His life and ministry allows suffering but provides comfort-pt2
2 Cor: 1:8-11 · Randy Peterman · Jan 22, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/410261633203568

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Last week Bob got to teach on comfort. It's a humdinger of a passage. It was really good. Now I get to teach on suffering and it's a different kind of a humdinger of a passage. It's one of those things where we look at what is here and what's fascinating to me as I was studying this is to think how We get to see a side of Paul in this passage that really doesn't show up in other places in the New Testament, and I mean that in a good way. We get to see the humanity and frailty of this apostle. Sometimes we think of the apostles as almost like superhuman, and so we get to see the depth of Paul's heart and how he handles things. So I think that's good for us as believers.

I'm going to just up front say if you haven't listened to the Trials and Suffering recordings that are on the website, they're really good and this is only going to touch the tip of the iceberg. We're going to talk about trials and suffering and it's going to be pretty real in this case this morning, so we can take a look at that. So let's read out loud, or I will read it and you can follow along, verses 8 through 11 out of 2 Corinthians.

So Paul writes, For we do not want you to be unaware brethren of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope, and He will yet deliver us. You also joining and helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many. So I mentioned Hal's having led a series on trials and suffering.

2 Corinthians is actually continuing Paul's corrective action, right? So we don't know about that. It seems like there's a letter we're missing somewhere here in between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. But Paul has continued to write these corrective letters, and Paul has continued to pursue faithfully the health and well-being of the believers in Corinth.

And so when we take a look at this writing, we're going to see the depth of what Paul went through as not only something for us to learn about for ourselves, but we also need to keep in mind that this is in part of him setting up some of the corrective material that he's going to take the church body to.

But some of that correction is going to come in what I think is a tremendous form. It's going to come in the form of encouragement. So last week we talked about comfort and encouragement and those things. And it's going to continue on as we look at this book.

So when we talk about trials and suffering, We have to remember that we live in a culture full of pride and hedonism and massive disparity between the haves and have-nots, just like the Corinthians. When we deal with looking at the world around us, what causes a lot of the political upheaval is either the preservation of the haves or the removal of their stuff for the haves not, or sometimes the arguments over who is most important, the person who did this or that or the other thing. It's the problem of the one and the many. How do you deal with the complexity of culture? So what we have found in our secular mindsets that get pushed and promoted, whether it's in the media or in philosophy books or whatever else, is that we either run into secular platitudes.

Things where people will tell you certain things that you hear over and over again as some kind of, I'm going to say, farcical coping mechanism. I don't know how else to describe it. Or Stoicism. I don't know if you're too familiar with Stoicism. If you're not, we'll talk about it for just a moment. Stoicism is actually an ancient philosophy. The Stoics We're a group of teachers that kind of taught a tough, hard-headed approach towards difficulty.

So, secular platitudes, you probably are used to hearing people say things like, well there's nothing you can do, or sometimes life is hard, or one of my least favorites is, everything happens for a reason. Right? How many of you have heard everything happens for a reason? It's on TV shows, it comes in greeting cards from Hallmark, and it comes from... all sorts of other places. The thing is that they've replaced God with the universe, and I'll put air quotes on that in the handout. It actually has real quotes around it.

It's the universe who is somehow powerful enough to cause some things, but weak enough not to actually help other situations. without any real identifiable causality or purpose in trials and suffering. So it's garbage, right? It's the things that when you hear it you just go, there's no hope. There's no hope there.

Stoicism asks mankind to expect the difficult, to prepare for the difficult by toughening yourself up. I recently, in the last quarter of last year, listened to the writings of Seneca, who is a Stoic philosopher. He wrote letters to various people, and I listened to them because some of it said, I think you would like this. Now, I already knew it was a Stoic philosopher, and it wasn't going to line up with biblical truth, but I thought this was an opportunity to have a deeper understanding of what this philosophy is teaching in contrast to the scriptures. As it turns out, Seneca was about the same time as Paul, and there's actually certain phrases or things that sound similar in a few places. And I thought, that's kind of fascinating.

