 00:01:13.727 Wait, he can hear me out there, right? 00:01:13.727 --> 00:01:15.085 Doesn't it play out there too? 00:01:15.085 --> 00:01:19.468 Gene West to the auditorium. 00:01:19.468 --> 00:01:23.287 Gene West to the auditorium, please. 00:01:23.287 --> 00:01:27.106 I've worked on paging all my life. 00:01:27.106 --> 00:01:32.390 I hear that all the time, so it's like being a phone guy. 00:01:32.390 --> 00:01:34.367 I was at a place the other day and the phone rang. 00:01:34.367 --> 00:01:35.250 The girl wasn't close. 00:01:35.250 --> 00:01:36.524 I said do you want me to get that? 00:01:36.524 --> 00:01:41.662 She went no, no, I said I'm pretty well adept at answering the phone and I know how to operate it. 00:01:41.662 --> 00:01:45.453 So I was the Guernsey County Health Department that day. 00:01:45.453 --> 00:01:48.046 She said you did that really well. 00:01:48.046 --> 00:01:55.552 All right, so we're going to look at 2 Corinthians, chapter 4. 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:01.783 Paul wrote two books to the Corinthians, one Corinthian. 00:02:01.783 --> 00:02:04.251 In my Bible it's 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. 00:02:04.251 --> 00:02:09.710 The church at Corinth was very unique. 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:16.713 Do you know what the major issue at Corinth was? 00:02:16.713 --> 00:02:39.288 So if you have your Bible or your phone, flip over to 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. 00:02:39.288 --> 00:02:44.432 Where Paul tells them says more or less why are you so divided? 00:02:44.432 --> 00:02:50.918 He said some of you say I'm of Paul and some of Apollos and some of Cephas and some of Christ. 00:02:50.918 --> 00:02:53.620 They were. 00:02:53.620 --> 00:02:53.939 I'm glad to see. 00:02:53.939 --> 00:02:54.741 You can make it, gene. 00:02:54.741 --> 00:02:56.062 Did you hear my page out there? 00:02:56.062 --> 00:02:58.264 I paged you. 00:02:58.264 --> 00:02:59.646 Okay, all right, I just want to make sure. 00:02:59.646 --> 00:03:08.317 But they were divided and if you read the book of 1 Corinthians in your mind, looking at it, you'll see it's all about division. 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:14.039 They were always fighting about everything and they wanted to follow this person. 00:03:14.039 --> 00:03:15.967 Some of them wanted to follow what they said. 00:03:15.967 --> 00:03:19.246 Paul says who is it that we should follow? 00:03:19.246 --> 00:03:20.269 Who should we listen to? 00:03:20.269 --> 00:03:23.639 Jesus? 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:24.883 I mean, that's the. 00:03:24.883 --> 00:03:26.286 You know, that's the. 00:03:26.286 --> 00:03:31.383 That's where we should listen, or who we should listen to. 00:03:31.383 --> 00:03:42.965 One of the issues they had with Paul was many of them didn't believe in one his apostleship. 00:03:42.965 --> 00:03:50.009 They didn't want to listen to what he said because somebody else said something different. 00:03:50.009 --> 00:04:20.172 This was probably I'm not sure and I didn't research that I'm guessing 50 to 60 AD, 20 years or so post Jesus' crucifixion and what had already crept into the new church False teachers, right, people want to, and Paul addresses a little bit of that here in 2 Corinthians 4. 00:04:21.781 --> 00:04:34.790 In 2 Corinthians, paul spends a lot of time addressing, some people say, himself and his ego, because they treated him pretty badly. 00:04:34.790 --> 00:04:36.321 I don't necessarily. 00:04:36.321 --> 00:04:42.514 I think Paul was just trying to tell them hey, what I say comes from who? 00:04:42.514 --> 00:04:48.408 From God, and you know Paul had the uniqueness of being. 00:04:48.408 --> 00:04:57.129 Did Paul walk with Jesus while he was on the earth, like Peter and them? 00:04:57.129 --> 00:05:11.064 Did I mean, you remember how Paul was introduced to Jesus, walking down the road to Damascus, right, bright, blinding light? 00:05:11.064 --> 00:05:25.295 Some of them felt that since Paul didn't walk with Jesus, he didn't have the same authority that they had. 00:05:25.334 --> 00:05:28.321 So in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, and what time do we quit? 00:05:28.321 --> 00:05:30.266 I go so many different places that everybody starts at a different time. 00:05:30.266 --> 00:05:38.507 And 1015, okay, thank you, which is 1020, because they told me that clock was five minutes fast. 00:05:38.507 --> 00:05:51.550 Usually if I never know how long I talk because I either forget to look at the clock when I get up there, or I do look at it and then I forget what time it was when I looked at it. 00:05:51.550 --> 00:06:00.701 So in the latter part of chapter 3, paul is talking about the well. 00:06:00.862 --> 00:06:29.283 First, let me say this this is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible because it gives me great inspiration, especially when times are tough, when things are bad, and I mean how would you classify our area, our country, our world today Bad? 00:06:29.283 --> 00:06:36.723 Right, I mean, it's not good when, but we also have to. 00:06:36.723 --> 00:06:39.108 When has the world not been bad? 00:06:39.108 --> 00:06:44.456 Yeah, yeah. 00:06:44.456 --> 00:06:51.064 Well, adam and Eve were in the garden, right, and we think of how, and you know things that happened over the weekend. 