Highlights: Psalm 119 - Week 7

Amen and amen, and that nice. I'm so glad to be back with

you, UM to preach to you again today. And I want to continue

our series Psalm one nineteen, UH highlights Psalm one nineteen. We're gonna continue.

If you don't know. Pastor Steve is still in Honduras working on some

things, setting up some uh some future opportunities so that we can continue.

The rest of the team was came home yesterday. UM, so we're thankful

that they got home safely and that they were able to accomplish all that they

were doing in Honduras. But uh, Chief is still there. So if

you keep him in your prayers, keep his family in your prayers as they

spend some time this week working and resting too. Uh. They're they're going

to take some time to rest and recuperate, rejuvenate, and how many knows

that's important. It's really important for your for your pastors to to be able

to rest and recharge. It's a it's such a such an honor that we

get to send him that way and and he can go and we can still

do we need to do here in Oakwood. I'm so glad that you're here

today. I want to continue this series. Last week we spent some time.

If you didn't get to get to be here last week, or if

you haven't gone back, you can go back always, and we post the

audio of every sermon as a podcast, so wherever you listen to podcasts.

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podcasts, you want to get just the audio, listen to it while you're

doing something else. Every sermon is always uploaded in the middle of the week

after it was preached, so you can find that sermons from Cstone dot Church

is the name of it. But I want to continue and kind of continue

on insom one nineteen here. Last last week we spent time in the ninth

Stanza, in the tech Stanza, which is the Hebrew letter that it was

identified by. This week, I want to go to the next, very

next stanza. I'm very traditional, and we did nine last week. We're

gonna do ten this week. But just makes sense to me. It's math,

I guess, and I want to I want to go and talk more

about afflictions, talk about trials. Anybody, everybody ever felt afflicted, it,

ever felt pain, ever felt like going through something, And maybe it

doesn't make sense. I feel like that's that's a lot of us. And

I think if we think hard enough, we can find something in our lives

today that we feel man like. I'm going through this. So I want

to encourage you today from the word of God. I want to continue in

the tenth stanza of Someone nineteen. It's it's identified by the Hebrew letter YadA.

Let's jump right in and read together. We're gonna start Someone nineteen,

verse seventy three, and we're gonna do it just like we did last week.

We're gonna go verse by verse. So we're gonna read a verse,

we're gonna talk about it, we're gonna continue on. I'm gonna wrap it

up in a bow. At the end, we're gonna we're gonna have an

altar call. We're gonna pray through if you got something going on today,

and then we're gonna take community in together as we close, and we're gonna

remember Christ. So I want to start verse seventy three of Someone nineteen.

It says this, this almost writes your hands have made end fashioned me,

give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. You see, we right

here, just like we started last week, the Psalmist is reaffirming that close

relationship with God, that close relationship with Jehovah. This further illustration of how

powerful God is, how how almighty God really is. That He fashioned the

Psalmist, He put him together with his hands. And it's also the uniqueness

of mankind. I think that when we look at the world around us,

that the thing that distinguishes us from everything else that was created is that God

breathed into us. God put a little bit of himself in us, made

directly. It's our uniqueness of mankind's. We're made directly by the Creator,

and we have the ability to have that ongoing relationship with him, you know.

I we can look at trees, we can look at animals, we

can look at the earth and it has it has a relationship with God because

it was created by him. But we have a personal connection if we choose

it. That God is almighty, that God is holy, that God is

the ruler of the universe. But he's also close. He also wants to

be teacher, He also wants to be father. He also wants to be

close to you. And here's the thing. Once again, we see this

right here, that God doesn't give commandments, He doesn't give instructions to you,

and didn't just bounce, doesn't just leave you. He doesn't say,

hey, hey, Chris, I want you to do this a good luck

and take a hike. God God equips you when he calls you. When

we believe, we're able to live by His law. But we will only

be successful if we continue to ask Him for help. The Psalmist already believed.

He was already believer. He was. We're seventy three verses in this

thing. Okay, he's writing this, this incredible, lengthy poem about God.

He knows God, and God knows him. And still yet he says,

teach me that I may understand, give me understanding. You know the

Hebrew word. I love when Pastor Gary shares and he always goes back to

the original language. I love that so much because there's so much power in

these original languages. It's not mystical, it's not magical. It's just that

it's just beautiful the way it illustrates the concept that Hebrew word for fashioned right

there in verse seventy three. It can also be translated as made ready.