But it removes God altogether, it removes purpose altogether, and basically says, it doesn't matter what the purpose is, deal with it. Prepare yourself. He recommended in some cases, Seneca recommended, you just need to go without now so that later on if you have to go without, it'll feel more normal. You've done it before. You know you can do it. You temper yourself through self-sacrifice and or putting aside your worldly benefits that you may have so that if things get taken away later, you're better off.

So these are two common secular ideas that I've run across. Stoicism is actually growing in popularity right now as atheism and agnostic ideas become more popular in our culture. Stoicism is growing in popularity because it still says, hey, life can be hard and difficult, but it takes God out of the equation for the most part. So now that we've taken their really bad ideas, let's take the word of God.

How about that? That's got hope in it. I want to quote briefly Romans 8, 28-31, and it's there in your handout. I'm going to read it out loud. I think this is a better framework for trials and suffering and difficulty. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. That word, all, means you don't have permission to tell God what He can use or cannot use, right? He can use trials and suffering for your growth, for your benefit, for the growth and benefit of the body. Verse 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. The purpose of the good things, the trials, the suffering, is for the conformity. Conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called. And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. And what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? When that trial and that suffering comes, and we're going to see that Paul hit it in a pretty deep and real way, there's only one place where we can go for help.

So the Christian worldview does not allow us to walk away with a mere stoic mindset. Only the idea that, well, we've just got to toughen up. Toughen up, toughen out. That is not what we're called to. So, page 2 here, at the top there, let's dig into the passage here. For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction, which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

Paul has moved from comfort into this difficult place. The preceding verses were about comfort, and that God provides the comfort, and he's using that, and we should rejoice when we have those opportunities. Often when we think about comfort, it's in a hypothetical way, right? We're going to have difficulties in comfort. We talk about it in a hypothetical way, but Paul is going to talk about a very real way that that comfort was delivered.

And he wants the body in Corinth to not be unaware. Why is that? Why does he want them to not be unaware? They live in a society that's drenched with this stuff that they need to just set aside and trust and rest in what God's word says. Okay. What he wants them to be unaware of is this trials and suffering. He wants to make sure that they understand the depth of what he's gone through. Not so he can brag, right? That's not what Paul is saying.

But because of this word brethren. He counts them as family. He says, you're valuable. Roger? So I was just saying, you know, in here he talks about the, sort of like Paul is saying, don't be surprised. He says, I'm Paul the Apostle, and look at the stress or the emotional disturbance in my life.

It's beyond, and I even, you know, death even came to my mind. Some people think, well, Christians can't think that. Well, Paul totally debunks that. He says, no, Christians can think that, but God has a remedy for that. He doesn't say, pursue that. He says, don't be surprised if that happens, but God has a remedy. And that's pretty startling, because some people say, well, no, if you're a Christian, it's health, wealth, and you never have bad thoughts, he never contemplated terrible things.

Paul said, I contemplated all kinds of terrible things, but God was sufficient. Paul is very concerned that these brothers and sisters in Christ are aware of the relationship that they have and the care that they have for one another and he knows that they're praying, and we'll see in the latter half of this, that prayer is an important element in our communing together in the suffering.

We need to consider, I think, the suffering that goes around the world for our faith. I was convicted as I was preparing this to think, I don't pray for those who are suffering in the name of Jesus around the world enough. It's not that I don't pray for them, I just don't It doesn't come to mind as often as I said, alright Lord, please by your spirit remind me of these things more. Not because I want to be able to brag to anybody, well I pray for missionaries more than you do. But instead, because these are my brothers and sisters in Christ.

In fact, those of you who know, if you've met the Porches that have been coming to Holly Hills now I think for about the last six months, they were missionaries in China. And they're home now for a while, and maybe longer depending on what the Lord is doing there. But on Saturday, my friend Ben and his wife and their four children are going to Ireland to be missionaries. It doesn't sound like too bad a place to be a missionary, if I'm honest. They're going to go be missionaries. Actually, they're down in Colorado Springs, where the Porches live, getting trained up at the same school where Jonathan works.