00:06:51.064 --> 00:06:52.346 We think how bad that is. 00:06:52.346 --> 00:07:12.711 But you remember in the time of noah, how many, how, how did the Bible describe man then At the thought of every man was evil. 00:07:12.711 --> 00:07:14.482 Does he end it there? 00:07:14.482 --> 00:07:15.144 Does it end there? 00:07:15.144 --> 00:07:16.386 What's the next word? 00:07:16.386 --> 00:07:36.860 Continually, that's pretty bad, isn't it that everyone in the world, every one of their thoughts, was evil all the time, except the Bible does say that what I mean. 00:07:36.860 --> 00:07:38.146 Why are we here today? 00:07:38.146 --> 00:07:44.206 Because Noah found grace in the eyes of God. 00:07:44.206 --> 00:07:58.093 So when I'm feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders or I feel like no matter what I do, it doesn't make a difference. 00:07:58.093 --> 00:08:05.966 I've probably told you this story before and I'm going to tell you again because you probably don't remember before, and I'm going to tell you again because you probably don't remember. 00:08:05.987 --> 00:08:09.983 So we lived out on a farm outside of Widsfield and we had a beautiful crop of multiflora rose. 00:08:09.983 --> 00:08:13.894 Okay, had it been worth anything, we'd have been rich. 00:08:13.894 --> 00:08:28.410 So one day I because I got myself a tractor, of course I had a chainsaw and I had the they call it a surveyor's axe, a brush axe, greatest thing in the world to cut stuff down. 00:08:28.410 --> 00:08:31.550 And I said, okay, I'm going down there and clean that field up. 00:08:31.550 --> 00:08:38.083 It was probably about a 10, 15-acre field, pretty good size, 6.30 in the morning. 00:08:38.083 --> 00:08:48.203 Fire the tractor up down over the hill, come up about 6 o'clock that night just bloody from head to toe, clothes ripped you, you know, and I'm like I was feeling good. 00:08:48.203 --> 00:08:49.889 I said, oh, see what I did. 00:08:49.889 --> 00:08:57.307 And I walked down our house, set up on a little shelf said, steps down to the road and then the mailbox. 00:08:57.307 --> 00:08:58.429 You look down that field. 00:08:58.429 --> 00:09:01.601 I parked the tractor in the barn. 00:09:01.601 --> 00:09:10.908 I walk over there by that mailbox and I'm like, oh, I look down there and you know what it looked like, exactly the same way it did when I went down there that morning. 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:28.172 And that, do we not feel that sometimes in our spiritual life, like we've worked hard, it's as plain as day and yet we we get, no, we don't see any results? 00:09:28.172 --> 00:09:41.607 Now, you might not be able to tell from this, but I've been, I've been exercising in the morning and I had very limited range in this shoulder and I couldn't, I could not take this arm and raise it like that. 00:09:41.607 --> 00:09:49.303 And yesterday morning I'm out there and I'm like, wow, I can and it doesn't hurt. 00:09:49.303 --> 00:09:53.562 So Sometimes we have to do what. 00:09:53.562 --> 00:09:58.486 It just takes a little time, doesn't it? 00:09:59.596 --> 00:10:00.238 Jeremiah? 00:10:00.238 --> 00:10:01.864 How successful was Jeremiah? 00:10:01.864 --> 00:10:09.147 I mean, he wrote a book titled Lamentations. 00:10:09.147 --> 00:10:14.241 Same way with Isaiah they were not successful. 00:10:14.241 --> 00:10:17.102 Did God judge them on their success? 00:10:17.102 --> 00:10:24.360 It's just like singing. 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:25.364 I love to sing. 00:10:25.364 --> 00:10:33.440 I feel, sometimes I feel bad when you guys are sitting right in front of me because I love to sing but I can't do it. 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:36.726 Well, I can, it just doesn't sound very good. 00:10:36.726 --> 00:10:40.471 But I can't do it. 00:10:40.471 --> 00:10:41.982 Well, I can, it just doesn't sound very good. 00:10:41.982 --> 00:10:42.975 But does God judge us on our ability to sing? 00:10:42.975 --> 00:10:50.327 No, thank goodness, because I'd be in trouble, and I'm not going to quit singing. 