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SOUND MIND - Hope for Helping Others · REZ CHURCH Podcast

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Search for peace, I search for hope, I search for love, and one
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day for release. God give me strength to accept
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the things that I just cannot know, that even when I lose
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control, I will not let. You go.
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Good morning. My name is Daniel.
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I am one of the lead. Pastors.
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Here at Res Church, welcome if you're visiting, welcome.
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We are in the last and final week of our series, Sound Mind.
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We are in week 6 of a series about mental health and the
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intersection between mental health and our faith, where
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we've been. Opening the Bible and looking at
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hope. For all of these different
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afflictions and things. That we, we are particularly in,
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I think more modern culture, have begun to define and talk
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through anxiety and depression, hopelessness, burnout.
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And so today, as we finish up the series, we're going to talk
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about hope for helping others, what it looks like to walk with
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others through their suffering, to walk with others through
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their affliction. And so I hope this has been
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transformative for you. We, we've had some really
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phenomenal conversations. We've seen God work in powerful
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ways through the series as we have continued to go back to the
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Bible to talk about what God says about these issues and
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dealing with them. May 31st, which is about, I
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don't know, 8-8 days ago. Yeah, about 8 days ago.
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May 31st is my daughter Dansley's 13th birthday.
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And Dansley is. Her birthday is only 14 months
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after Kaya, my third daughter, and Quentin is 14 months after
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that. So I think if it's under like 16
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months, they call them Irish twins.
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So I guess I have Irish triplets.
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Is that how that works? So Dansley was, so it was a.
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Friday, and it was the day before my wife was going to go
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check into the hospital to give birth to Dansley, and I got a
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phone call while I was at work and she was just sobbing.
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She'd gone. To that last.
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Check up before going to the hospital and found out that
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there was no heartbeat. And so we found out the day
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before basically that Dansley had passed away.
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And so I, I, I raced down to the doctor's office and we like it.
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It is the worst case scenario if you're if you're pregnant is the
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worst case scenario that you know can happen, but you're
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never prepared for it to happen. And we ended up having to go
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into the hospital and I sat with my wife while she went through
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the labor and delivery of a dead baby.
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And so trying to trying to put words to grief is actually
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really difficult because it doesn't affect everyone the same
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way. And and because it's, it's hard
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to articulate confusion, emptiness, numbness that is
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involved because the, the, the shock of loss is often so
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intense that you just want to feel something.
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In fact, we see a lot, a lot of times we make a lot of mistakes
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in our grief. But one of the things that I, I
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never, I never really was prepared for it in those days
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and weeks after our loss was the number of people that would come
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and say, how can I help? Bro?
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I don't even, I don't even know how to live right now.
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I don't know how to do basic life function.
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I, I, I feel helpless. I don't know how to tell you how
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to help. I can't figure out my own life,
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let alone tell you or guide you on a way to help me.
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And I wasn't prepared for the number of times I would be
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asked. Here's what the people closest
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to us did. They just showed up.
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They cleaned our house, they took our other kids places, they
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made food, they made themselves available.
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They didn't tell us anything profound.
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They didn't try to to speak encouragement into our lives.
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Like we were in shock. We couldn't have heard anything
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anyways. Now, there were plenty of other
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people that tried to help in plenty of other ways, and most
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were not helpful. For me, this is my my first real
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introduction to what it would look like to walk with people
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through their suffering, to walk with people through their
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affliction. And as a pastor, I've had an
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opportunity to do this a number of times where I get to walk
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with people. Here.
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Here's one of the. One of the things that we, I
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lament about our modern culture is that in, in kind of Western
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civilization, so Europe and in the US now in this postmodern
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world, we don't even understand what it means to grieve anymore
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in the West. Now the, the, there was a study
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a couple years ago said in our culture, now the, the, your, the
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expectation in our society is that you're, you're allowed to
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grieve for about 72 hours and we expect you to be done with it in
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about 3 days. If you've been through any real
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loss, you're not ready usually in three days to go back to
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normal, but that's the. Expectations often put on us.
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And So what I want to do right now is we want to open the Bible
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and we want to take a look at what it talks about when it when
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it, when we're looking at not just suffering, but how do we
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walk with people? How do we comfort people when
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they're suffering, when they're going through affliction?
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Here's the big idea. It's in your hand out today.
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It's this God prepares, provides and positions me to comfort the
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afflicted. God prepares, provides, and
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positions me to comfort the afflicted.
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I'm going to be primarily going to be in Second Corinthians
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chapter 1 today. This was a letter written to the
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early church in the city of Corinth by a man named Paul.
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He was a missionary who who started really most of the first
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churches. In these cities, in these Greek
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cities. And he is a guy who has, we
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would call him an expert on suffering.
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I don't know if they make experts in suffering, but if
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they didn't, if they may, if they had experts in suffering,
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it would be the Apostle Paul. Listen to his resume real quick.