So that's kind of a fun connection that the Lord brought about. But when we think of missions, I don't know how much suffering comes to mind, but that is a possibility in a lot of cases. Persecution. So, we can be praying for those things, because we're joint sufferers in those things with our brothers and sisters in Christ. So, Paul talks about affliction and burden beyond their strength. Of our affliction which came to us in Asia, and that's kind of down in the region of where the Church and Ephesus in Asia Minor there, that they had this suffering in Asia, the affliction, that they were burdened excessively beyond our strength. Now Paul, if he was a Stoic philosopher, would say, well I just didn't train hard enough in my suffering. Right? But he doesn't say that. He just says it's beyond my strength.

And that humility to the church in Corinth is, I'm sure, strengthening for them. Because if you've ever wrestled with the flesh, I mean nobody in this room has, but if someone else were to have wrestled with the flesh, when you come up against something that's hard, it's easy to want to quit. Or to look to outside people for help. Getting that comfort, not first from God and the scriptures, but from the advice from friends.

So Paul says, it was beyond our strength. And I think that's a powerful thing for us to recognize that an apostle is admitting that he was overwhelmed. We're used to reading more of the positive side of things. Yeah Randy, it kind of debunks the super, there's no such thing as a super Christian. Scripture never talks about that. You never get to that state. Because you look at Paul and you say, well, if anyone on the planet had enough understanding and direct teaching, Paul was the guy. And he says, here's where I was at.

Let's briefly turn over to 2 Corinthians 4, verses 7-12. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. Our vessels are weak, right? Our bodies are easily broken. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.

Always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who are who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.

So Paul says, I'm going through all of these things, I'm in this fragile body, but he's willing to have the difficulty of death and suffering push through. So these trials and these burdens are beyond Paul's strength and the cohort that was with him. So they despaired even of life. And that right there is the hard part of this passage.

When I was studying I was like, man I'm okay with everything else but can we just... I'd like the edited version. Can I have like eight parts A and B and we'll just skip C. But this is what Roger I think has been emphasizing is that the difficulty of despairing even of life. There was a period in my growing up where I remember anti-depressants were becoming very popular culturally and I remember there were some Christians who said some very strong even hateful things and saying he doubted the salvation of any believer who couldn't endure any difficulty without these antidepressants.

And I have to say that that seems maybe naive and ignorant of other parts of scripture, but Paul is despairing of life here. That's a heavy thing. I'm not trying to make a statement about pharmaceuticals, by the way, as much as it's like as believers We need to recognize that if the Apostle Paul can despair of life, we can despair of life too. Now, his circumstances may not be the same as other believers today that might have those things, but let's just be very frank about the weakness that we have as frail human beings. Gary? Looking at that passage, it means no way out in the light of a sentence of death. Basically, I mean, he didn't think he was going to make it out alive.

They didn't, yeah, and that was one of my next points, so we should make that now. No, it's okay. As a teacher, that is always the thing. You're trying to go through things sequentially, and then you know that at least you have said the right things because people have derived the next thing you're going to say, so it's good.

What we find here is that Paul is despairing of life and he is suffering. I want to cover one other thing here before we jump to the next one, although Gary has brought up a good element to the next point. We are used to seeing other things from Paul, where he is talking about thankfulness no matter what. We are used to seeing God's provision carried forward as a theme in his writings.

This is a very real place where they saw no way out from human circumstances. But God. There's no way out but God. But Randy, just think about all of us. There are all situations in our life where we see no way out. That's not an uncommon common situation for a believer. So Paul's saying, I saw no way out of this, and I saw that life wasn't worth living, basically. But it's also important, I hate to get off too much of a rabbit trail, but it's also important to say, that's not the new life in Christ that's saying that.

That's Paul's. And he doesn't actually address that here. It's kind of too, you know, you think, well, if I were writing scripture, I would have put some footnotes and caveats in here. Well, that's the old man that's doing that. It can't be the life in Christ. So, he'll say it other places in scripture, but not here. So you have to be diligent in looking at the rest of scripture.

And the thing that we find is that Paul was in this dark place. He was in a dark time. And it led him to turn to God. Because he knew that in his earthly skills and things that he had access to, he was out of resources. But he knew that God was sovereign.

