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SPEAKER_00: Mother God, you have made us want to know you.
SPEAKER_00: If we have any desire at all to exchange treasure for you, exchange uh shiny trinkets for you, you've done that, not us.
SPEAKER_00: That's also noble act by us.
SPEAKER_00: What you're bringing forth from the inside of us is to want to know you in the power of your resurrection and in the fellowship of your sufferings.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, Lord, we just say we're open to your instruction.
SPEAKER_00: And from this very text this morning, you want to say to us, This is my good purpose in suffering.
SPEAKER_00: You're really gonna get to know me.
SPEAKER_00: So we say thank you in advance.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_00: I want to uh thank you for being here this morning and thank you, those who are joining online.
SPEAKER_00: Uh as I said in the prayer this morning's text, uh, we're taking a break from Daniel, in case you surprise.
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's a break from Daniel, but in some ways it's not, in that uh God is the author of Daniel, God is the author of our text morning, 2nd Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: And he has these themes he repeats pretty often.
SPEAKER_00: And one of which is how do we make sense of discouragement, of suffering?
SPEAKER_00: Now, I do want to start also with an announcement.
SPEAKER_00: So listen to this one.
SPEAKER_00: The announcement here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there is gonna be an end to masks in our service.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be an end to masks at the grocery store, there's gonna be an end to masks at the gym, uh, there's gonna be an end to holding in your cough in public so people don't think you have corona leprosy and scatter and call you.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be an end to online school for kids.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be an end to not being able to visit someone in a nursing home or a hospital.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you when.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you there's gonna be an end to that.
SPEAKER_00: And when that ends, one of the questions today's text is asking is are you gonna be just as you were before, or are you gonna be changed?
SPEAKER_00: Because God's design for all the suffering that we experience, and I'll say it's not random, it's all designed by him, is that we would trust less in ourselves and we would trust more in him.
SPEAKER_00: That we would lose this vice grip on our strength, our power, our wisdom, and we would cling ever so tightly to him as the true and better fulfillment of all those in our treasure.
SPEAKER_00: Will you still be relying on all your former ways of coping?
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of what the Old Testament talks about.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the people forgot God.
SPEAKER_00: And he was merciful and did a miracle and rescued him, and they were thankful and they praised him, and then some time went on and they forgot him again.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul is going to tell us is what God has designed in suffering is to finally change us.
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive into the text here.
SPEAKER_00: And let me also say, I'm not belittling suffering.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of it is extremely acute and intense and ongoing.
SPEAKER_00: And some of it just low grade.
SPEAKER_00: And so don't hear me say, hey, just get over it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me saying, God is up to something good, even in long-term, persistent, intense suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Five observations.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We're in 2 Corinthians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, first observation is Christians suffer too.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: I went to seminary to be able to tell you that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Christians suffer too.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying this because we tend to have some amnesia.
SPEAKER_00: Even though the Bible never tells us this, somehow we we get this idea that creeps in, or maybe it's just me, that because I follow Christ, life should be pretty smooth, always moving in a kind of upward trajectory.
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't be a whole lot of backtracking.
SPEAKER_00: And when I compare what I'm experiencing to someone who's a non-believer, and it seems like not just is there smooth, theirs are going great.
SPEAKER_00: And mine's not going great.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this thought begins to creep in, God, are you punishing me?
SPEAKER_00: You seem to be blessing them and cursing me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about punishment.
SPEAKER_00: That's not ever what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: If it was about punishment, then yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_00: The one who hates God would be punished, not the one who loves God.
SPEAKER_00: It's about an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, what Paul's going to say in the one more verse, it's about him really doing a work in you and the inside.
SPEAKER_00: So Christians suffer too.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Paul says to them, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We don't want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.
SPEAKER_00: We were utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't have any for sure information on what exactly is Paul referring to.
SPEAKER_00: Is it some dust up in Ephesus that got kind of crazy and then some people wanted to kill him?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know for sure that that's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: But this is this is not a uh a middle schooler taking something that's the biggest thing they face, but relatively trivial, and making it life and death.