So not only were you created and put into existence by God, but he

makes you ready to do what He's called you to do. And he doesn't

just make you ready one time. He continually makes you ready as you ask.

It's an ongoing personal relationship with growth. He equips those he calls,

he teaches those he commands. Let's go to verse seventy, for it says

this, those who fear you shall see me and rejoice because I have hoped

in your word. And we spent a lot of time last week talking about

how the Psalmist keeps going back to God's law, God's word, God's statutes.

It is his word that's the foundation. The Psalmist acknowledges his devotion to

Yahweh once again and that his law is an encouragement to others who also believe.

Again, what happens in this room, just like we just talked about,

what happens in this room, goes beyond this room. What happens in

your life as a believer as a Christian goes beyond you, and it always

should. A life completely lived completely in the light of God's word, hear

me, will have a discernible distinctive impact on the world around you, if

you truly believe, your life should affect others because it's Jesus in you.

I remember we talked about God. When God, as almighty and holy as

he is, when he encounters something, it has to change. He doesn't

change. It has to So when you're filled with the spirit, when you're

when you're saved, when you believe, when you live your life it ought

to change the lives of those around you, ought to draw people to Christ.

True dedication to the Lord will always have an effect beyond your life.

If you're truly dedicated again you your experience with God is not just for you.

I think that we tend to reduce it down to being for us.

It's how we kind of we kind of frame God as this genie right that

we can we can give the request. We got a few wishes in our

lifetime. We can get those requests and He can fulfill those needs for us.

But He will meet all your needs to the end that your life affects

other people, right, that it always has to go beyond you. Remember,

to hope in God's word is to hope in Him. We talked a

lot last week about how his word. His law reveals his character. So

to hope in his word is to hope in him, and he doesn't operate

outside of that established character. He just chooses not to. It is his

his framework for how God operates. We can refer back to to to Psalm

M one nineteen, verse forty three. The Psalmist he asked for God to

leave the word of truth in his mouth, because that is where the hope

is found. If it's if his praise is on your lips, if his

truth is in your mouth, that's where you can put your hope. Let's

go to verse seventy five. The Psalmist says, I know, o Lord,

that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have a afflicted

me. I think this is the most interesting verse in this entire Psalm,

because we read that and we go wait a minute. The Psalmist is saying

God afflicted him in faithfulness. The Lord's rules reveal his righteous character, and

because of his righteous character, he established the rules. Getting to know God

allows us to see his heart in his commands. When we just read.

Look, just if you just open to Leviticus and you don't try to connect

it to the character of God. It's very confusing. It's very confusing.

It's how can I possibly live my life like that? There's no way.

That's way too many laws. I don't even know what half these words mean.

If you're like me, you know what is We don't even But when

you connect it to his character, when you know who wrote it, you

see his heart in those commands, and then it's no longer about the rules.

It's about his character. And the rules aren't arbitrary. They're not just

made up out of nowhere. They came from the heart of God and ordering

our lives, not according to Leviticus, ordering our lives according to God's law,

which again Jesus fulfilled. Love the Lord, your God. And the

second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. When we live according

to God's law, and that is God's law. When we do that,

we start to adopt the character of God. Because the law reveals his character.

We start following that law, we start to become more like him,

we start to live more like he lived. And I really do think this

is the most interesting line because of God's faithfulness. He afflicted the Psalmist.

When we talked about this very briefly last week In the ninth Stanza in Psalm

one nineteen, verse sixty seven, seventy one, he talks about that affliction

was the catalyst for him to return to God. He said, it was

good that you afflicted me. It was good that I was afflicted, because

it brought me back to the Lord. We don't like to think about God

as doing something to us. We don't like that thought. If it's I

don't, I don't. I don't like the thought of God afflicting us.

It confuses us. Why why would God do that? Why would he do

that? We don't like to think that. And then there's also the misconception

that God's causing all these bad things to happen so that we will learn a

lesson. But I want to break some of that misconception for you today that

there's a difference with what the psalmist is talking about right here in verse seventy

five and the various trials that we face just as part of being alive.