So that is an important place that we actually kind of get out of the next couple verses. One of the things that I have observed in myself, and so I've got this as a question here, do we tend to judge those who get to a dark place? Do we think, I'd do better than that. How many of you have read through Genesis and you've seen the nation of Israel and they're wandering through the wilderness and you're like, what are you guys, a bunch of morons? Come on, just believe, God's going to take care of you.

And then you get into the circumstances of life and you're like, why is it so hard? Because where are we in these earthen vessels? So the sentence of death, so we would not trust in ourselves. The Greek there, the sentence of death, is actually the answer of death.

It's a word that they would use to actually It was like a legal handing down of the judgment for you. It was the answer. What should happen to this person? The answer is death. So Paul says we have the sentence of death or the answer of death. It seemed like that is the place or the end outcome of what's going to happen. But he's got the sentence of death. Let's call it what it is. It's pretty dark. despairing place. And what was the result of that? What does he say the result of that is? It has a purpose. It does have a purpose.

The sentence of death was in ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves. He knew that's of the flesh. He knew he couldn't trust it. He knew he couldn't act on those things because what does Paul know for sure about his life calling? God picked him specifically. God picked him specifically.

I heard it said this way in seminary, and I will be very careful that we don't want to all act with such boldness, okay? Because you could do some crazy things in light of this. But if God has put a calling in your life, and you know for sure He's called you to do something, it's not unreasonable to recognize that You're invincible until he's done with you. I want to say, be very careful with that. It's not a doctrine of general application.

But when we look at David, God told David he was going to be the king. So when he's a warrior, he's really, really bold. Why? Because a prophet of God anointed him and said he was going to be a king. Paul is called by God, he and Barnabas, they were called, they were sent out, and Paul knows he's invincible until the Lord's done with him. That's not a general principle for all of the church, but it's something here where Paul says, I despaired of myself, I saw the sentence of death, and I didn't trust in the flesh.

And that's good, right? If you hang around Holly Hills long enough, you'll hear something along the lines of this, where it's come to this, we're going to have to trust the Lord. Or, if you've trusted in the flesh, that's to have not trusted God. Those kinds of quotes are commonly stated around here, because we recognize the weakness of the flesh. We recognize what it can promise us, and what it cannot deliver. We have this end result that they did not trust themselves.

Well then, who did they trust? There's some good news there. They trusted in God. What attribute of God does Paul cite that seems like a reasonable reason to trust in Him? Use faith. He is faithful, but he says, God who raises the dead. We thought we were sentenced to death. Well, death doesn't stop God. It didn't stop him from raising his son. It didn't stop him from raising Lazarus. Let's turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter 14 verses 19-20. Or 19 and 20, depending on how you feel about the word through.

But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and re-entered the city the next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. They thought they killed him, They left him for dead, they stoned him, and they thought, well, that's one less of those crazy Jesus junkies. So when Paul says that God is able to raise the dead, it's not specifically revealed that he died there, but for them to think he was dead, he had to be in a pretty bad way. And yet the Lord raised him up and energized him, and he kept moving. So Paul is speaking about something that he is not completely unaware of.

So then in verse 10, and I think this is where it turns from the dark up to a slightly more positive note there. In verse 10, Who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, and He will yet deliver us. You also joining in helping us through your prayers so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many. They were despairing of death, despairing of their lives, ready for the answer of God's done with you. But hoping, hoping in Him. He doesn't want them to be ignorant brothers in those things. Gary?

I'm wondering if Paul reflected back on the time of Abraham and Isaac and the fact that God intervened and used that as an encouragement. I wouldn't even be able to begin answering that, but I'm certain that Paul had to go back to the scriptures and find that. When we looked at parts of 1 Corinthians, we kind of hearken back to Paul in the jail in Acts, right?

I think that we went over that briefly as a side note. Either that or I was talking about worship. I'm trying to remember which one of those it was. I'm going to blame my cold for not remembering clearly. In whatever Paul looked back at, he knew the scriptures and he was able to praise and worship in general, obviously at this point of despair, I don't know, maybe that's all he had.