00:10:50.327 --> 00:10:56.432 I really enjoy doing it. 00:10:57.115 --> 00:11:04.937 So, as a preacher used to say, I said all that to say and he had one time he had somebody come up to him after church and he said boy, I wish you could say that. 00:11:04.937 --> 00:11:22.624 So the next sermon he preached I think he said it like ten times Every time he'd say something he'd say I said this to say this book, this chapter, will help you. 00:11:22.624 --> 00:11:25.504 It helps me and I think it will help you as well. 00:11:25.504 --> 00:11:44.703 Kind of put, when we feel that what we're doing is not doing any good, that we're not progressing to the goal that we want to progress to, this chapter will help you. 00:11:44.703 --> 00:11:47.059 I got a half an hour. 00:11:47.059 --> 00:11:50.583 It's usually a 45-minute sermon. 00:11:50.583 --> 00:11:54.440 No, I'm just kidding, it's not and I don't have my. 00:11:54.440 --> 00:11:57.259 I was going to read today and I got no, I got no. 00:11:57.259 --> 00:11:58.283 Ron over there. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:09.903 He says in the latter part of chapter three, paul is talking about the glory of the new covenant, the. 00:12:09.903 --> 00:12:16.772 You know how, how it compared to the old and how much better the new is. 00:12:16.772 --> 00:12:23.937 Because the new covenant has what Hope? 00:12:23.937 --> 00:12:28.524 Right and biblical hope. 00:12:28.524 --> 00:12:36.803 Maybe a better word or one that helps us understand it better is assurance, because I hope the Indians win today. 00:12:36.803 --> 00:12:39.604 Oh, I'm sorry, the Guardians win today. 00:12:41.777 --> 00:12:43.081 Are any of you Indians fans? 00:12:43.081 --> 00:12:53.421 So a couple weeks ago, when they were playing Baltimore, I was listening to it on the radio and they had come back and won and Tom Hamilton goes. 00:12:53.421 --> 00:13:00.166 He called them the Indians and then he kind of stopped and he said they're playing so good I can call them whatever I want. 00:13:00.166 --> 00:13:05.679 You know, that's the first time I've heard him mess that up, but this year. 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:09.687 But they'll always be the Indians to me. 00:13:11.456 --> 00:13:15.506 So he's telling them how much they are assurance. 00:13:15.506 --> 00:13:24.541 We have the assurance of things, right, hope is well, I'm just nothing I can do about it. 00:13:24.541 --> 00:13:25.624 I hope it happens. 00:13:25.624 --> 00:13:27.206 It may or it may not. 00:13:27.206 --> 00:13:34.799 Biblical hope, when God promises us something, is what it's assured. 00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:36.621 Right, we know it. 00:13:36.621 --> 00:13:48.392 I'm not hoping that God will grant me eternal life, right, I know he's going to, I'm assured of that. 00:13:48.392 --> 00:13:53.653 Does that not make a lot of difference? 00:13:53.653 --> 00:13:56.234 It's one thing Paul will get to here. 00:13:56.294 --> 00:14:02.268 So he says, therefore, since we have this ministry as we received mercy, we do not lose heart. 00:14:02.268 --> 00:14:14.230 And again, keep in mind that Paul's fighting different factions here, some of which are completely set against him. 00:14:14.230 --> 00:14:31.796 They want nothing to do with Paul, they don't believe anything Paul says because it's different than what someone else says, and so they don't like Paul for a variety of reasons. 00:14:31.796 --> 00:14:37.303 I mean, some of them were to, you know, kind of pick on his. 00:14:37.303 --> 00:14:48.934 Evidently, from what you know history says and some of the things we can gather, paul may not have been the most imposing figure in the world, you know. 00:14:48.934 --> 00:14:52.342 He may have been a little guy, probably. 00:14:52.342 --> 00:15:00.464 Well, we know he had some type of infirmity, we don't know exactly what it was, but he did have something physically wrong with him. 00:15:02.076 --> 00:15:05.899 So Paul says we have this ministry as we receive mercy. 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:22.642 We do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. 00:15:22.642 --> 00:15:30.226 Are there people out there who use the word of God for their own gain? 00:15:30.226 --> 00:15:40.826 Are there people out there who use the word of God to influence people the way that they want them to be influenced. 00:15:40.826 --> 00:15:57.392 Yes, we know that, because I really believe there would not be how many quote unquote religions or churches would there be if no one manipulated the word of God? 00:15:57.392 --> 00:16:02.201 One that's right. 