This is something different. This has an intentional purpose, straight from the hands

and heart of God. We're gonna clearly define afflictions and trials in a little

bit. Let's keep going. Verse seventy six Salmist says, let your steadfast

love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come

to me that I may live, for your law is my delight. See

the Psalmist understands that God is not capricious. He's not He's not just flippant.

He's not just acting willy nilly. Today's purpose. The affliction had a

clear purpose rooted in God's love. Refer back to verse forty one of Salone

nineteen. God has promised good to us. It is it is what He

has promised us by his word, that good will come, and it's the

greatest good because it comes from Him. We accept salvation freely. It's a

gift we accept Christ. We accept that salvation, but we operate according to

his word because we are transformed when we accept that gift. It's not the

it's not the rules that change us. It's our lives that change. And

then we want to follow the statutes. We want to be like God.

We want to be like his character. As frightening and as stressful as this

can be, to imagine that God would afflict us, we can come to

the place of resting easy. We can come to the place of peace by

surrender, realizing that we are not our own, that the life we've been

given as a gift itself, the fact that we get I don't know if

you guys have seen it. Stephen Colbert, the comedian, talking about his

faith an interview, he said to the existing as a gift, Suffering is

part of life. But I would never I look at suffering as a gift

because it's if I didn't exist. If I did, if God didn't give

me life in the first place, I would never get the opportunity to suffer.

It reframes the way you look at everything. If you will acknowledge God

as the originator of life, this happens. We get more comfortable with this

idea. The more we learn about God through his word, through his law.

The further we go in that relationship, the more we are able to

trust him because the more we understand his character, it's just like our earthly

relationships. The more I know, I know Pastor Gary, I know his

heart, it's not it's not. I have no question when he takes the

microphone and comes upon the stage that he's going to speak from his heart,

which is ruled by Christ. So I know that the things coming out of

his mouth are going to come from Jesus. When you know someone's character,

you can trust them. The more we get to know God's character, the

more we can trust him. It makes that affliction all the easier to understand.

Let's go to verse seventy eight. Salmist says, let the insolent be

put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood. As for me,

I will meditate on your precepts. Remember the insolent we define last week

as those who reject God, those who reject his law, those who reject

his characters, so they become As we accept God's law, we adopt his

character. Those who reject it become less and less like him. They gain

character traits that are opposite of God because they're not finding Him in his truths.

The Hebrew for insolent right here. The Hebrew word for it can be

translated as presumptuous or proud. So interesting to me that the Psalmist continues to

ask for understanding even though he is not insolent. The insolent are different from

him. They wronged him because he followed God's law. And yet the one

who probably needs the teaching the least continues to ask for it. So if

you take a look at your life, you can see how this plays out.

That Hey, if I'm if I think I got it covered, if

I'm presuming I'm being presumptuous and proud of Hey, I can live the way

I want to live. I can do the things that I just feel like

doing. That path always leads to destruction because it leads away from God.

So I want to go toward God. How do I do it? His

law, his character? And we know about the insolent from last week that

you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the fat around the

heart, that unfeeling barrier that kind of shields from the truth. The more

we go in that direction, the more we get away from God's character,

the less we even are able to feel him and to understand him. The

Psalmist here's the crazy things. The Psalmist knows that he's in the right.

He clearly says, these these these insolent people, they've wronged me with falsehood.

He knows he's right, He knows God, he knows he's standing on

the right side, and he knows that the insolent deserved to be put in

their place, and God will handle them. He knows these things, and

he also knows that it's not his place to directly respond to them. Okay,

hold on, let's think about it all right. If I know God's

fighting my battles, do I need to fight? Nope, He's a way

better fighter than me. If I know that I'm in the right and I'm

right with him, and I'm in his word, and I'm I'm gaining his

character traits, and people are saying things about me, there's same things about

my church, the same thing about my beliefs. They're saying things about whatever

I care about. Do I need to go fight that? The psalmist says,

But I meditate on your precepts. This is how you fight your battle,

don't You don't need You don't need to go and launch into a tirade

against those who are against God. Let God fight his battle because he always

wins. You Meditate, Meditate, meditate. We cannot enact retribution for those

who reject God and attacked his people. Just like God delivers on the promise

of salvation, he will handle the insolent. Trust him and let him handle

it. Your responsibility is to become more like him, and this laser focus

that the Psalmist has on the Lord should also be ours. Instead of striking

back, let God, who is the ultimate avenger. That concept. You

know, we've been singing a lot about the names of God by Jehovah.