Maybe they were praising the worship of the Muslim. This is all we got. We're here. But God delivered them and there's a Savior of hope. So since Paul had sent this letter, obviously he survived, right? He survived the great peril and he doesn't take credit. Who does he give credit to? He gives credit to God. He knows God is the one who did it.

One of the things I had to ask myself in this is, I tend to, when a difficulty comes up, and I'm looking for deliverance, I tend to go to my education, other friends who might have been in a similar situation, As I've matured and I've grown in the Lord, I can humbly say, I don't mean this in a bragging way at all, I can say that some of the time I actually go to the Lord first. But often I find myself wanting to go to my immediate resources. But I think one of the main lessons we can get here is that there is a Savior of hope, a Deliverer, and that's, you should go there first.

Well, I hate to be too talkative today, but Last week we covered the passage about God being the God of all comfort. If you look at that, that's an inclusive term. It basically is telling us, just like you related, if you're going to look for comfort, look to God. He is inclusively the God of all comfort. You can look elsewhere, but God's counsel to us is to look to Him. And I think, hopefully as we mature in the Lord, I would say the same thing you said. Sometimes I do look to God first.

And that's what He tells us in this passage. He's the God of all comfort. And He'll comfort in all our afflictions. The two all's. He's the God of all comfort. That's back in 3 and then in 4. In all our afflictions. So there is in any affliction, that's an inclusive term as well. So, any affliction, we're to look to God. And He is a singular source of comfort. That's pretty amazing. I think it's almost so amazing, we say it can't be that simple. Yeah, we almost say that there's got to be you got to be something else here that I got to go to do.

And we want to do something else to make it work. And many times it doesn't. But it takes time to learn that. Hopefully we all learn it. That's one of the things that I love about the process of sanctification is that the Lord often teaches us incrementally. He's like, hey, here's another inch. I know you see miles, but let's go the next inch in dealing with the trials and suffering.

So he says, it was he on whom we have set our hopes. Hope is a dangerous word. I said inhumans, but it should be inhumanity. When we place it in anything but God, it leads to all kinds of things. Actually, as a principal, because I did this the wrong way when I was younger, I tend to not cite too many movies because your audience may not know the movie. But in the recent Star Wars Rogue One film that was actually released in December last month still, I guess, one of the things they say is that hope is a dangerous thing as well, because that's what leads the revolution, right? The revolution is people who, we feel despair, we feel hopelessness.

So if somebody offers us any glimmer of hope, we'll follow it. In the flesh, humanity can follow crazy things. But if our hope is in God, that's not crazy, right? Our hope is certainly in God. He can see, He knows all things, He sees all things. He's the God of, and He's all-powerful, He's the God of the space-time continuum.

I think we should do... I'm just throwing this out here, Roger. It's on the record now that we're recording, right? I think we should do an Attributes of God Sunday School class of ours. It's just every time I study him I'm like, yep, we serve an awesome God.

I always feel short of words to describe the character of God. But he's the one in whom our hope is. And instead of it being irrational, it is deeply seated in an eternal focus. An eternal God who is able to take any of our weaknesses and expose them to His strength and change our perspective. What sort of things do we hope for that are earthly that we could place on the Lord?

And that's a question that I was thinking about hope. I was thinking, wait a minute, a lot of the times, if I'm in despair, the flesh wants me to look at my friends and my family and my resources. At the same time, if I'm hoping, Instead of hoping for, and I'm just going to make something up on the spot here because I didn't think through that. If I'm hoping for more financial well-being or prosperity or something like that, and I'm just hoping that somebody inside of the organization I work for just feels like giving me a raise. You're waiting for that big bonus. Yeah, that may be. something that the Lord wants to deal with me on anyways. But it's one of those things where if my hope is in the Lord, I would say, okay Lord, you give me a stewardship.

Let me look at my resources in light of what you call me to. And maybe if I'm a good steward with my resources, He might give me more. And He might not. And He might take all of them away. So that my hope is always in Him. So, instead of earthly hope, where can we place our hope that is based on the Lord and what He's doing?