00:16:02.201 --> 00:16:03.681 There would only be one. 00:16:03.681 --> 00:16:09.414 So there, and it has been that way forever. 00:16:09.414 --> 00:16:16.506 I mean, we see it today because, well, one you know, they couldn't turn the TV on in 50 AD and see it. 00:16:16.506 --> 00:16:17.527 But we can turn the TV on in 50 AD and see it. 00:16:17.527 --> 00:16:22.581 But we can turn the TV on today, and there's a whole section of TV channels. 00:16:22.581 --> 00:16:26.750 And what is the one thing most of them have in common? 00:16:26.750 --> 00:16:30.160 What are they asking for Money? 00:16:30.160 --> 00:16:31.985 You just give me your money. 00:16:31.985 --> 00:16:36.062 You give me your money and I'll take care of you. 00:16:36.062 --> 00:16:44.466 You give me your money and God will take care of you. 00:16:44.506 --> 00:16:45.669 I've read the Bible cover to cover. 00:16:45.669 --> 00:16:47.113 I don't understand everything in it. 00:16:47.113 --> 00:16:52.561 Maybe it's in there somewhere and I've just missed it, but I'm pretty sure that it's not. 00:16:52.561 --> 00:17:01.071 So in verse 3 it says but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 00:17:01.071 --> 00:17:05.743 A veil is what A face covering? 00:17:05.743 --> 00:17:09.304 And Paul was not saying that he's doing the veiling. 00:17:09.304 --> 00:17:10.666 Who does the veiling? 00:17:10.666 --> 00:17:14.336 We do right. 00:17:14.336 --> 00:17:14.718 We do right. 00:17:14.718 --> 00:17:26.657 You know, the gospel is there, plain to see, easy to understand, right, not complete. 00:17:26.657 --> 00:17:32.528 But I mean, would god have made it difficult to follow, to understand? 00:17:32.528 --> 00:17:38.769 No, there are some people who don't want to see right. 00:17:38.769 --> 00:17:42.898 That's what Paul's talking about when he's talking about this veil. 00:17:45.042 --> 00:17:51.118 In verse 4, he says whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe. 00:17:51.118 --> 00:17:56.826 Lest the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 00:17:56.826 --> 00:18:06.068 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ, jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your bondservants, for Jesus' sake. 00:18:06.068 --> 00:18:09.440 You know the last part of that. 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:13.147 Paul was telling them he was their. 00:18:13.147 --> 00:18:17.741 What Bondservant is the word? 00:18:17.741 --> 00:18:20.859 I'm not sure what the NIV uses, I don't have it. 00:18:20.859 --> 00:18:29.203 Jesus said he came to be a what he was here to be a what A servant. 00:18:31.894 --> 00:18:49.471 Oftentimes the people who were in Paul's position did they look at themselves as servants or masters, masters, and we see that today. 00:18:49.471 --> 00:18:55.200 You take government and I don't mean just government in general. 00:18:55.200 --> 00:19:02.789 You know our Constitution says that it is government for the people, by the people. 00:19:02.789 --> 00:19:12.402 Is that right Of the people, by the people, for the people who are the servants. 00:19:12.402 --> 00:19:15.387 The government, the elected people should be the servants. 00:19:15.387 --> 00:19:26.067 They should be serving us, but it so often happens and we see it happen in religion back then it happened in politics. 00:19:26.067 --> 00:19:38.469 It happens in most everything the people who have the authority become the masters. 00:19:38.489 --> 00:19:43.086 I had a boss years ago that he and I've taken this philosophy myself. 00:19:43.086 --> 00:19:45.182 He called it the inverted pyramid. 00:19:45.182 --> 00:20:07.862 He said he was at the top, he had all the responsibility that the job got done, got done correctly, and the people at the bottom had all the authority to do what needed to be done, and it was his responsibility to ensure that they had the tools that they needed to get the job done. 00:20:07.862 --> 00:20:22.474 That is what being at the top, yet being a servant, is, and I was telling Jeff this morning I've said this before. 00:20:22.474 --> 00:20:28.135 We have a great group of elders here who understand that, that. 00:20:28.135 --> 00:20:41.743 They understand that, yes, they're the apex, but we're the ones who they're serving us to make sure that we have what we need. 00:20:41.994 --> 00:20:44.324 So what does that do then? 00:20:44.324 --> 00:20:56.143 Does it not make their position easier, gary, if you had to make every decision and have to come up with every idea on your own and do everything that needed to be done. 00:20:56.143 --> 00:20:57.902 How successful an elder would you be? 00:20:57.902 --> 00:21:00.923 Yeah, well, I mean, other than Gene. 00:21:00.923 --> 00:21:03.000 Take Gene out of the. 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:05.186 There's always that one exception. 00:21:05.186 --> 00:21:08.463 I don't know how you do it, martha, I really don't. 00:21:08.463 --> 00:21:13.240 And could you make it quite? 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:16.714 There's an awful lot of noise coming from over your way, my way here, lately. 00:21:16.714 --> 00:21:23.604 I'm kind of tired of it, especially since I'm not getting any money out of it. 00:21:23.604 --> 00:21:25.320 You're getting all the money. 00:21:25.320 --> 00:21:32.557 Years ago let's see how long have we been married now? 00:21:32.557 --> 00:21:35.204 37 years, almost 37 years. 00:21:35.204 --> 00:21:50.480 37 years ago we moved to georgia, um, and the preacher down there, his name was bill dylan and he would get up there and at the beginning of every sermon he would say I'm here to preach jesus christ and him crucified. 00:21:51.661 --> 00:22:00.451 And paul says here, for we do not preach ourselves, but we preach Jesus Christ, the Lord. 00:22:00.451 --> 00:22:03.279 I better pick up the pace because I haven't even got to the good part yet. 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:14.819 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 00:22:14.819 --> 00:22:19.701 Then he says in verse 7, but we have this treasure. 00:22:19.701 --> 00:22:21.266 What's the treasure? 00:22:21.266 --> 00:22:26.084 The gospel, right, that's the treasure. 00:22:26.084 --> 00:22:28.884 We have this treasure in earthen vessels. 00:22:28.884 --> 00:22:35.115 Oh, they carried it around in a pouch on the side of their cloak, right? 00:22:35.115 --> 00:22:36.723 What is the earthen vessel? 00:22:36.723 --> 00:22:38.653 Us, we're the earthen vessel. 00:22:38.653 --> 00:22:40.340 Us, we're the earthen vessel. 00:22:40.340 --> 00:22:49.507 Paul says we have this treasure that we carry around, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 00:22:49.507 --> 00:22:51.660 We're hard pressed. 00:22:51.660 --> 00:22:54.964 Well, all right, I got to tell you this story to get this. 00:22:55.154 --> 00:22:58.521 My wife might get mad at me, but I've told it in front of her before. 00:22:58.521 --> 00:23:07.407 So we made a deal when we got married that I would mow the grass and take out the trash and that she would wash the dishes and clean the house. 00:23:07.407 --> 00:23:10.320 How many times you mowed the grass in 37 years? 00:23:10.320 --> 00:23:12.365 She can't. 00:23:12.365 --> 00:23:13.326 She has allergies. 00:23:13.326 --> 00:23:16.142 I would never make her do that, but nonetheless she's never done it. 00:23:16.142 --> 00:23:18.621 How often you take the trash out? 00:23:18.621 --> 00:23:22.240 Not all that often, unless it's. 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:23.683 You know I'm not home. 00:23:24.335 --> 00:23:27.104 But one time we lived on that farm out on Bondi Ridge. 00:23:27.104 --> 00:23:38.089 We lived in this old farmhouse and she sat a garbage bag out back, outside the back door, and it was a door that had, you know, wooden at the bottom, window at the top, and it was a door that, had you know, wouldn't. 00:23:38.089 --> 00:23:38.894 At the bottom window, at the top. 00:23:38.894 --> 00:23:43.287 And I'm walking past there about 1130 one night, getting ready to go to bed, and I hear something. 00:23:43.287 --> 00:23:45.419 I'm like what is that? 00:23:45.419 --> 00:23:51.548 I pulled that curtain back and here's this coon clawing its way into that bag. 00:23:51.548 --> 00:23:56.143 And I'm like the one time she took the trash out and I wish she hadn't, you know. 00:23:56.143 --> 00:23:59.045 And I'm like one time she took the trash out and I wish she hadn't. 00:23:59.045 --> 00:24:01.925 But I got to thinking I can be a little vindictive at times. 00:24:01.925 --> 00:24:13.711 I let that coon get all the way up in that bag and then I opened the door and hollered and that coon went from at least here to the back of the building, just in trash. 00:24:13.711 --> 00:24:15.432 It was just a stream of trash. 00:24:15.432 --> 00:24:21.855 I didn't mind picking it up at all. 00:24:21.855 --> 00:24:24.840 No, he went right in that bag, scared him to death. 00:24:24.840 --> 00:24:26.285 He took him a good 50 feet to tear his way out of that bag. 00:24:26.325 --> 00:24:29.314 You ever feel like that coon? 00:24:29.314 --> 00:24:36.407 I feel like that coon every once in a while that I'm just that can't get out. 00:24:36.407 --> 00:24:41.279 That coon every once in a while, that I'm just that can't get out. 00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:43.365 Not claustrophobic, but we were deer hunting one day and we'd had one of those snows. 