We sing a lot of songs about Yahweh. There's this concept around the name

Yahweh, that he is the avenger, that he strikes back at those who

are against him in due time, in his own way. He will handle

it. You get with him. Let's go to verse seventy nine. Let

those who fear you turn to me that they may know your testimonies. And

immediately I want you to notice how this is different from verse seventy eight.

The Psalmist understood, it's not my responsibility to fight back against the insolent.

That's God's battle. But here is my responsibility to meditate and get close to

him and to build up God's people. You have a responsibility to build up

your brothers and sisters, those who believe with you. It's not your job

to fight, it's your job to build up. So we put our energy

there, but we don't A lot of the time. A lot of the

time we get so caught up in whatever we're dealing with, whatever we're fighting

against, whoever we're trying to fight against. We spend all of our energy,

and then we wonder why we don't feel like coming in and worshiping on

Sunday. I do it so all this time just wondering like, Oh my

gosh, I gotta handle that. I gotta handle that. I gotta.

I can't believe they said that, I gotta, I gotta. I gotta

prove my point. And God's saying, what are you doing? Just come

with me. I'll deal with that. If you just come with me,

I got it. Your job is to build up your brethren. The psalmist

doesn't want the recognition of others for fame. Rather, he wants it so

that he can relay God's truths to them. Let those who fear you turn

to me so that they can better understand you, so that others that fear

you would turn to them, that we can continually build each other up while

God fights the battles. We see the whole of the law here once again,

just like Jesus said, love the Lord your God, and love your

neighbor. It's all right here. Let's go to verse eighty, the last

verse. In this stands, the Psalmist writes, may my heart be blameless

in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame. And the

Psalmist closes the stands out with another plea another ask, Lord, let my

heart be blameless. Remember in the Hebrew, heart and mind are connected.

In those two things, that's the whole being. Your flesh is your flesh,

But that's who you really are. Where you are in your mind and

where you are in your heart, that's who you really are. That's who

you really are. So if I'm asking God, may my heart be blameless,

I'm asking and from our whole being, to be blameless according to your

character, God, according to your holiness, according to your statutes. And

the Psalmist knows that God will answer this prayer. He's sure that God will

bring shame to the insolent, and so to avoid the fate of the insolent,

to avoid being put to shame, he knows he needs the divine help

from God to remain in right standing. You can't do it, let me,

just in case you were thinking about that, like, oh my gosh,

this is a lot. You can't do it. Let me take that

pressure off of you. You cannot. It's why Jesus came. That's why

he went away to send his Holy Spirit so that we can do it with

his help. And remember, Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He's not just

gonna run up on you and take control and make you walk in his precepts.

Wants you to ask so that the relationship can get better. You know,

it really drew me right here this week is that part in verse seventy

five about God afflicting us. And I want to I want to just spend

it. I just want to camp there, just for a few more minutes

and and just talk about it. We talked last week how affliction and most

of the prayer psalms is viewed upon negatively. We see a lot of psalms

of David where he's crying out to God, how long, Old Lord,

this is nuts? Help me? Where are you? There's all this negativity

around it. But in Psalm one nineteen, affliction is viewed in a positive

light because it brought the psalmist back to God. Here he goes a little

further and describes that that affliction did come from God directly, and why would

God do such a thing. We already talked about that. There's purpose behind

it. But what is that purpose? We look back at verse sixty eight,

where the Salma says you are good and you do good. We don't

really associate affliction with good, right, we don't associate pain with good.

But it's because of God's goodness that he afflicts at times. His holiness and

his righteousness they don't mix with darkness, They don't mix with sin. God

is holy, so he has to do something about that sin. And God

desires for us to be close to him, right, He desires for us

to call upon him and say, Lord, teach me, mentor me,

push your arm around me and tell me your secrets, your law, your

truths. That closeness and our sin that doesn't mix well. So God has

to handle that somehow. We tend to trend toward our humanity, trend toward

our flesh. And I just I feel compelled to say, just for the

recording sake, that I don't have a problem with Taco Bell. Okay,

I'm not. We don't have We don't have a stance at Cornerstone against Taco

Bell. If you go eat there, it's it's okay. Just don't eat

there five times a week. But it's it's it's that we trend. I

bring that up because we trend toward that, right, We trend toward that

quick, easy pleasure. We trend toward the most comfortable. I was just

talking to to my fiance yesterday about it. We were talking about this.