So Paul says he will yet deliver us so that thanks may be given. And I've kind of eluded there. I've kind of joined some text together to group things. Because Paul adds a parenthetical. But God's deliverance is referenced three times in this verse. That's kind of cool. He did deliver us. He will deliver us. He will yet again deliver us. That's a big thing. There is only one Deliverer, and He did deliver us in the past, present, and future. So He carries that through, that there is only one Deliverer, and that is God, and that is it. But the result of God's deliverance is that thanks may be given.

In my own walk with the Lord, I find I'm often busy, and I'm thinking about what's happening now, and what's happening in the future. The older I get, the less future there is. I think a little bit more about the past, right? Maybe you've experienced this in life.

And the Lord may teach us to reflect on His deliverance, His provision, so that we can respond in thankfulness. Thankfulness is a natural response that God wells up in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit that when we think about what He's done, we're thankful. And so Paul says he will deliver us, and he did deliver us, the consequences that thanks is given. So I've got the question, should we take time to reflect on the Lord's deliverance and provision as we pray? And the answer is yes. Yes, we should. And I don't mean that legalistically. I just mean that I think it's clear if we look at God's provision, we can be thankful. But if we don't take time to do that, we're less likely to be thankful.

And then Paul talks about these saints here and he says, you also joining and helping us through your prayers so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many. You also joining and helping us through prayers.

Now this is one of those doctrines that I've seen get twisted in weird ways over the years. If we can just get enough people to pray, we'll twist God's harmony. We'll have to do what we prayed for, right? There's something out there called the Tower of Prayer. I'm pretty sure we can talk of it today. The Tower of Prayer. The Tower means it's more and more and more. They claim, well, we've got hundreds of thousands of people. So if you tell us your prayer request, the numbers are going to overwhelm God and your prayers are going to be answered. Imagine how effective that would be.

As I was studying for this week, I was looking for a list of kinds of prayer, which I ended up editing out of the handout. But one of them was a list that was put together by a guy who had written a book basically on how to make sure your prayers are being answered. Like, if you just follow these steps, God will have to do what you're praying. And I was like, man, we missed the mark here. But Paul says that they're helping in their prayer. Why are they helping? Because God wants to, and I think Roger taught this When last year did you teach on answering prayers?

Oh yeah, in Romans there about the Holy Spirit. Yeah, so if you missed it or if you want to re-listen to it, it's on the website. It's Roger taught last year, but I can't remember which month it was, but it's out of Romans 8. Romans 8? It is, right. 26 or 27, I think. Okay, I should get that to memory. Roger brought out this truth that I had never heard of before. I was like, OK, stop Roger, my brain is full.

And that is that God wants to answer prayer. If the Holy Spirit is praying, God wants to answer prayer. How stupid would it be if God wanted to not answer prayer and the Holy Spirit was praying? But instead the Holy Spirit is praying intercessory prayer for us. because God wants it. In accordance with His will. That's the key part. It's all these schemes about forcing God to do things. God's not a Ponzi scheme. A prayer Ponzi scheme.

But the idea here is that these prayer requests are helpful prayer requests and they're ones that the church was praying for Paul and you can imagine the saints in many of the churches were praying for Paul very regularly. They knew he was going through difficult times, suffering. So what we find here is that Paul says you are helping in your prayers. So we can help in our prayers of the missionaries, of the elders, of the leaders of this nation.

Will we be able to find causality always. That's always the part that I think as human beings we want to be able to have a mechanism of causality. God is able to do all things and be above all. Our helpful prayer is that God is moving in our hearts and God's heart is moved. If it is in alignment with His will, it is going to do a thing. We would like causality. It would be convenient if we could read that guy's book and say, I know God is going to give me the recording studio that I have been asking for since I was 15. Because I prayed the right way.

Finally, I was just doing it wrong. That's not it. But instead... And that's part of the flesh. We're always looking. I'm the same way as anybody else. Always looking for the right words and the right prayer to make God act a certain way. And it's the wrong thought process. It's the wrong thought process.

So when we join as a body in prayer, it is helpful. even if we can't put our finger on the pulse and go, oh, this is precisely, we had 60% of the prayer meter, you know, we finished it off, right? It's not a fundraiser. It's a prayer fundraiser? That's terrible, right?