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He was imprisoned and repeatedly flogged.
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That means whipped and beaten as well as he was stoned and left
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for dead. He had been in dangers from
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rivers and robbers as well as from Jews and Gentiles and false
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Christians. He was shipwrecked.
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He was snake bitten. He knew many cold and sleepless
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nights and hungry and thirsty days.
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And on top of all of that he was constantly anxious for the early
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churches, that he had started praying for them and worrying
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about them. And he, his ministry was under
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constant attack, both from external sources, the Roman
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government and the Jewish Pharisees, but also from
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internal sources inside the church, from false teachers and
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power hungry men that were inside the church.
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He knew suffering. And so, so when he writes these
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words about suffering, I want you to understand it as a man
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who knew it well. Here's what he says in Second
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Corinthians chapter 1, starting in verse 3.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
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Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all
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our affliction. So that we may be able to
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comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with
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which we ourselves are comforted by God.
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For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through
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Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
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If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and
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if we are comforted, it is for your comfort.
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Which you experience when you patiently endure the same
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sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken,
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For we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also
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share in our comfort. We spent a few minutes today
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unpacking these words from the Apostle Paul A an expert in
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suffering. He starts with this idea.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
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Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in
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all our affliction. For as we share abundantly in
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Christ's suffering, the universal truth of humanity is
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that we will all suffer. Congratulations, welcome to
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Resurrection Church. The Bible actually promises
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this, that we will suffer. Why?
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Well, look, I maybe you're new to the Bible.
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Maybe maybe you've never read the Bible.
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And if you turn to the very beginning and the very first
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book of the Bible is called the book of Genesis.
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And the 1st chapter, God creates the world and by the 3rd chapter
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we mess it up. Like literally look at this.
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We are this far into the Bible and we've already rebelled
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against God and messed up creation.
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It doesn't take us very long and and by Genesis chapter 3, as we
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have rebelled against God, humanity who knew no death, knew
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no pain, knew no suffering, rebels against God anyways and
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falls under by Genesis 3A curse because of sin, that death
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enters into human nature. And that means that every one of
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us has now been born underneath the curse of death, the curse of
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suffering. Here's the good news.
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God does not let us go through this alone.
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He actually prepares, provides, and positions us to help one
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another. He prepares.
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God is preparing you and I through our suffering.
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In fact, both the affliction and the comfort are part of the
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preparation. Both the suffering that you
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experience and the comfort that you receive is part of the
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preparation. And here's what I mean by that.
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The word that's being used here in this passage for affliction
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is the word phlipsis. It's a Greek word, phlipsis.
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You need to spit just a little bit when you say it.
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Phlipsis right over sitting in front of you in the Pew right
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now is not happy and this word it means any type of suffering
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any type of trials. In fact, it would mean any of
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the three types of suffering in the Bible.
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There are actually three different types of suffering in
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the Bible. What are those you say well,
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thank you for asking well timed three types of suffering are
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mentioned in the Bible. Let's talk about all three.
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The first type of suffering is this suffering because the world
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is broken. That's, that's what Genesis 3
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talks about is we are born under this, this curse.
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Listen, the world tilts toward chaos and evil.
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Can we all turn on the news? Things don't look good.
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They never have the the world seems like it is devolving.
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It is just always leaning toward chaos and evil and darkness.
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This is what the Bible actually explains.
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And so we should not be surprised that we might suffer
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in a world that is under a curse.
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So some of the suffering that you and I experience is because
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we live in a broken world. But secondly, we also suffer
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because of my own bad decisions. Amen.
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Has anyone here made a bad decision?
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Has anyone suffered because of it?
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OK, can we stop calling that a test?
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God is not testing me when I do stupid stuff.
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I love having a truck. I don't have a truck right now.
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Someday when they're cheap enough and Elon lowers the
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price, I'm going to buy a cyber truck.
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But years ago I decided I I would I would make an impulse
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buy. Horrible decision.
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Never do that. And I would buy this truck and I
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bought like a an older used Ford F-250 diesel.
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You already know where this is going.
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I am also not mechanically inclined and I know nothing
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about cars. So I bought this thing and I
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mean within like 6 weeks it's spilling oil everywhere.
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And I and I and I realized like there's more, there's more work
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to be done to this engine than the whole truck is worth.
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And I just have to get rid of it and I lose like thousands of
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dollars in the process. OK, listen, God was not testing
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me, was just an idiot. OK, so some of the suffering
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that we go through is like, Oh my, is it?
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If it's not the consequences of my own bad decisions.
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So we suffer because the world's broken.
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And often times we suffer because we make stupid
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decisions. Amen.
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What did you learn today at church?
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I'm stupid. OK, But but there's a third
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reason in the Bible we suffer, and that's we suffer because of
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persecution for Christ. The Bible say to love Jesus is
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to be hated by the world. And so.