I don't want to get into it, really, but there's a there's a

trend in social media right now where people just basically act a certain way and

then they make a lot of money and and they kind of just remove their

whole personality and kind of act like a robot and people just give money to

it. It's insane. They make like four grand and two hours. I

don't know if you've seen the articles about this. Our society is degrading.

It's degrading. It just is. But we know that we knew that was

coming. It's happening, okay, But people. The point is people will

always find the path of least resistance. You can make four thousand dollars in

a bunch of different ways, but most of them are a lot harder than

turning on your phone and making a bunch of gibberish noises as people send you

money for no reason. That's the path of least resistance. That's what we

do as humans. We find the path of least resistance for everything that we

do. We want to we want to make money as easily as we can

make it. I want to I want to prepare for Sunday as easy as

I can. It's why we use all the tech that we use. It

gets us a lot of the way. It takes a lot of the stress

and the work out of it that we used to have to do. We

always search for that easy path. The world around us is pulling us.

We know it's pulling us in the opposite direction of God all the time.

So sometimes we need to be corrected. And God is our father. What

do fathers do? They correct the discipline. The Hebrew word for afflicted can

also be translated as humbled. Remember how we defined the insolent, presumptuous,

proud, and that's the way we tend to go. So what does God

need to do? Humble, humble a little. Let's let's shave off some

of that insolence and let's become more like the Psalmist. It's the precise treatment

necessary to keep us from turning into the insolent and therefore enemies of God and

his people. But at the same time, I know this is probably in

somebody's head, it was in my head when I originally read it. At

the same time, I don't want you to leave here today thinking that God

made me sick to teach me a lesson. I don't believe that God did

not give you that horrible sickness so that you would learn how to follow Him

better. That's not how it works. God is good. So then you

might be thinking, well, then what is the affliction? So if it's

not, if it's not the thing that's that's bothered me right now, what

could it be. The reality is life happens to all of us. We

get sick because we're in a broken world. We we we go through hardships

and interpersonal conflicts because we're in a broken world. We hurt because we live

in this darkness as the light that's going to happen to all of us.

Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people,

and bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good It

all Matthew five, Jesus talks about God sends the rain and the sun on

the just and the unjust. However, God is our father, so if

we are sons and daughters after accepting Christ, we can expect some level of

parental discipline. This is what the Psalmist is referring to when he's talking about

this particular affliction, and the same word for affliction is used in a bunch

of different contexts about the Old Testament elsewhere in Psalms. It's all there,

but our focus is right here in this prayer, and in the context of

this prayer there's discipline and this full concept if you really want to go into

it. Hebrews Chapter twelve, verses six through eleven. The writer of Hebrews

expands on this and talks about how if our earthly fathers would do good by

us, if they would keep us safe, if they would provide for us,

how much more would our heavenly father, who has all the resources and

all the love, in all the capacity, how much more will he take

care of you. The right of Hebrews talks about don't don't have disdain for

this discipline, don't reject this discipline, don't get upset about this discipline.

It's for your own good that you may become more like him who saved us,

so for our purposes today, it may be helpful. This is not

definitive, okay, but this may be helpful for you to understand, for

all of us to understand what we're going through. Afflictions from God? What

do they like? As I was preparing as a praying about the sermon,

these things came to me that it's that feeling of distance. You ever spend

time away from your significant other or maybe from your kids, maybe from your

family, and you spend that time in that distance, and then you might

you know, you might get a text or you send a text and it's

taken the wrong way right, and then you have you have this. You

start to feel that distance the longer away from that person, of those people

because you're you're not understanding each other, because you're not with each other right,

and so there's some of that gets lost in the distance. I think

sometimes we are afflicted, and God lets us feel that distance that we've put

between Him and us. If you're far from God, he didn't move right,

you moved. Sometimes God lets us feel that, Hey, I just

don't feel right sometimes I just I just I don't I don't have the experience

that that other people in church seemed to have When I walk in there,

I don't I just wake up and I'm just I'm just disturbed and I don't

know what it is. But there's it's it's I can't put my finger on

it. I think a lot of times that is affliction. God's letting us

feel that distance because it drives us back to him. It might look like

that heightened awareness might be, oh my gosh, I'm here, there's where

I need to be, and you have heightened awareness of that gap. Man,

I should be further along this. I should be I should be doing

better than this. And I look how far God has brought me. But

I really, what have I done that? I'm not there yet. We

see that gap, we're aware of that gap. I think God lets us

feel that from time to time. We talk about in that song new Wine.