But the other thing, and I kind of mention this again with some care, sometimes when we pray together as a group, the Lord changes us and changes our perspective. Sometimes we pray things, and when we're young in the Lord, we pray pretty blunt and I'm just going to say it theologically inaccurately, right? It's just like, you know, God, I just prayed for a million dollars and a Lamborghini so I can share your name. And a stronger believer comes along and says, Lord, I just pray you give Randy exactly what he needs.

And you're like, what? But then you grow. And you're like, wait a minute, why would he pray that? Because there's maturity there. And the Lord will change us and teach us even during prayer, because true doctrine will come out in our prayers. So praying together as a body may actually, we have this help, but we also may end up influencing and helping one another. And I just want to call that out, because I think it's valuable.

We used to have prayer meetings at the Charismatic Church that I went to in junior high and high school and it was pretty ridiculous some of the times because everybody would take a turn binding Satan and praying for a hedge of protection around the city or the church or somebody's house or wherever it was.

And we'd all do it. And then it was like, okay, what are we praying about now? And we're like, well, who else needs some binding or some hedges? Because we didn't have a depth of prayer in other places. And that may be a little bit of an exaggeration but the principle is there. Why are we so afraid to share our prayer requests when they're helpful? Let me just ask that. I think we're embarrassed. We don't want to admit that we have a problem. Shame or embarrassment. But you know what's funny is that if we're vulnerable in those cases, then the Lord can use it in the body. I would ask this.

When you get together, in fellowship, let's say church is over or after this class, when you get together in fellowship, before you walk off to the next place, consider asking, is there anything I can be praying for you about? Because it might be helpful, right? That would be helpful if I can pray for you. We might pray right then, I might pray for you on Wednesday, I'm busy Tuesday. I can't pray Tuesday. I'm just kidding. But it's one of those things where it might be helpful if we are asking one another. Hey, I love you. You're my brother and sister in Christ. What's going on? How can I pray for you?

And I'm going to go even further and say, if someone asks you and you're going through an embarrassing, tough thing, maybe you tell them anyways. You might step off into a side room so it's not like a group, hey, I'm wrestling with this problem. know that it may be helpful and the Lord may be using it.

That is a bonus theological discussion outside of what Paul is going for here, but I want to call it out because I think it's useful. So the last section here, that thanks may be given for favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many. If everybody's been praying for Paul and they thought we're going to die for sure, but God saved them, God delivered them, and God will deliver them, then the response for that is thankfulness. And many people who are praying are going to be many people who are thankful. The prayers of many, not for manipulating God, but the prayers of many because He is drawing His body together to be praying for the most important thing.

I think most recently the place where I've seen more believers praying is in our political arena. There were a lot of people praying that the person who won the election would win over the other person running in the election. That wasn't my prayer, I'm going to be honest. Not because I was praying for the other person to win, but just because I was praying for the rapture.

No matter what your stance is on the current political environment, you can pray. You can pray to the God who offers hope. And we can pray together. And then when God does those things that are faithful and true and consistent with his character, we can pray together again and we can thank him together again.

So Paul found the favor of God. He found safety where he thought there was none. He was ready for the end and the Lord said, not yet. And so the church is blessed. The whole church is blessed because Paul was preserved. And the whole church gets to be thankful because Paul was preserved. The last question I've got here, and this is definitely a rhetorical one, is what things can you be thankful for today as you pray?

1 Thessalonians 5.17. I believe it's two words in the Greek, although I should double check that. But it's translated into three in English. It says, pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. And so as we pray, we can be thankful. We have a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to be going before the Lord for. Supplication, intercession, and thankfulness.

Any other thoughts or questions? I think Brian's about to ring that bell here any second. Alright, well, we'll go with silence means that Roger doesn't have one more thing to say. I'm just kidding. I really appreciate any time anyone interjects by the way, so don't hesitate to raise your hand or just say something. Okay, Heavenly Father we come before you and we are thankful for your word in our lives and we are thankful for the difficulties and we are thankful for the despair and we are thankful that you have a plan. We just ask that you would Continue to guide our steps and that we would be looking to you the God of hope instead of anywhere else We thank you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen