Walking Well Through Tragedy

Walking Well Through Tragedy

Joel Willoughby

Joel shows how trials in the book of James and 2 Corinthians reveal what is inside of us. Just as when someone bumps a dark cup of dark coffee, a black trail will come out, so the trials show us what is inside. Do you display the fruits of the spirit?

At this time, we're going to have Joe Willoughby come share the Word with us. Joe was here a few months ago, has a really wonderful ministry called Brains and Bibles. He has a table set up.

We invite you to check it out after the service, not right now, and I'm sure you'll be encouraged by it, so thank you, Joel. It's good to have you this morning. Yeah, good to be back here and and I didn't go fancy.

I don't have a fancy PowerPoint this time. Going a little bit old school. Just have the old paper notes and I'll have to figure out what to cut out on the fly for this service.

I have a seven page outline. We're not going to do all that, but lots of good information here, so we'll just let the Lord lead in that. I'm going to pray for us, and then we're going to walk into this here.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day. Thank you for the beautiful weather You've given to us. Thank you for another day where Your mercies are new, your grace is fresh.

We can see you for who you are through the Word, through Your creation, just through our relationship with you. We thank you for all that opportunity. I pray now for this message, that you would bless it, that you would allow me to be clear and to have your wisdom to speak truth from Your Word and to do it in a loving and correct way.

I pray that you would work in the hearts that are here, even my own still, that we'd be challenged and encouraged where needed and Your Word be effective this morning. We love you. Thank you for loving us first.

In Jesus name, amen. All right. Walking well through tragedy.

This was developed this week out of some tragedy that's been in my life. So to warm up to that, we've all gone through trials. Talking about walking through trials biblically here, we've all gone through trials.

If you're not in one now, you may have soon got out of one or you soon will be in one. That's the nature of life. God does this very intentionally.

It's not like he's saying, Whoops, this is something that's a part of his plan, his design. And so trials of mine, I'm not going to list everything out there, but just to connect with you maybe a little bit there. I remember when I was seven years old and my mom just kind of walked out of the house and the parents divorced and things there now, there was a lot of bad stuff with that, but she's in a good place now, by the way.

I remember growing up, lots of loneliness, kind of going through depression, even though I didn't know that's what that was at the time, and never did anything like medically with that or anything. It's just fact of the matter. Didn't have little to no friends.

Bullied low self esteem, that kind of a thing. I always was chasing after relationships as a teenager and even into college a little bit. There lots of heartbreak just going after the wrong thing, that sort of a thing.

Living in poverty after I left the umbrella of my parents home. And that one, I don't know, you get used to it, right? And you have a happy life anyways. But there's some struggles.

There always working different jobs, tons of hours, if you don't know. Before I mentioned this in my presentation, four, I had a previous wife, she passed away. There was that Long QT syndrome, the thing with the heart, and there's lots of challenges that came with that.

She would have seizures and things and just the difficulty of and then not even knowing what it was at the time. And then her passing, of course, and single parenting young boys until the Lord restored our family with my wife now Beth, and what a joy that was. But lots of trials and there's lots more I could say.

I'm not going to dwell on that. Most recently though, this last Tuesday afternoon, Beth showed signs of a troubled pregnancy. We haven't told anybody yet.

We hadn't had our first appointment yet. We told some family, but that was about it. And then it became obvious and soon was confirmed that there was a miscarriage just this past week here.

So watching my wife go through physical pain, the emotional pain that's there and of course I share in that, explain it to the kids and things. I have four children, my two boys a little bit older, my oldest, he'll be twelve in October. That's Roger Isaiah, he just turned ten this summer.

And then I have Valerie, she's going to be turning, oh boy, four. I guess that doesn't seem right, but that's true. Four in October, then little Hannah, two in December.

So a little difficult to explain these things to them. That's also tough. And knowing my child was alive, having a view, strong view, there's life at conception and that is a person, that is a life, that is a child as my child.

And knowing that and then having it suddenly ripped away without warning. Some of you may have experienced this and others, you can just imagine that that would be a painful thing to go through. There's all these sort of questions you're left with what went wrong? How did it actually happen? How old was this child? I don't know how old the child was.