We talk about in the crushing and the pressing, Jesus bring new wine

out of me. The prayer actually in that song is Lord, crush and

press out of me that you may bring new wine. That's a process that

is not always it's not always nice. We use the word crushing and pressing

for a reason because that's what it is that affliction that squeezes that God's hard

truths that cause us to forcibly change our ways. You can't change this.

You can't change this because it's tied to God's character, and God is not

changing. We can't change his truths. Those truths force us to change.

Sometimes it looks like pressure, discomfort, persecution, even it's the cost of

living righteous lives in a dark world. Affliction and afflictions. Here's how you

can tell the difference. If you're like, well, pastor, I don't

know. I mean, I'm going through this thing right now, I kind

of feel that way, and I can't tell if it's from God or if

it's just the world, or if it's just life. It's just me.

Here's how you can tell the difference. Afflictions from God never lead to your

destruction. They lead you closer to God. They lead you to his truth,

they lead you to his statutes. Afflictions from God happen in the context

of his love and his mercy. So I the Psalmist, asked for that

immediately after is good that you afflicted me, Now give me your mercy that

I may live. So we know afflictions happen in that context. So what

about the rest of the stuff that happens to us? Those are trial.

I just define them as trials. You can define them however you want,

but for the purpose of this sermon, I wanted to define it as trials.

What are they like? Those are those physical ailments. That's just sickness

that's unexpected. That's the injury that's unexpected. That's that interpersonal strife and disunity

that happens from time to time because we're all human and we all have personalities

and we all have opinions. Trials can also be attacks from the enemy.

We have a real opponent. There's a real enemy, and he hates you

because he hates the Jesus in you, and he comes against us. That's

those things are not from God, they're from the enemy. Those are trials,

self imposed destructive behaviors. Anybody got any You don't have to raise your

hand, but I'm raising mind. Sometimes we just choose things that tear us

up. Like last week, we talked a lot about diet, But it

doesn't have to be diet. It can be all kinds of things we impose.

We self impose those things because we're broken. Trials they're a direct result

of the sinful nature of our fallen world. And here's how you can tell.

These trials can lead to your destruction. They can. Afflictions, don't

they lead you to God? But trials can lead you to destruction if we

don't turn to God for help. Because here's the thing, whether it's affliction

from God or it's a trial from elsewhere, God will not waste it if

you'll let him do what he does. So Romans eight twenty eight. If

we turn to Him for help, so the bank can get ready. I

want to close up. I want to close with with what we do about

it. We've talked about it, but what do we do with this psalm

today? Like last week? Our task has to do with proper perspective.

Now, I think with a lot of times we we just live our lives

in a perspective that's so closed in, that's so tightly wound and so tightly

tied to our our our selfishness, our flesh are the things that we we

just live this perspective that's that's blocked. But if we get that proper perspective,

we can understand the world better because we understand it more the way God

understands it. The Psalmist reminds us that, regardless of the situation, the

ultimate goal of your life is to live blameless in light of God's truth.

To live blameless, to live righteous. We who belong to God have the

responsibility of responding to both afflictions and trials, regardless of the source, in

the proper way. Some trials are going to come against you Church. You

might be in one right now. Actually, I have friends in this room

who are in some right now. It's going to happen. But the proper

response is upward. It's to God. It's close to him. Some of

you might be afflicted, You might be feeling that distance between you and God.

God might be working on you, trying to get you back into shape.

The proper response to that is meditate on His precepts, on his truth,

to get close to him, get to know him. We talk about

transparency a lot here at Cornerstone. It's one of our core values, transparency,

because suffering is part of humanity. Suffering is just part of life in

all forms. You are going, whether you accept Christ or you don't,

you're going to suffer. I'd rather suffer with Jesus, I just I would

not just rather it be that way. If it's gonna happen either way,

I might as well suffer with the one who can take me out of that.