00:24:43.365 --> 00:25:06.487 It was real heavy snow and I got in this real thick place and I mean snow's that deep on every branch, you know I couldn't see anything and I was starting to get and I finally I just and it was thick, I mean there was no walking through it and I just kind of hunkered down and I just blasted my way out of that. 00:25:08.895 --> 00:25:10.965 Life makes you feel that way sometimes, doesn't it? 00:25:10.965 --> 00:25:15.673 Like, no matter what you do, somebody's slapping you. 00:25:15.673 --> 00:25:20.145 You're trying to climb out and you slip off. 00:25:20.145 --> 00:25:23.825 Look, we don't have time to go into. 00:25:23.825 --> 00:25:29.567 Did Paul have an easy life physically, mentally or emotionally? 00:25:29.567 --> 00:25:36.647 No, I mean, he was beaten, whipped, thrown in jail, run out of town. 00:25:36.647 --> 00:25:41.044 I mean, it was not easy. 00:25:41.515 --> 00:25:54.203 Paul had to feel like that coon every once in a while and he says we're hard pressed on every side, kind of a in Paul's life, kind of an understatement. 00:25:54.203 --> 00:26:00.645 Right, we feel hard pressed on sometimes, don't we? 00:26:00.645 --> 00:26:11.561 Paul says, hey, we're hard pressed on every side, yet we're not crushed. 00:26:11.561 --> 00:26:19.855 So in other words, words Paul's saying it hadn't been good, but what hadn't he done yet? 00:26:19.855 --> 00:26:21.422 What hadn't he done? 00:26:21.422 --> 00:26:23.502 Hadn't given up? 00:26:23.502 --> 00:26:44.883 I mean, you ever been holding something and it's getting harder and harder to hold and if you drop it it's going to fall on your foot right and it's just getting harder and harder and eventually, what do most people do? 00:26:44.883 --> 00:26:48.340 They just have to let it go. 00:26:49.095 --> 00:26:57.840 Paul said we're hard-pressed on every side, but we're not crushed, we're perplexed. 00:26:57.840 --> 00:27:02.201 What did Paul have? 00:27:02.201 --> 00:27:09.104 What did he just say he had, he had the truth right and he would go and talk to people. 00:27:09.104 --> 00:27:11.559 And what would they not do? 00:27:11.559 --> 00:27:14.839 Yeah, they wouldn't believe, they wouldn't accept the truth. 00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:17.502 And Paul's like I know it. 00:27:17.502 --> 00:27:20.743 Who told Paul the truth? 00:27:20.743 --> 00:27:26.885 Yeah, I mean, paul had it from pretty good authority right. 00:27:27.715 --> 00:27:40.259 And he's thinking when there is something that to us is so simple to understand and someone doesn't pick it up, what's the question? 00:27:40.259 --> 00:27:42.085 We ask why? 00:27:42.085 --> 00:27:46.482 Why can they not understand that? 00:27:46.482 --> 00:27:49.785 It's as plain as the nose on their face? 00:27:49.785 --> 00:27:53.084 What happens when we get perplexed? 00:27:53.084 --> 00:27:59.461 Yeah, we get discouraged, we give up. 00:27:59.461 --> 00:28:09.200 Sometimes we may even change what we think to fit what? 00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:12.404 So that the people will agree with us? 00:28:12.404 --> 00:28:19.019 I'm not sure this is the best way to say it, but I don't know any other way to say it. 00:28:19.019 --> 00:28:20.517 Did Paul care if people? 00:28:20.517 --> 00:28:24.020 Paul cared if people understood and believed. 00:28:24.020 --> 00:28:34.703 But what was Paul not going to do to get people to believe he wasn't going to change anything, right, he was just going to give them the truth. 00:28:36.535 --> 00:28:46.277 Then he says persecuted but not forsaken, Struck down but not destroyed. 00:28:46.277 --> 00:29:02.876 And again, I've told you before I think life is a set of principles that don't ever, they don't change, we don't face. 00:29:02.876 --> 00:29:10.979 Do we have to face the same type of persecution such as Paul did for this to be applicable to us? 00:29:10.979 --> 00:29:15.164 No, and that's what will happen sometimes. 00:29:15.164 --> 00:29:29.163 People will feel persecuted and somebody else will say well, other people have had it harder than that, right, right, does that really mean anything? 00:29:29.163 --> 00:29:29.856 Because who's? 00:29:29.856 --> 00:29:30.780 It means something to. 00:29:30.780 --> 00:29:33.102 Yeah, it means something to us. 00:29:33.102 --> 00:29:52.961 So you know, paul just makes it very, very simple here that life is going to be tough sometimes, but don't let it destroy you, don't let it make you give up. 00:29:52.961 --> 00:30:08.959 Because he says always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, no matter how I think this is what Paul is saying here no matter how bad we have it. 00:30:10.540 --> 00:30:13.705 What did Jesus have and what did Jesus do? 00:30:13.705 --> 00:30:16.230 You know it's? 00:30:16.230 --> 00:30:20.200 Is it enough just to say, well, Jesus gave his life? 00:30:20.200 --> 00:30:24.268 I mean, that's important, right, but who was Jesus? 