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So now we don't listen. Let's be real.
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We live in America, so most of us don't experience a great deal
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of religious persecution here because we love Jesus.
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Amen. Like like literally persecution
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here is like, Oh my God, they forgot whipped cream on my
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starbees. I don't, I don't think that's.
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Target got my order wrong. I got to walk inside.
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But there is real persecution in this world.
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Not, not just historically there, there are, there are
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countries right now today where you can be imprisoned, where you
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can be killed or beaten for declaring faith in Jesus Christ.
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So three types of suffering or you can suffer for any or all of
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these reasons that we do. But here's the here's the hope.
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The hope is this. If you and I have put our faith
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in Jesus Christ, if we are believers in Christ, we actually
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suffer with a purpose. Now, even if we suffer because
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of our own actions, God disciplines us to teach us
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because He loves us. All suffering has a purpose for
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the believer. This is what the Bible says.
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If you turn to Romans 5, three and four, we'll put it on the
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screen real quick and say this. Not only that, but we rejoice in
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our sufferings. You're all like, well, I don't.
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We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
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endurance and endurance produces character and character produces
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hope. The apostle James, who is Jesus
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half brother and James one, says it this way.
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Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various
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kinds. For you know that the testing of
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your faith produces steadfastness and lets
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steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect
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and complete, lacking in nothing.
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What are these passages saying? We're going to suffer, It's
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going to happen. But if we're believers, God will
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actually transform us through our suffering.
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That's what this is saying, that there is a refining that will
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happen to us as we suffer. Now, how many of you have gone
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like maybe you when you were younger, you went to like a like
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a camp or you have to go to like a retreat or something?
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Like you go in the mountains and you have this like phenomenal
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spiritual experience. Anybody, 4 of you.
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We got to do more camps apparently.
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Holy smokes, guys. If you've ever had like, what I
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would kind of call like a mountain top experience, when
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you get away and like God is just moving in powerful ways and
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you just like, man, this is such a great experience.
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Look, I love those things too. But most often in my life, when
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God has actually transformed and changed my character, it has
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been in the valley of the shadow of death.
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It has been in the suffering, it has been in pain.
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It has been in difficulty. That requires great faith and a
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desperate clinging to God. So, yeah, we love the
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mountaintop experiences, but God does a lot of work in the
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valley. Amen.
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It is it is pain with a purpose because but it is in the
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suffering that we begin to have real clarity about convictions.
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That doesn't make the pain better necessarily, but it but
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it's not senseless. But when I walked out of the
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hospital room after we had lost our child and I went to the
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waiting room, it was my my brother-in-law was one of the
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people that met me in the waiting room.
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And he's, he's mourning and he's crying and and he's trying to
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make sense of it like all of us are and up talking to him.
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And, and this is the most serious spiritual conversations
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I ever got to have with my brother-in-law were right after
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the loss of my daughter. And all of a sudden he's talking
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to me about eternal things. He's talking to me about God.
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And he begins to get serious about his faith over the next
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few months. And he gets to investigate and
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pursue the Lord and go to church and read his Bible.
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And why did that happen? Because in loss there's a
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conviction, A clarity about what's important and what's not.
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And that that loss also galvanized my faith.
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Why? Because I had to decide if God
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was. Good, even when things were bad.
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So I had to make that choice because it is a choice.
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If you go back to verse three, I want you to, I want you to catch
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a title that's used in here. It's very interesting.
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It says the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
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Now that's a really interesting word that's used there.
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It's the first time it shows up in Second Corinthians, but it's
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going to show up 10 times in this letter.
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And that word comfort is a word paraclesis.
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It's a Greek word, paraclesis, and it means comfort, not like
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like you bought a new mattress and it's super comfortable.
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Not that kind of comfort, but comfort, like encouragement,
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like a verb, comfort, the God of all comfort, paraclesis.
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Now, the reason that's such an interesting word and it's
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repeated over and over and over again, the reason that's so
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interesting is there's another word, another Greek word that is
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the root of that word. It's called paraclete.
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And Paraclete, we see that word show up.
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Jesus uses it and he uses it in John 14.
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In John 14, Jesus says this. He says, and I will ask the
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Father and he will give you another helper to be with you
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forever. And what Jesus is doing in that
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moment is he saying, listen, I'm going to leave, but I'm going to
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send you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is what for
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believers in dwells us, except the name that He uses for the
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Holy Spirit is not helper, it's Paraclete.
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It's capitalized like a noun, like a proper noun, like a name.
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The actual literal name of the Holy Spirit is the encourager,
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the comforter. So.
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So if you're a believer, God didn't just save you from your
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sin. He didn't just just raise you
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from the grave to new life. He also took encouragement,
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supernatural encouragement, and indwelt it into your life.
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Truth alarm. Did you hear it?