Suffering is part of the human experience, regardless of faith, but because

of our faith, suffering should be a joyous occurrence. We should We should

change our perspective and contextualize, meaning put it in the proper frame. We

understand our suffering differently than those who don't know Jesus because we know it has

a purpose, that all of it can lead us closer to Him if we

just look at it the right way, if we frame it and respond to

it the right way, the proper response is joy. Let's close this sermon

today reading First Peter chapter four. I was gonna try to say it in

a really cool way, and then the apostle Peter already did so I'm gonna

read his words to you First Peter chapter four, starting in verse twelve.

It says this, and I want you to hear this as though it's directly

to you, because it is beloved. Do not be surprised at the fiery

trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange that's

happening to you, But rejoice insofar as you share christ sufferings, that you

may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are

insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory

and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a

murderer, or a thief, or an evil doer, or as a meddler.

As a whole sermon right there in that verse, I'll let pastor Gary

get to it one day. Yet, if anyone suffers as a Christian verse

sixteen, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that

name, which name, the name of Jesus. For it is time for

judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us,

what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the Gospel of

God? Again, what will the suffering be like for those who don't know

him? We're gonna deal with it even though we know him. Thank God,

we know him, because He'll get us through it. But those who

don't Yet, how much worse will that be? Verse eighteen. And if

the righteous righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly in the

center. Therefore, here's what you do. Let those who suffer according to

God's will, entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. I

want you to stand with me all over the house. See the beautiful hope

that we have in the Lord Jesus is that we can rejoice in our sufferings,

whether affliction, whether trial, whether from Him to get us back to

Him or from elsewhere, just because it's the way it is. We can

rejoice if we are in Him. We can trust that the suffering is temporary,

and it will all be turned, all of it to our benefit for

the glory of God. Not just your benefit, but your benefit for His

glory. Remember it's not just about you. That's how it was for Christ.

If we can trust that suffering it's temporary. Christ knew it was temporary.

He knew it was gonna be hard, he knew it was gonna hurt,

but he knew what he had to do to make the way possible for

us. Inviting Christ into your life as your Lord and Savior is the first

step to finding purpose in your pain. So if you're in here with pain

today and you don't yet know Jesus if you're watching online live or later and

you don't know Christ yet, there is purpose in your pain. It's found

in Him. So maybe today you don't know him. I want to give

you the opportunit to come to know Him here in just a second. Maybe

you're here, you're feeling afflicted. You know, maybe you've realized in the

course of the sermon, you're like, Hi, I think I think God

maybe is saying something to me in this affliction and this pain and this pressure,

in this distance, and I want to come back. I want to

get back close to him. I want to fall back in love with his

law, with his truth because I want to. I want to look like

I'm I want to be like him. Maybe you're feeling afflicted today, I

want to. I want to pray for you as well. Today's the day

to take that first step back. The first step is always a Hartist,

it's always artist. Beginning is always the most difficult part. Or maybe you're

here today and you're going through a trial. Maybe it's an illness, maybe

it's an injury, maybe it's a personal conflict, maybe whatever it Maybe maybe

maybe your family's going through it. Maybe maybe there's a trial that you're dealing

with today, and you realize that God's not doing it to you, but

that you know that he doesn't want to waste this pain. So you want

to come to him today and ask him, Lord, teach me, give

me understanding that I may draw closer to you in this time of hardship.

So, whether you want to accept Christ today, you're feeling afflicted, or

you're going through a trial, I want to open the altar. I want

to ask Altar team to come and be ready. The band's gonna play and

this song. We picked this song specifically because Jesus doesn't owe us anything,

but he offers us everything freely. So if you have a need this morning,

As they begin to sing, I want you to come and find somebody

to pray with. If you want me to pray with you, I'll pray

with you. And then and then once we're done with this portion, we're

gonna take community together and then we're gonna go. But I want to give

you the opportunity to focus just on Jesus this morning, to take whatever you're

dealing with, trial, affliction, you want to get to knowing, I'm

want to give you that opportunity. As they begin to sing, on the

count of three, one, two, three, Come on as you as

you feel that tug of the Holy Spirit coming. Come if you're not coming.

Worship, Worship, Worship,