00:30:24.268 --> 00:30:26.876 It was God. 00:30:26.876 --> 00:30:29.481 He didn't have to come down here and do that, did he? 00:30:29.481 --> 00:30:43.663 I mean, I've seen the analogy that you know that Jesus was the boy who lived in the mansion up on the hill and you had the people down here in the hollow. 00:30:43.663 --> 00:30:46.087 That were the poor people. 00:30:46.087 --> 00:31:00.565 And he said, hey, I'm going to give up this life of ease I have and I'm going to go down there and live with them and I'm going to go down there and serve them and do everything for them. 00:31:00.565 --> 00:31:11.887 I mean, yes, jesus gave his life for us, but the bigger picture is he was in heaven. 00:31:11.887 --> 00:31:22.615 But the bigger picture is he was in heaven and he decided to come down here and do that for us. 00:31:26.403 --> 00:31:28.875 What Paul is saying is, if Jesus was willing to do that, what should we not do? 00:31:28.875 --> 00:31:44.068 We shouldn't give up, right, if Jesus was willing to do that and we'll get to it here in just a few minutes as to why Verse 11, he says, for we who live are always delivered to death. 00:31:44.068 --> 00:31:50.540 For Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 00:31:50.540 --> 00:31:52.163 Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 00:31:52.163 --> 00:31:56.549 So then, death is working in us, but life in you. 00:31:56.549 --> 00:32:03.915 Remember what Paul said in Philippians, chapter 1. 00:32:03.915 --> 00:32:16.450 If we were going to have a class on favorite verses, two favorite verses, this would be mine In Philippians, chapter 1 and verse 21,. 00:32:16.450 --> 00:32:18.132 I just couldn't remember what verse it was in. 00:32:21.737 --> 00:32:26.305 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 00:32:26.305 --> 00:32:31.279 But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor. 00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:33.906 Yet what I shall choose, I cannot tell. 00:32:33.906 --> 00:32:48.267 Now I'm going to quote the old King James here because it sounds better, for I am in a straight betwixt two. 00:32:48.267 --> 00:32:57.518 I just like the word betwixt Okay, betwixt two, I just like the word betwixt Okay. 00:32:57.538 --> 00:33:04.049 The new King James says for, uh, I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. 00:33:04.049 --> 00:33:08.846 Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. 00:33:08.846 --> 00:33:11.231 We have two choices, right is more needful for you. 00:33:11.231 --> 00:33:12.134 We have two choices, right. 00:33:12.134 --> 00:33:15.501 We can either. 00:33:15.521 --> 00:33:17.406 Paul says I'm between a rock and a hard place here. 00:33:17.406 --> 00:33:21.989 I just can't figure out what I really want to do. 00:33:21.989 --> 00:33:22.454 Because he said to die. 00:33:22.454 --> 00:33:23.680 How many of us are looking? 00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:25.661 How many of us want to die? 00:33:25.661 --> 00:33:36.742 But Paul says for me, to die is what, for him, to die is gain. 00:33:36.742 --> 00:33:41.326 Why? 00:33:41.326 --> 00:34:01.175 What did he know he knew there was something better, same way as Jesus, but he says to stay here. 00:34:01.175 --> 00:34:06.261 If he was going to stay here, what was he going to do? 00:34:06.261 --> 00:34:07.083 Who was it better for? 00:34:07.083 --> 00:34:10.166 It was better for the people here. 00:34:10.166 --> 00:34:21.025 That who Paul didn't say for me to live is for me to to have more people think better of me, same way with us. 00:34:21.025 --> 00:34:23.289 Whose life is ours? 00:34:23.289 --> 00:34:39.356 Christ, I mean Woody, has made that. 00:34:39.356 --> 00:34:43.483 You know, it is the purpose of life that when people see us coming, who should they see? 00:34:43.483 --> 00:34:53.527 They should see Jesus, and that's what Paul is saying there in Philippians, chapter 1 as well. 00:34:59.985 --> 00:35:10.579 Verse 13 says and since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written and this is from psalm 116, you get the chance today read that is a beautiful psalm 116. 00:35:10.579 --> 00:35:11.721 You get the chance today to read that. 00:35:11.721 --> 00:35:12.260 It is a beautiful psalm. 00:35:12.260 --> 00:35:14.083 I believed and therefore I spoke. 00:35:14.083 --> 00:35:19.228 Paul says we also believe and therefore we speak. 00:35:19.228 --> 00:35:23.172 If we believe, what should we be doing? 00:35:23.172 --> 00:35:33.242 Speaking? 