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God is not just the God of encouragement.
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The very spirit that indwells believers is called the
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encourager, the comforter. That is how God provides a
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supernatural source of comfort for you.
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So, So God, he prepares, He provides.
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In fact, I was thinking, I can't even imagine going through
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suffering. Without the hope of the Holy.
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Spirit to encourage me, to teach me one of the most important
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lessons that I have learned over the course of my life in
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suffering is really that we find out in suffering, in difficulty,
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whether or not we really believe in the Bible.
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Like we really find out a lot about our faith in suffering.
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And what I mean about that is like so like 8 years ago I had
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an issue with my kidney. That put me in the ER and I'm in
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the ER over the weekend and the pain had gotten so intense that
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I end up rolling off the hospital bed and I'm like
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rolling, rising on the ground just in pain.
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And, and in that agony, God is speaking very loudly to me and
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he's asking me about some very specific acts of obedience.
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And he has called me to, and he's reminding me of scripture
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and he's really pressing on whether or not I'm going to be
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obedient in those areas. And, and, and really here's what
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I would say is this. You can say you believe that God
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is good, but do you believe it when the circumstances you're
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going through aren't good? Like we say this a lot.
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You only believe the parts of the Bible that you live out.
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Did you know what I mean by that?
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We live in kind of a pseudo Christian nation, you know,
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where people are like, Oh yeah, I believe in the Bible.
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And what they, what they mean by that isn't what the Bible would
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say. Like, well, if you say you
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believe in the Bible, but you don't want to follow the Bible's
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guidance on the hard stuff, on sex, on marriage, on purity,
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like you don't believe in the Bible.
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If you say you believe in the Bible, but you consistently
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follow your emotions or your pride instead of humility and
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gentleness, you don't actually believe in this Bible.
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Believing the easy stuff is in faith, It's in suffering that
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the spirit changes our character.
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He he's refining my character. He he's really pressing on the
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stuff that I don't want to do. My faith in God, my faith in his
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word, because the the Bible becomes entirely a different
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book when instead of just reading it, I have to live it.
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Amen. Like the Bible is perfect, but
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lived out Scripture is potent, it's powerful and living out
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Scripture is hard. Can I get an Amen?
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Like you have read that whole love your enemies thing, right?
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Like it's easy to read, but doing it.
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But let me just let me, let me submit this to you because we're
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talking about walking with others, right?
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You know, the person that I will immediately pay attention to and
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listen to when they speak is the person that I watch living this
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out when it's hard. Do you know what I'm saying?
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The the the person that responds to the conviction of the Holy
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Spirit through obedience to the Scripture when they're suffering
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that I mean, I that person has my attention that the spouse who
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is faithful and enduring when their spouse is making life a
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living hell and they're only doing that not because they want
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to, but because the Bible commands it.
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The the the sister in Christ who is praising God with all of her
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might, even though after God made her a widow far too early,
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because she believes what God has written in his Word.
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The person who is hurt. And and it's suffering and yet
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they they're extending forgiveness even though every
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fleshly desire and emotion is screaming for revenge because
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the Bible commands it the the person that is living out
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scripture when it they do not want to that person I'm
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listening to because I know that faith is real.
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I know it means more than lip service.
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You see if you'll do this, if you'll live the Bible out when
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it's hard, not just when it's easy.
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Not only will God change your character, but He will begin to
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position you to help other people too.
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What He's doing is giving you a testimony.
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A testimony is a first person perspective of God at work.
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And the third thing he's doing is he's positioning you.
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He positions. Let me show you that again, if
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you flip to verse four, he says God the Father who comforts us
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in our affliction and then look at the so the word.
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So it's leading us to the rationale for this comfort so
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that we may be able. To comfort those who are in any
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affliction we go through. Character refinement and
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suffering. God comforts us so that we can
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comfort others. So God doesn't just use our
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suffering to refine our character.
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He does that, but also he, he refines our character not only
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for our benefit. He does it so that he can
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prepare and position us to get ready to go pour ourselves out
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for other people. We suffer, we are encouraged, we
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grow through that, and now we're in a position to help other
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people. Let me see if I can give you an
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analogy that helps. This can be a tough analogy
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because we live in Bakersfield, but imagine you're in a
25:00
Blizzard. See, I told you it was going to
25:02
be tough. Imagine get caught in a Blizzard
25:05
and maybe, you know, maybe you're at home, but like the
25:07
heat goes out, right? It's getting colder, it's
25:09
getting colder and it's getting colder.
25:11
And so, So what, what we were praying that God would, would
25:14
take the storm away, that, that, that it would stop snowing and
25:16
it would stop being cold because we're freezing to death.
25:18
And, and sometimes God does that, but sometimes God doesn't
25:22
remove us from the storm. Amen.
25:25
But it says he, he comforts us even in that.