I don't know the gender of this child. It was too young to know these things. When exactly did the child pass away? How do I best remember this child? How do I name this child? Things like that.

So many questions and so God helps us through these things. But that's what this message is all about today. How do we respond in our trials? And so just to let you know that this is a personal thing with me and we all need to know how to biblically walk through trials.

God has a certain expectation out of us and we need to rise to his expectation. We have to meet his standards. And so when I explain these things to you, I want you to know that even though I am not perfectly doing these things, this is what I'm doing.

Obviously I'm not standing before you saying I am the example or something. That's not what I'm doing. But it's just something that I've learned from scripture.

God is teaching me through these things. So we'll start in James One. That's a good place to start when we're talking about trials here.

Let's go to James One. And really when you think about what sort of scripture should I use to teach a message? And that's a tough one, dealing with how to walk through trials because you basically have to use the entire Bible. It's all over.

It's all over. Genesis to Revelation. How do you actually please God through trials? So then trying to limit that down and I know I have way more than I can even cover today.

One of the things I don't talk about is even just like the grieving process, I don't actually talk about that in the message here. It's good to show emotion. Emotion is good.

We're emotional beings, even us guys. That's a good thing than just even reading and praying the Psalms. And there's all sorts of things I won't be talking about today.

Plus today, feel free to talk to us, ask any question where we're open books. It's okay. Either today or you can always get my info and contact me later or something.

That's totally fine. Lots of other things like that. Okay, so James, chapter one.

Starting right in the beginning, you have to understand who he's talking to. That really helps us with this whole process. Here James, a servant of God, of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes in the dispersion.

Greetings. By the way. I'm using the ESV if that helps anybody to know that.

And so the dispersion spreading out to persecution, heavy persecution. Probably just referring to the Jewish persecution because this was written back in the so probably just that. But that's not a big deal to know that or not Jewish, Roman, whatever it is.

The point is they're in heavy persecution. Huge stuff. There's people getting tortured or killed and they're losing homes, losing jobs.

They're just running to somewhere else. They don't know where they're going, they don't know what's behind them. It's a big scary time.

So then what does James say right away in verse two? He says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect. They may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

That's an interesting thing. So count. I like that word.

It's to bring it out. So if you ever heard of the word like exegesis, you bring meaning out of the text. You're not pushing meaning into the text, but you're bringing meaning out of the text of scripture.

It's kind of that same word basically. And it's that bringing something out. And so what are you doing when you're in a trial and this is not afterwards, right? When you're in the trial, you're bringing out the joy because you don't naturally rejoice when you have a tough trial.

That's not natural for you to do. So you have to actually make an effort. Something that you are doing intentionally, purposely, consciously, you're bringing out the joy.

When you meet trials of various kinds, all sorts of things that are happening in our lives, all sorts of things. And some people may think that, well, I'm not going through as much as that person. Everyone has trials.

It's relative. They're all horrible. You can't look at someone else and say, that's more horrible than what I have going on.

And you also can't say, I have something so horrible that no one can understand. Both those things are wrong. We're going to kind of walk that a little bit more too.

But no, this is something that God has allowed in your life for a reason. And so it says when you meet trials, so not just during the trial, the wording there is that you're totally surrounded. In other words, all of a sudden something comes out of nowhere.

Usually it's how that happens and you are just overwhelmed. It's like that word, overwhelmed. It's totally surrounding you.

You're just totally in the body of water kind of thing and what do I do now? And trying to scratch towards the surface. And so when that happens, you go, okay, wait a minute, I'm going to bring out the joy in the situation. So then you think to yourself, how in the world can there possibly be joy? How is there joy? It's in the end of the testing.

It's in the end of the testing. It's knowing that this is walking by faith. The end result is the testing.

So what is being tested? That word you think of like a trial test that you would have of a product, right? Let's say a company sent you some new product of theirs. They say, okay, give it a trial, test it. And so what are you doing? You're putting it to the extremes.

You're seeing how good is it? Right? The idea is that you're supposed to be proving how good it is. And so you could have the idea of trying to prove how bad it is, I guess. But the idea with this wording is to prove the good.