00:35:33.242 --> 00:35:34.326 It's like the little song. 00:35:34.326 --> 00:35:35.250 You know this little light of mine. 00:35:35.250 --> 00:35:36.434 Where should our light be? 00:35:36.434 --> 00:35:39.487 Not under a bushel. 00:35:43.306 --> 00:35:45.012 Any of you know who Robert Taylor is? 00:35:45.012 --> 00:35:48.360 He was a professor for a long time. 00:35:48.360 --> 00:35:59.206 At which college is north and east of Memphis, is that Freed Hardman, lipscomb's in Nashville. 00:35:59.206 --> 00:36:02.739 Anyway, he was a professor there for a long time. 00:36:02.739 --> 00:36:05.146 He used to come to Clarington and have meetings. 00:36:05.146 --> 00:36:14.021 Wonderful human being, pretty monotone, dry voice, but the man knew the Bible. 00:36:14.021 --> 00:36:18.240 But I can still remember we used to have meetings. 00:36:18.240 --> 00:36:23.860 Of course you had kids class and that's the one thing I remember is Robert Taylor. 00:36:24.394 --> 00:36:28.976 Two songs, that one and Be On Time, be. 00:36:28.976 --> 00:36:29.878 How's that one go? 00:36:29.878 --> 00:36:30.822 Does anybody know that one? 00:36:30.822 --> 00:36:32.425 Because I don't want to sing. 00:36:32.425 --> 00:36:38.985 It's like B-E-B-T-I-M-E time. 00:36:38.985 --> 00:36:40.949 Be on time, always be on time. 00:36:40.949 --> 00:36:43.815 See, I told you I can't sing, it's something like that. 00:36:43.815 --> 00:36:44.980 But I remember that. 00:36:44.980 --> 00:36:51.777 Can't remember what I did yesterday morning at 7 o'clock, but I can remember 50 years ago. 00:36:51.777 --> 00:37:09.880 So verse 14 says knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you for all things or for your sakes. 00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:17.085 That grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. 00:37:17.085 --> 00:37:19.001 Okay, I've got nine minutes. 00:37:21.396 --> 00:37:23.481 Anybody having any trouble in their life right now? 00:37:23.481 --> 00:37:31.635 Sick, health issues, family issues, Addiction issues? 00:37:31.635 --> 00:37:31.996 Well, there's no reason to go on because nobody has any problems. 00:37:31.996 --> 00:37:32.297 Health issues, family issues, addiction issues. 00:37:32.297 --> 00:37:35.539 Well, there's no reason to go on because nobody has any problems. 00:37:35.539 --> 00:37:39.141 Wait, maybe there were a couple people shaking their head. 00:37:43.695 --> 00:37:52.550 Again, life can be very difficult, can it? 00:37:52.550 --> 00:37:55.295 You just think about what happened yesterday can be very difficult, can it? 00:37:55.295 --> 00:37:57.777 You just think about what happened yesterday? 00:37:57.777 --> 00:38:17.231 There's someone who lost their life yesterday, who has family that were I can't even imagine that that were sitting right there, that watched it happen right in front of their eyes. 00:38:17.231 --> 00:38:24.811 How difficult that has to be. 00:38:24.811 --> 00:38:45.208 Or you or a family member probably all had this with family members that have passed away, that we're sitting there with them as we watch the last breaths of life leave them and we think, when those kinds of things are going on, what's the use? 00:38:45.208 --> 00:38:50.061 How hard is this? 00:38:50.061 --> 00:38:53.467 Why does life have to be so hard? 00:38:53.467 --> 00:38:55.079 Now my mother passed away. 00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:57.003 How old is Jessica? 00:38:57.003 --> 00:38:58.387 She'll be 31. 00:38:58.387 --> 00:39:11.340 So almost 31 years ago, and my mom had cancer Bad, and my mom could be at times somewhat of a complainer. 00:39:11.340 --> 00:39:17.427 You know the one thing I never heard her say why. 00:39:17.427 --> 00:39:26.268 She never said why me, and that's stuck with me for a long time. 00:39:26.268 --> 00:39:31.862 But sometimes we just we're like life's tough. 00:39:42.195 --> 00:39:43.336 So in verse 16, remember Paul uses the word therefore. 00:39:43.336 --> 00:39:43.757 So what's he doing? 00:39:43.757 --> 00:39:58.844 Continuing the thought that he just, or because of the thought that I just had that life can be tough, things are bad, but we don't give up, because Jesus didn't give up, because Jesus died for us. 00:39:58.844 --> 00:40:10.764 He says we don't lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing. 00:40:10.764 --> 00:40:14.746 Yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 00:40:16.175 --> 00:40:17.641 How many of you are over the hill? 00:40:17.641 --> 00:40:22.260 Gene, put your hand down. 00:40:22.260 --> 00:40:22.681 You're not. 00:40:22.681 --> 00:40:26.536 Well, you are, but Martha's not All right. 00:40:26.536 --> 00:40:27.681 So here's my analogy. 00:40:27.681 --> 00:40:34.159