25:26
So, so sometimes instead what God does is he gives us a, he
25:29
gives us a blanket. This is a prayer quote.
25:32
By the way. We have a quilting team.
25:33
If you know that they make, they make custom quotes every time
25:36
someone goes in the hospital or we get some sort of prayer
25:38
request, they make a quote specifically for that person.
25:41
And, and we, we pray for them and we tie a little knots for
25:43
every prayer and then we go give it to them to help comfort them.
25:47
Sometimes he gives us a blanket. So does it change the
25:50
temperature around us? It's still a storm, it's still
25:53
cold, but he actually gives us a way to be comforted through the
25:58
affliction. And, and The thing is that once
26:03
you have begun to realize this and participate in this, and you
26:06
begin to lean into the Lord as he comforts you, you're in a
26:08
position when other people are caught in a storm to teach them
26:11
how to use this. Does this make sense?
26:18
So sometimes our suffering is not only to refine our character
26:23
for our benefit, it's to refine our character so we now have
26:25
something to go teach other people.
26:30
Here's the idea. Everything that God does for you
26:34
is meant for more than just you. Everything that God does for you
26:40
is meant for more than just you. You see, we live in America, so
26:44
we're all egocentric. The world revolves around
26:48
Daniel. Oh God, how could you do this to
26:51
me? God's like because I have.
26:53
Something for you, you're going to go help other people and I
26:56
need to prepare you for it. So you're going to have to
26:58
suffer a little bit. Look at the verse Romans 15 one
27:04
and two. This is one of the toughest
27:07
verses in the Bible. You're welcome.
27:11
Here's what it says. We who are strong have an
27:15
obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to
27:19
please ourselves. Let each of us please his
27:22
neighbor for his good, to build him up.
27:30
How do you get strong spiritually?
27:34
How do you get spiritually strong?
27:39
What's the recipe? In the Bible.
27:41
For getting spiritually strong suffering.
27:46
Oh, no, thank you. Not none of that.
27:47
Please. I I like carrots, not suffering.
27:51
Nobody, no one wanted to voluntarily ask for more
27:54
suffering. Amen.
27:56
Like no one this morning in prayer time was like God, you
27:58
know what I need more suffering. No one wants this, but it's how
28:05
you get strong as you go through storms, you learn how to use the
28:10
comfort and you get stronger as he refines your character.
28:15
Let me explain how we talked about the Holy Spirit's name,
28:20
Paraclete is is is the encourager.
28:22
Let me tell you how how the Holy Spirit encourages you most of
28:26
the time, OK, most of the time, it's not some like super warm
28:30
and fuzzy feeling that your heart starts to glow like a
28:32
little Care bear Nobody. It's a pretty old reference, I
28:38
realize that. OK, sorry, couldn't think of a
28:40
new one. Iron Man is that Iron Man with
28:43
the little. You know, you got the little
28:44
thing OK. Most of the time it's not the
28:47
Holy Spirit like you get all warm and.
28:49
Fuzzy, right? You know.
28:50
How you get encouraged most of the time.
28:52
Let's do another believer. The Holy Spirit prompts another
28:55
believer and, and then they come up and they go, hey, I don't, I,
29:00
I just the other day, about 2-3 weeks ago, I was, I was on a
29:03
horrible week. I get a call out of the blue
29:05
from someone that's not even in the state and they're like, Hey,
29:07
I'm driving down the road and I just felt like God said call you
29:10
and you needed to be encouraged. And I was like, you were right.
29:14
I'm having a horrible week. And they just encouraged me.
29:20
After first service, someone came up to me and they go, I've
29:22
never done this before. And it was super weird.
29:24
But I, I just had this building conviction throughout the
29:26
service that by the end of the service, there's this person a
29:28
couple of rows in front of me. And I was supposed to go tell
29:29
them that God loves them and he's going to heal them and did
29:32
not give up. And he hasn't forgotten them and
29:34
he sees them and I don't even know who the person is.
29:36
And I was like, did you do it? He's like, yeah, I was.
29:40
Like what happened? I was like, they broke down
29:41
crying and they told me all the stuff that's going on in their
29:46
life. The primary way that the Holy
29:48
Spirit encourages you is through other believers.
29:54
So He prepares you and positions you to go use the power of the
30:00
encourager to encourage the body of Jesus Christ.
30:04
Does that make sense? Does that make sense to more
30:07
than four of you? 8 1/2 We'll go with it.
30:15
And here's the thing, you kind of already intuitively know that
30:20
that the people that have been through a lot of suffering and
30:23
become dependent on the Lord are absolutely the people that you
30:26
would depend on if you were hurting.
30:28
OK, You already know that like that.
30:29
I don't have to teach you that. You would know that
30:31
automatically. Like the people that are best
30:34
suited to comfort you to have the Holy Spirit and battle
30:37
scars. Amen.
30:39
Those are the people that you go to in a crisis.
30:41
I I guarantee you you'll already do this If you're having
30:44
marriage problems, you no one goes to the couple who's like
30:48
we've never had a fight. You don't want to talk to them.
30:55
You know who you go to? You go to the people who you
30:58
think that their marriage almost dissolved and almost got
31:01
wrecked. Maybe there was infidelity.
31:02
They were angry at each other. There was evil and God turned
31:05
that. Evil to good.
31:07
And he redeemed that marriage and he took that weakness and
31:12
that mess and he made something glorious out of it.
31:15
And they got scars. That's who you go to.
31:18
You know why you trust them. They've been through it.
31:23
If you lose a child, you don't go to someone who's never
31:26
experienced loss. You go to someone who's
31:29
experienced great loss and leaned on the Holy Spirit in
31:35
that process. You go to them for help, for
31:37
comfort, for encouragement. So you intuitively already know
31:40
that if you're going to go and look for someone to help in the
31:43
moment of affliction, you're looking for battle scars.
31:49
Well, often times as we're, we're, we're, we're suffering.
31:51
We see it as, as being senseless.
31:54
But, but, but God is refining. In fact, he's doing more than
31:56
just refining us through it. He's preparing us to pour out
32:00
for others. That that's, that's what this
32:02
text is saying. You don't just suffer for
32:03
yourself. You suffer to be ready to help
32:06
others who are suffering. God prepares, provides, and
32:11
positions me to comfort the afflicted.
32:16
Maybe you're maybe you're sitting here today listening or
32:18
you're online. You're listening.
32:19
You're like, man, I, I wish someone would do that for me.
32:25
Maybe you're, maybe you're new to church.
32:26
Maybe you're just visiting. You don't even know anyone yet.
32:28
Or maybe maybe you've, maybe you've been going here a while
32:30
and there's no one. You feel like you're forgotten
32:32
and you're overlooked and, and no one's no one's comforting
32:35
you. I have good news for you today.
32:41
This is what Jesus does for us. Jesus suffered more than any of
32:48
us, and he remained faithful. That means that you and I can
32:54
have confidence in his comfort because he can really relate to
32:58
us. He can relate to temptation.
33:03
He can relate to pain. He can relate to betrayal.
33:07
He can relate to suffering. Jesus is perfectly prepared,
33:14
provisioned, and positioned to offer you and I comfort in our
33:19
suffering. In a few minutes.
33:22
I want to I want to talk about the four practical ways to walk
33:25
with someone else who's going through suffering.
33:26
But, but first, let me ask you the most important question that
33:29
you're going to hear today. It's the most important question
33:31
you're ever going to consider. Do you know the God of comfort
33:37
personally? Do you know him personally?
33:41
Maybe maybe you walked in today or you're watching online or on
33:44
YouTube and and you're a skeptic or or you doubt this or you just
33:47
don't have a religious background and you're doubtful
33:49
that that anything like this could even be real.
33:51
And you came in with serious wounds or or suffering or
33:54
difficulty. And let me I cannot offer you
33:56
anything more powerful than Jesus, but you can only partake
34:05
in his comfort if you know him, if you have placed your faith in
34:10
Jesus finished work of salvation on the cross.
34:13
That's what the Bible says in Romans 10/9 and 10 if you
34:16
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your
34:19
heart that God raised him from the dead, that you can be saved
34:22
for with the heart 1 believes and is justified, and with the
34:24
mouth 1 confesses and is saved. Do you know him not have you
34:31
heard about him not do you go to church?
34:33
Not do you read a Bible? Do you know him?
34:35
Have you given him your life to reign and rule over?
34:42
Because if not. Let today be that day so you can
34:49
partake in His comfort. The Bible says that you must
34:54
believe and declare. That's what those verses just
34:56
said. You must believe because you
34:58
must believe that you are in need of a Savior and you can't
35:00
save yourself. You must believe that you
35:03
rebelled against God and therefore do not have the power
35:06
to live perfectly on your own. Believe that He rose from the
35:10
dead in power and wants to save you.
35:14
You must believe that Jesus is God and you must declare.
35:19
Declare him as King of your life and Lord over you.
35:22
Declare to surrender your will and your desires to him.
35:27
You must declare him publicly and not be ashamed of Him.
35:31
And so if you would like the opportunity to surrender your
35:34
life to Jesus today, I want to give you that opportunity.
35:36
If you bow your heads and close your eyes for a brief moment, if
35:43
you're willing to ask Him for forgiveness and salvation with
35:48
every eye closed and every head bowed, I just want you to
35:51
quietly or silently repeat this prayer after me.
35:54
It's nothing magical, just a declaration of faith.
35:56
Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I can't save myself.
36:04
I want you to save me. I surrender everything to you.
36:10
I receive your promise of forgiveness, of adoption into
36:14
your family, of eternal life. Be my Lord.