SPEAKER_00: This is life and death.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, look, Corinthians, you didn't get the full story.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you wouldn't begin any of the story had we not made it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to be unaware of what happened.
SPEAKER_00: So we are burdened beyond our strength.
SPEAKER_00: These these phrase, this phrase in the original language has this idea of like a like an animal's foot or leg caught in a trap.
SPEAKER_00: Where, okay, you got caught and you're yanking.
SPEAKER_00: That's can't get free.
SPEAKER_00: Let me try and chew through the cord, can't chew through that.
SPEAKER_00: And at some point, you just give up.
SPEAKER_00: You give up trying to get free.
SPEAKER_00: You've run out of strength, run out of energy, run out of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, that's how we felt.
SPEAKER_00: We felt like this is it.
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
SPEAKER_00: We were burdened beyond our strength.
SPEAKER_00: We're broken.
SPEAKER_00: Despairing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we despaired of life itself.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound like someone who's depressed?
SPEAKER_00: Someone who's defeated?
SPEAKER_00: Someone who's suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Being a believer is of the promise that you know suffered haphazardly.
SPEAKER_00: Always has a design.
SPEAKER_00: He said, look, we we were not immune to experiencing life as a human.
SPEAKER_00: And and Paul says for us, it was as bad as it's ever gotten.
SPEAKER_00: It was the lowest of the low.
SPEAKER_00: Really thought God had turned his face from us and left us for dead.
SPEAKER_00: But he's abandoned us.
SPEAKER_00: Second observation: God is working in your difficulty on you.
SPEAKER_00: So in your suffering, in your difficulty, God's primarily working on you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the main thing I want, and my immediate ask is okay, work on the difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, don't work on me.
SPEAKER_00: Work on the difficulty, work on the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, no, no, it's not work on me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just work on the stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Get this yes to be a no.
SPEAKER_00: Get this later to be a now.
SPEAKER_00: Get this closed door to be opened.
SPEAKER_00: In your suffering, in your difficulty, God is always working on you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in his mercy, he also works in our circumstances, but he's definitely working on you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, Paul says, Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.
SPEAKER_00: This is the center point of this four-verse text.
SPEAKER_00: What God is doing is trying to kind of free your vice grip on relying on yourself to relying on Him.
SPEAKER_00: So we received the sentence of death.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Look, uh, I'm writing this to you because we lived.
SPEAKER_00: And had we not, you would not be getting this letter.
SPEAKER_00: We made it out of this one alive.
SPEAKER_00: This was to make us not rely on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't just to free us, Corinthians, to be a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: This was to change something about us.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and his little group here.
SPEAKER_00: And if you got some skill, some ability, some experience, in fact, if you're just wired as a human, you're gonna be tempted by it come very naturally to rely on your ability, your skill, your experience.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems like the only way where Paul says for sure this was happening to him is God had to show him that this is just gonna fail you utterly before you'll rely on me.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul, Apostle Paul, we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: This is not like the below average Christian club clubs, you know.
SPEAKER_00: So we think that this is a guy who wrote a good part of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So we shouldn't expect you something to be different.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Hodge, a theologian, he he looks at it this way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, When Paul was convinced that no wisdom or efforts of his own could deliver him from death, then he was forced to rely on the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: He had to come to the very, that's it, nothing left, very end of what he's got.
SPEAKER_00: God, if you're gonna rescue, it's gonna have to be you.
SPEAKER_00: This word, but this was to make us.
SPEAKER_00: God is working on you in your difficulty, He's actually remaking some part of you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Tripp frames it this way: he says, God intends for the disappointments of this present world to make us long for the next.
SPEAKER_00: This world is not a safe place to look for a sense of well-being.
SPEAKER_00: And so we groan and wait eagerly for the paradise to come.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: in this life, the good things we experience, and there's plenty of them, they're like just a little like a blink, a flash of what will be in the life to come.
SPEAKER_00: And these little, these little flashes, these little blinks of God's goodness in the life to come, they're altogether compelling and meaningful to where, without hardly any effort, we we can exchange those for what we put our hope in.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Tripp's right that uh these things are not a safe place to put our well-being.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, they're designed to fail us for our own good.
SPEAKER_00: So this was to make us rely upon God who raises the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now you would think by this point Paul would have that pretty clear.
SPEAKER_00: He's preached no less than that.
SPEAKER_00: Said, how did God convince Paul, convince his companions, trust in me the one who raised the dead?
SPEAKER_00: This is the third observation.
SPEAKER_00: God makes us rely upon him by exposing misplaced trust.
SPEAKER_00: So when we trust in something other than him, using something about us, when this fails us, this is God's opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: This is when I make you see rightly to rely upon me.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you several examples.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, someone could have job trust.
SPEAKER_00: By that I mean uh, look, I'm a hard worker, therefore, God needs to reward me.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God needs to give me a job.
SPEAKER_00: And that work sounds great until things change and the job changes, or the compensation changes, or the terms change, or the insurance changes.
SPEAKER_00: Until sometimes you're forced to, I cannot trust.
SPEAKER_00: Even though you've made me to work, made me as a worker, you're forcing me to trust in you.
SPEAKER_00: Someone can have family trust that uh because I did all the right things as a parent, I must be more godly than parents who let's let their kids do whatever they want.
SPEAKER_00: And that seems like a great plan before you have kids.
SPEAKER_00: And before you realize I have very, very, very little control over them.
SPEAKER_00: And God, my only hope of this child loving you is you making him love you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can do my role, the comparison is pretty small.
SPEAKER_00: I can just kind of, as one theologian says, I can take take logs of truth and I'm stacking them up, but you have got to bring the fire and ignite it and make them say you're their treasure.
SPEAKER_00: One can have theological trust that I have good theology, and so God must prefer me over those who've got some warped, wonky views.
SPEAKER_00: Or you could have intellectual trust.
SPEAKER_00: I'm better read, more articulate.
SPEAKER_00: I read the source material.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't, I don't trust on social media for my information.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, God would favor me.
SPEAKER_00: You could have scheduled trust.
SPEAKER_00: I'm more self-disciplined and rigorous with my time, and and that makes me more mature than others.
SPEAKER_00: Or even flexibility trust.
SPEAKER_00: In a world that's busy, I'm flexible and relaxed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't schedule to the 99%, I leave a good margin in my life.
SPEAKER_00: So when life gets bumpy, I've got some place to absorb it.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy trust.
SPEAKER_00: I care about the poor and the disadvantaged, just like everyone should do, but I'm actually doing.
SPEAKER_00: Or legalistic trust.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I follow the rules, and far too many Christians these days aren't concerned about holiness.
SPEAKER_00: A couple more.
SPEAKER_00: You have leak, you have financial trust.
SPEAKER_00: I manage my money wisely, I stay out of debt, and I'm not like those uh materialistic Christians who can't control their spending.
SPEAKER_00: Or political trust.
SPEAKER_00: If you love God, you will exercise your right to vote, to represent Him and your government.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you love God, you'll vote for the right candidates.
SPEAKER_00: One more.
SPEAKER_00: Tolerance trust.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so open-minded and charitable towards those who disagree with me.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm I'm a lot like Jesus that way.
SPEAKER_00: And we can list a thousand more little parts of this world where we have some capacity, some ability, and we be in the lean our weight on that.
SPEAKER_00: And when it breaks, it never breaks gentle, breaks in a sharp point and stabs us.
SPEAKER_00: Hurts.
SPEAKER_00: God said the design in that is always for you to put your trust in me.
SPEAKER_00: See, all these things I listed are all admirable.
SPEAKER_00: It's when we rely upon them too much that we commit a very, very ancient sin, the sin of idolatry, where we've taken something, even something that's good, and we've exchanged it for the best.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Neil had a question at the end of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And the question was this uh, what does God enjoy about you?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_00: This is a rhetorical question.
SPEAKER_00: Did you have trouble answering that?
SPEAKER_00: Was it difficult to answer?
SPEAKER_00: What does God enjoy about me?
SPEAKER_00: Is what you thought of maybe um God enjoys about me, and then after that, insert a verb of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: God enjoys about me that I pray and meet with him.
SPEAKER_00: God enjoys about me that I use my gifts to serve others.
SPEAKER_00: God enjoys about me that I um don't cut people off in traffic, that I always let them in first.
SPEAKER_00: Some act of obedience, some act of you doing something.
SPEAKER_00: If that was your default, I'm gonna suggest that you may have unknowingly kind of put yourself in a performance mentality where my approach to God is one where I need to perform.
SPEAKER_00: Now, others of you may have said, that's hard.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to think about that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I'm gonna suggest you kind of put yourself in a pretending mentality.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you an image.
SPEAKER_00: This is from a Bible study that we teach every couple years here, um, called the gospel-centered life.
SPEAKER_00: And this image is uh depicts someone coming to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So you know you're dead in Christ, and then and then when you come to faith and trust Jesus for salvation, that there's an awareness that God is holy and in your flesh you are not.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus bridge the whole gap, bridge the whole thing, make up for everything I don't got.
SPEAKER_00: And then people tend to flatten that.
SPEAKER_00: And okay, I'm just trusting Jesus for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And then as God, as He is, appears more and more holy, and as you as you are, uh you see greater and greater depth and intricacy of your flesh and your sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: How do we span that gap?
SPEAKER_00: How do we think about God saying, here's what I enjoy about you?
SPEAKER_00: And if we're a performer, it is, I enjoy that you basically do something to make up for the gap.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're a pretender, it is that I'm just not gonna think about it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna assume it's not a problem.
SPEAKER_00: What God is doing in this text and what he's doing in you, is look at the second image, is he wants your trust in the cross to span the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: And that your trust in the work of Christ would increase hardship by hardship, difficulty by difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: Again and again, you'd be learning and relearning and expanding and trusting less in yourself and more upon him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, right now, I'm gonna play along.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I want you to think about God the Father looking at you directly.
SPEAKER_00: And as he looks at you, what's the emotion on his face?
SPEAKER_00: As he just turns and looks at you, is it frustration?
SPEAKER_00: Is it indifference?
SPEAKER_00: Is it anger?
SPEAKER_00: Is it disappointment?
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures are very clear that when God looks upon you for the believer, he doesn't see you apart from the life and death and work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he looks upon you, he's overjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: That's his emotion.
SPEAKER_00: If we're to assign him an emotion, when he looks at you, the believer who's trusted the work of Christ, he's overjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: Not because of stuff you've done, because the stuff you've done doesn't make up that gap anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Through the work of Jesus, he is completely accepting of you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's utterly committed to changing you.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the difficulties you experience are designed for him to change you ever so much bit by bit into what you're gonna become in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The fourth observation God makes us rely upon him by delivering us from peril.
SPEAKER_00: And this is my favorite.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, here's my problem.
SPEAKER_00: Deliver me.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to love you.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to obey you, now I want to trust you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that he never does that.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that's not what he's always doing.
SPEAKER_00: But in fact, it does seem his spiritual pattern is for what I'm trusting.
SPEAKER_00: In that's an idol to fail me.
SPEAKER_00: And meet in his mercy, brother the Spirit, turn to him for help and hope.
SPEAKER_00: And he moves and delivers.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a formula where I'm twisting God's arm to now do something I want, but his mercy, he moves.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: He did, he delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: On him, we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul said, look, he delivered us.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting this letter.
SPEAKER_00: If he didn't, you would not be getting any writing from me.
SPEAKER_00: He delivered us.
SPEAKER_00: We're not dead.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we're putting our hope that he will deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's given us courage to now face every face the next thing he's leading us to.
SPEAKER_00: We have courage to face it because we we we are remembering how he just rescued us.
SPEAKER_00: A very common way that you might experience this is when you return thanks at a meal.
SPEAKER_00: A meal and you pray and offer thanks.
SPEAKER_00: You know, what what you're not doing is um you know saying a prayer to protect you from all um food poisoning.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Umforting if you're on a mission trip in India like we were last year and you're praying, okay, I'm gonna put it down.
SPEAKER_00: God, you keep it down, and um amen.
SPEAKER_00: But what we are doing is we're we're doing verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm remembering that you have fed me in the past, you're feeding me now.