36:20
Please, Jesus, if you prayed that prayer for the very first
36:27
time right now, would you be brave and raise your hand so I
36:31
can see it? Thank you, thank you.
36:37
You can put your hands down in Jesus name, Amen.
36:47
Jesus loves you more than you realize and more than you can
36:51
imagine. And if you gave your life to him
36:56
moments ago, welcome to the family.
37:05
In a few minutes when we respond to this message, if you gave
37:08
your life to Christ, we have something for you.
37:11
We have tables in the back that say I raised my hand and
37:13
there'll be people back there. We have a gift for you we want
37:16
to celebrate with. You and we want to talk about
37:18
what's next. How to?
37:18
How to? Pursue a relationship with Jesus
37:21
ongoing and grow as a believer. So in just a moment, when we
37:23
stand, I want you to go back there and say hi to those
37:26
people. They love you.
37:26
All right, Maybe you've been listening.
37:30
And you've been thinking like this sounds great as a concept,
37:33
but I have a friend who's suffering and I still don't know
37:35
what to do. All right, four steps, 4
37:40
practical steps to walk with someone through their
37:42
affliction. Here we go.
37:44
Number one, serve. Don't speak.
37:47
Serve, don't speak. In 2020, it was a, it was a
37:53
Friday evening. I got this frantic phone call
37:56
that a really close relative of mine who lived right down the
37:59
street from me had taken his life.
38:03
And I remember getting the car and driving over to his family's
38:08
house. I've been there 100 times and it
38:10
looked completely different. The entire block is, is filled
38:13
with emergency vehicles and lights and everything going off
38:16
everywhere. And it, you know, and I and I
38:20
walk up the steps and I open the door and I walk into the living
38:24
room and the family sitting on the couch and everyone's shell
38:32
shocked. And I remember just thinking
38:34
like, I have no idea what to do. What do you tell kids who just
38:40
lost their dad? What do you tell a wife who just
38:45
lost her husband? But, but eight years earlier, I
38:52
had been the one in the living room when I lost my daughter.
38:57
I'd been the one on the couch. And so I I did what I wanted
39:01
people to do back then. I sat and I didn't say anything.
39:08
I just mourned and I just grieved.
39:11
And when I found an opportunity to serve them, I went in and I
39:14
was the one that cleaned the bathroom because I knew they
39:19
couldn't handle that. No one needed my words.
39:26
No one needed my advice. They just needed my presence.
39:31
Then he didn't know they weren't alone.
39:34
They needed to know it was OK to not be OK.
39:37
They needed to know that no one was going to put a time limit on
39:39
how quickly they needed to get over it.
39:43
They needed me to protect them from well-intentioned people who
39:45
would like to help and didn't know how.
39:48
And so Step 1 is that in the rawest of moments when people
39:51
are suffering, is simply to be present and be silent.
39:56
Secondly, don't offer advice. Answer questions when you have
40:04
earned. In fact, do you know how you'll
40:07
know that it's time to speak? They'll ask you.
40:12
They'll ask you. And until they do, just be
40:16
there. The Bible says to be quick to
40:20
listen and slow to speak in the Book of Job.
40:22
After Job loses his entire family, his friends show up and
40:26
for seven days and seven nights they just sit with him morning.
40:30
He'll say anything. In fact, if they had continued
40:33
like that, the book of Job would have been very different.
40:38
They just. Sat and you wait until they ask,
40:46
and you're going to have an opportunity when they ask to
40:49
point them to the truth. That's Step 3.
40:52
Answer when you're asked with gentle truth, not opinion.
40:58
Gentle truth, not opinion. This is the inspired, inerrant,
41:10
infallible Word of the living God.
41:17
The Bible is perfect but lived out.
41:21
Scripture is potent and powerful.
41:26
We answer questions and doubts with Scripture.
41:29
But if you have lived out this scripture, it is so much more
41:33
powerful. That is the power of a
41:35
testimony. That's what God is preparing you
41:38
for. If you really want to help
41:40
people, you cannot offer them an answer from a Bible you don't
41:43
actually believe. If you really want to help
41:49
people, you have to not just learn your Bible.
41:52
You have to live your Bible. Man, every time.
41:57
And I get this all the time. This is this is multiple times a
42:00
week. Every time I'm talking to
42:02
someone about the really hard stuff, the stuff they don't want
42:05
to do, I get the responses like I don't care what the church
42:08
wants me to do or, or the church is pressuring me to do these
42:11
things. No, no, it's not.
42:13
The Bible is the Bible's pressuring me to do really hard
42:18
stuff that I don't want to do. The church is just encouraging
42:24
one another to do the hard stuff of the Bible.
42:30
When you'll do this, when you'll do the hard things when you
42:33
don't want to, you're going to have a lot more ground to stand
42:35
on when you have to go and talk to somebody else about the hard
42:38
things. Guys, I desperately need
42:43
encouragement from those closest to me to do the hard things that
42:47
are in here because I do not want to do them.
42:50
That's what makes them hard. I need to be encouraged because
42:56
I don't want to do that and you don't want to do it either, if
42:59
we're being honest. So so in those moments where
43:04
we're asked those questions and the and the truthful answer from
43:07
scripture is going to be difficult, we do it gently.
43:12
The Bible is non negotiable. It is not a buffet where you
43:16
take what you want and you leave the rest.
43:20
So regardless if that question is about mental illness
43:24
treatment, if it's about forgiveness, if it's about
43:26
walking in grief or just dealing with suffering because of sin,
43:30
we answer with gentle truth. And if you get a chance to speak
43:36
the truth into someone's life in the middle of suffering, we
43:39
grounded in scripture. We saturated in scripture.
43:42
We drowned in scripture. I got a message from a friend
43:46
this last week. They, they, they, they don't go
43:49
to our church. They live out of state.
43:50
And they're going through something awful right now.
43:53
And they watched my sermon on forgiving others.
43:57
And they have this really deep, really raw wound from someone
44:00
that betrayed them in such an intimate way.
44:02
And they show no remorse. And they're, and they're
44:04
actually blaming my friend. They're gaslighting them.
44:08
And so they listen to my sermon. Here's what they said.
44:10
No, I can't forgive them because they don't deserve it.
44:24
Now, that's not biblical. That's pain and agony and
44:30
emotion making an unbiblical opinion seem justifiable, and I
44:37
can't change that. I could gently.
44:41
Point back to scripture. And I can be patient and I can
44:46
pray for them. That's Step 4.
44:50
Be patient and pray we got to be patient.
44:54
Hearts don't change quickly. Amen.
44:58
They are a stubborn, fibrous thing.
45:03
Think crock pots, not microwaves.
45:06
You try to microwave someone's heart for three minutes, you're
45:10
just going to get something hardened and stubborn.
45:15
So instead it's low and slow. We walk with people through
45:21
their addictions. We walk with people in their
45:23
messes. We walk with people as they
45:25
grieve and as they heal. I can't.
45:28
I cannot force people to change. In fact, I can't make people
45:31
love Jesus. I can't change hearts.
45:33
I can't heal wounds. And you can't either.
45:35
Only God can do that. But you can pray for them.
45:43
And I mean actually praying for them.
45:44
I don't mean the little emoji thing on their social media
45:47
post. I mean you can take their names
45:51
and you can go into the throne room of the King of Kings and
45:54
the Lord of Lords with their name on your lips and in
45:57
humility and boldness as a child of God, you can lift up their
46:00
need to God over and over and over again.
46:04
You can pray for them and be patient.
46:12
And we're going to finish our sermon doing that today.
46:14
Go ahead and stand. We're going to sing a song.
46:18
And here's what we're going to. Do.
46:19
I want to offer you the opportunity, the chance to come
46:21
up to the altar today and pray for that person in your life
46:25
that you're trying to walk with. Maybe it's somebody that you're
46:30
close to. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's
46:32
a relative. Maybe you're the one that's
46:34
struggling and you need to come up and pray.
46:37
Maybe you want to pray alone at the altar.
46:39
Maybe you want someone to pray with.
46:43
Our primary mechanism of encouraging is the Holy Spirit
46:49
through believers, encouraging other believers.
46:51
It is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
46:55
So we would love to pray with you.
46:56
We would love to encourage you. I want you to come and be
47:04
encouraged today. Let me leave you with one final
47:06
story and then we'll respond to this.
47:09
Every Sunday morning at 6:30, a number of us elders, deacons and
47:12
and church members join together at the church office and we pray
47:15
for about an hour. We, we just pray.
47:18
We pray for other churches and we pray for their congregations.
47:20
We pray for their pastors. We pray for this service.
47:22
We pray for the visitors and the volunteers and the speakers and
47:25
the worship. We just pray.
47:27
And as we were starting to pray today, I looked around.
47:29
I realized that every single person sitting in the room
47:31
praying for you was going through significant suffering in
47:34
their life. Children that have rebelled,
47:37
children that were far from God, significant health problems,
47:40
chaos in their life. And yet they were there at 6:30
47:43
to pray for you. Say me, they were being prepared
47:48
through their suffering and the comfort to be ready to comfort
47:50
you. And so early in the morning you
47:55
were on their lips and on their minds and on their hearts to
47:58
take you in to the throne room of God to pray for you as you
48:02
would come in today. That is the model the Second
48:04
Corinthians is telling us is that we will be comforted in our
48:07
affliction in order to prepare us to comfort one another.
48:12
So we want to pray for you. We want to pray with you so you
48:17
come as the Lord leads. We love you guys.