SPEAKER_00: I can trust you to feed me in the future.
SPEAKER_00: This little framework.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we have this thing built in in our Christian practice where you have delivered, you're delivering right now, and you will deliver.
SPEAKER_00: He says, on him, because of the blood of Christ, we've set our hope and hope in what?
SPEAKER_00: That he will deliver again.
SPEAKER_00: He will deliver ultimately.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to listen, listen to this, don't miss this part.
SPEAKER_00: If you write something down, write down this part.
SPEAKER_00: When it appears or when it feels like, or when it looks like God has abandoned you in some crisis, some difficulty, some suffering, when it looks like he's abandoned you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, tell yourself, God actually abandoned Jesus so that he would never have to abandon you.
SPEAKER_00: When it looks like God has turned his face against you and left you for dead.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: We want you guys to know how bad it was.
SPEAKER_00: We were like, side of the road, barely hanging on the life.
SPEAKER_00: Roadkill.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we were just and we thought this is it, this is over.
SPEAKER_00: When it feels like God, you you let me get crushed by some circumstances of life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just you've turned your face against me, and I'm I'm just gonna bleed out.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that that God actually did to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He actually turned his face against him and let him die so that he would never have to do that to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's already been done.
SPEAKER_00: You'd be thinking, yeah, but I deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you do deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: And God has punished every sin that man commits on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so, because he did that to Jesus, he never has to do that to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because of what Jesus has done, God has to be up to something good.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, the good thing he's up to in your suffering is making you rely upon him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm actually inviting you to a very freeing, enjoyable, and somewhat relaxing in life as you move from trusting in yourself to trusting in me.
SPEAKER_00: Fifth observation: God makes us rely on himself or him through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: It's our last verse here.
SPEAKER_00: You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
SPEAKER_00: So you must help us through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little unclear.
SPEAKER_00: Is this a strong expectation?
SPEAKER_00: Is this a command?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it's not to be ignored.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not kind of the here comes the prayer guilt trip.
SPEAKER_00: You guys aren't praying like you're supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what this is.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying, if you want to be helpful to us, be praying.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you want to be helpful to anyone, be praying.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is saying, prayer is saying, I'm done depending on me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm depending on you.
SPEAKER_00: God, I need your help.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to rescue.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to come.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Miller in his book called A Praying Life.
SPEAKER_00: He has this little paragraph talking about parenting.
SPEAKER_00: And this little golden line, he says, Um, I come to realize I did my best parenting through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I did my best parenting through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He said it actually was quite relaxing.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna offer, we do our best anything through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I mean by that is not simply your head and your hands, all right, God, give it to me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you do your best sermon preparation in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't, okay, head and hands, all right, give me the next four words.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00: I got my pencil, I got I got my the Bible out, I got some other books out, I got the computer open, and I'm saying, okay, help help me absorb, help me see the connections, help me understand, help me help me speech to myself first.
SPEAKER_00: We do our best anything by prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You do your best working by prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not head in the hands, all right, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Fill out the Excel street, or just zap me with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00: So prayerfully depending on the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Not on yourself, but on the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So this this is what is a context for praise.
SPEAKER_00: So that what many will give thanks for blessing granted through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks weeks ago, I had a privilege of having a meal with a couple who they uh they have a ministry towards for um people of Islamic faith in the U.S.
SPEAKER_00: And this this couple, in particular, her name's Rachel, his name's Juniad.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it just struck me.
SPEAKER_00: She kept saying this phrase, and and it struck me, this phrase is unhealthy, unhealthily absent from my life.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the phrase she kept saying.
SPEAKER_00: The phrase she kept saying was, praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And she was tell uh telling the story of and every time she recognized it's gonna be God did, let's give him praise.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't awkward, it was weird, it was more why am I talking like this?
SPEAKER_00: And so her story is that she grew up in Pakistan and was pretty much on the edge of being a radical radicalized jihadist in the in the in the queue of a training camp.
SPEAKER_00: And God in his mercy connected her with a person who said, Here's the claims of Islam, here's the claims of of the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And she began to see this is true and this is a fallacy.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord, he did that to me.
SPEAKER_00: Said, and then I'm in Pakistan, only people I know are pretty radicalized people, and he led me to a Christian, and we got married.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord, and we had children, and so my brother and sister came to faith.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow they were convinced the God of the Bible is a true God, the scripture, scripture is true, Jesus is a rescuer.
SPEAKER_00: And what I believed before was a fallacy.
SPEAKER_00: And then we were under persecution, we were going to be going to jail because we were beginning to share the gospel, and or we might have been killed, and God made a way for us to flee as refugees.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're in a city, in a city where there's lots of people who've come from an Islamic country, and they're relocating in the U.S.
SPEAKER_00: And we have a presence with them in a job and in the marketplace, and we're our words, we're practicing apologetics with them, and we're seeing fruit conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We have a poll saying here that prayer is the way we rely upon God, and when he comes through, it is not, ooh, man, I'm good at prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.
SPEAKER_00: No, it is God, you are praise you.
SPEAKER_00: You're good and merciful.
SPEAKER_00: The close with these three questions, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is answer questions, maybe you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what if I'm not really suffering real strong right now?
SPEAKER_00: I got some low-grade coronavirus stuff, but for the most part, it's super strong.
SPEAKER_00: I would say this.
SPEAKER_00: Then this is a time for you to be aware of others.
SPEAKER_00: For you to say to God, open my eyes and let me see who you want to bring me close to and be your voice and be your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you want me to be a blessing to?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you want me to pray regularly for them to move from relying upon themselves to rely upon you?
SPEAKER_00: For those who you say, oh no, I'm in it.
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I'm right there with you, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in part of your tribe.
SPEAKER_00: I'm suffering.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say this to you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what what's most normal, natural when we're hurt and we're in suffering is we we kind of, for all kinds of reasons, embarrassment and shame, not least of them.
SPEAKER_00: We build kind of a wall and a moat, and we keep a distance.
SPEAKER_00: And you can know enough that's kind of polished and respectable, but you can't really know no.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just saying to you let down this drawbridge and let a few people in.
SPEAKER_00: Let a few people in because you're you're not built to suffer alone.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't make you or make the world that way.
SPEAKER_00: We're we're built to be changed by him in the context of the community.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be hundreds, it can be a few.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be some.
SPEAKER_00: Some who will speak the truth to you, some who will pray diligently for you.
SPEAKER_00: Last thing I want to say is uh how will I know if I'm trusting God?
SPEAKER_00: How I know if I've shifted from trusting myself to trusting him?
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a couple examples.
SPEAKER_00: One is if if you treat sin more seriously than you did before, if you just revert to treating it as casually as before, then you really haven't been shifted from trusting yourself to trusting God.
SPEAKER_00: If um if you have a new destination in mind, see, Paul, just a few chapters over in chapter four, when he was talking about this intense, we were left for dead on the side of the road, this is how he spoke about it.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 4, verse 17, he said, For this light momentary affliction, okay, now he's not downplaying it.
SPEAKER_00: What he's doing now, he's saying, This is horrible, and I'm looking at it through the lens of my future destination.
SPEAKER_00: You see, where Paul's headed and where every believer is headed is to a throne room.
SPEAKER_00: So this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's doing.
SPEAKER_00: This light momentary affliction is changing us so that we're ready for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just look through a little tiny crack in the wall to this brief glimpse God gives through John.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 7 he says, and I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number from a tribe and nation and all peoples and languages before the throne and the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: They're in a throne room.
SPEAKER_00: And they were saying, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: John says, They hunger no more, or thirst no more, the sun didn't strike them.
SPEAKER_00: There was no more suffering.
SPEAKER_00: The Lamb is in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to the springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, in light of where I'm going, that puts what I'm experiencing, which is horrible, in perspective.
SPEAKER_00: You'll know if you're shifting from trusting yourself to trusting in God, if you have your future in view.
SPEAKER_00: Our practice here is to not just kind of slam on the brakes, put the car to a halt.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now amen, you're gone.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give a few more moments for the spirit to land this somewhere on you.
SPEAKER_00: So we have some questions for you to process one or more of them.
SPEAKER_00: Let God move you to revealing you what you need.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna pray briefly and you're gonna continue praying as you process these questions.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that um that you are the one who uh orchestrates and superintends, and and you really do, though it doesn't feel like it sometimes, you really do hold her hand all the way through suffering, that you are going to accomplish your good work.
SPEAKER_00: And so we ask in in these minutes, these moments, that the take what's been spoken, and where you settled it on a few things to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we perform and please you, but but that we would be what you would be producing the fruit of the spirit in us as we respond.
SPEAKER_00: We believe in you, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Lead us now to respond.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we want to be people who grieve with hope, suffer with hope, that people who are pressed upon but not crushed, people who experience all the normal difficulty and suffering of this life, and that we don't respond the same.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an it's a measure of enjoyment for us, and it's a compelling witness to the gospel to those watching.
SPEAKER_00: And we want this because you've made us want it.
SPEAKER_00: You've made us want to live in congruence with how you've made us in the truth of your word.
SPEAKER_00: And so we just beg you through your spirit to do that in a way that we don't miss even these next week.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you to uh turn your attention to the screen as we have a pretty compelling um message about men's weekend.
SPEAKER_01: Born and raised uh Richmond, Texas.
SPEAKER_01: I've been in Fort McCounty all my life.
SPEAKER_01: 2013 is when we moved into our neighborhood now, and that's when I met Ryan.
SPEAKER_01: Something about that, like there's I have to know this guy more.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean it turns out I mean it was God the whole time, you know, like saying, hey.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that, I believe that God made us that connection, right?
SPEAKER_01: I remember having a conversation with Ryan one night and he's like, man, he's like, I think God's I think he's working on it, man.
SPEAKER_01: I think he's doing something.
SPEAKER_01: And Ryan told me, he said, hey, he said, I want you to come to this men's retreat.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so planned it, you know, signed up, then he couldn't come home.
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I'm the only person I'm gonna know there, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And normally I would just say, you know, I'm like, why?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it was.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do now.
SPEAKER_01: I mean it was again, you know, I can't when you walked in and it was like, right when you walk in the door, man, everybody's shaking hands, how are you?
SPEAKER_01: I'm so-and-so, this is that.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember it had to be Saturday night, is when towards the end, is when he asked everybody, I was like, if you're ready to make all this go away, if you're ready to accept, you know, our Lord and Savior, stand up.
SPEAKER_01: And it was funny, man, I'm getting chilled so bad.
SPEAKER_01: It was just like something grabbed me and was just like, man, get up.
SPEAKER_01: And I never would have done that ever.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why, but I do know why.
SPEAKER_01: Um I was ready to accept our Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: My wife would be the first to tell you, you know, I'm a completely I've done a 180 in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just super thankful.
SPEAKER_01: Super thankful that Ryan took the time and was consistent, you know, um, because he really could easily said, hey, I need to be friends with this guy.
SPEAKER_01: But again, that was you know something he did.
SPEAKER_02: Join us on October 16th and 17th at our men's weekend for worship, God's Word, and be sure to invite a friend to come with you.
SPEAKER_02: Register today at grandparkway.org slash events.
SPEAKER_00: Ladies, encourage the guy in your life to attend.
SPEAKER_00: Man, uh you you could sign up.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's 12:30 this afternoon, is when it goes live.
SPEAKER_00: You can sign up.
SPEAKER_00: And I really would like you to consider bringing someone.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you hit the performing button, but because God uses the foolishness of something like this to deeply change us.
SPEAKER_00: Please stand.
SPEAKER_00: We uh we end our services with a spoken blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll let you know in in two weeks from now, on the 4th of October, we're gonna be fully wide open, which means full kids uh stuff on the Sunday morning at 9.30 and 11.
SPEAKER_00: Students are already rowing full hardcore hardbore, and then adults will have Bible studies at 9:30 and Bible studies at 11.
SPEAKER_00: So we ended up spoken blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hands if you're gonna receive something.
SPEAKER_00: For this light momentary affliction is producing for you an eternal weight of glory.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now as those who will receive a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.