And so often even used with metals and melting it down and getting rid of that dross, that extra bad stuff, and just refining and purifying that metal even gold, things like that. Okay? So the end result, the testing, what's being proven, shown, it's our faith. He says, Counsel all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And so when you are walking by faith, you are able to keep walking. It makes you keep going. That steadfastness, that patience, right? Even that word, steadfastness is often the word that we use.

For even submission is to remain under. That's the idea. And so you're remaining under the trial.

You're not escaping it. You're not running away. You are actually meeting it, and you're enduring it.

How in the world is that possible? And it's only with God's help, with Him walking by your side. So the full value in the end is that our faith in God is perfect and complete. You notice that at the end there in verse three sorry, four, and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The idea is that you are not lacking in anything because you're totally focused on God, the person and word of God. When you have the person and word of God, there's nothing else you need. That's the entirety of your needs.

So it's perfect, it's complete, it's whole. That's a wonderful thing. So let's take a snapshot of verses five through eight.

All this is connected. A lot of people I've heard it disconnected, but this is all still talking about the same thing. So in verses five through eight, you have the plea for wisdom here.

And so he says, hey, if any of you lack wisdom, okay, now think about that. He says it that way to invite conversation if you lack wisdom, okay? Now, when you hear that, what's your automatic response? Yeah, I lack wisdom. I don't have perfect wisdom.

And that's the idea. It brings that out of you. Yeah, I need wisdom, and it's true for everybody.

So what do you need wisdom for? That word wisdom means skill. And so it's the skill to endure the trial. Well, how do you endure the trial? Well, you need God's wisdom.

You need heavenly wisdom. If any of you lacks wisdom, let Him ask God. There's a solution.

There's one that has all wisdom, but will he give it? Will he give it? It says, ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach doesn't matter who you are, and it will be given Him. He loves to give wisdom. He's a very generous giver of it.

But it says, Let Him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

He's a double minded man, unstable in all his ways. So it goes back to faith, that idea again, faith in the person and word of God, right? And so that's the object of the faith. So you could say, well, I have a little faith.

I don't have as much faith, but it's how much faith you have, whatever it is, which how do you even measure that, right? But if you are one that thinks that you have little faith, it just means that 100% of that faith, though, is in God, okay? Nothing else. You can't run in two different directions. That's the idea.

So that's very valuable, too. We need wisdom to walk through trials. We need to bring out that joy in the trial.

How do we do that? We need wisdom to do it. We need skill to endure the trial well. So in verses nine through eleven here it says, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away.

For the sun rises with its scorching heat, and withers the grass its flower falls and its beauty perishes, so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. So you'll notice that throughout Scripture, there is always an emphasis on, say, the employee or the servant or the poor person, and not the other way around. The other one is mentioned, the boss, the master, the rich guy.

Those are mentioned in Scripture, but not so much because they were the rarity. There wasn't that many of them. The overwhelming majority of people that they're writing to were very poor.

They were in persecution, they didn't have anything. And so that was the focus. But there is a little mention here as well.

What's the big takeaway here? The big takeaway is the socially, financially, whatever you want to say. Poor person, the lowly one, the one that's less favored in society for whatever reason, right? They can be tempted to think that richer, more affluent, socially popular, that kind of a person, they can be tempted to think that they have what satisfies, and I don't. That's wrong because you have God, at least you can, and that's what satisfies, that's what makes you complete.

And then you have the other side. You have the rich person or the opposite, the high one, that person might think, well, they've got nothing to lose. I do.

That's also wrong, because everything that you have is actually going to be blown up later. You can't take it with you to heaven, right? And so none of that stuff actually really matters. That's not an advantage necessarily to have nothing.

And so there's two different perspectives here. What it comes down to both of them is you just need God. You wholly need God.

Okay, we're on to page three of seven. All right, now we're looking at verses twelve through 15. Blesses the man who remains steadfast on a trial.

Now, this sounds familiar, doesn't it? This should draw our attention back to verses three and four, because it's all connected, he says, I'll read the whole section there. Twelve through 15. Blesses the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Let no one say when he is tempted. I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. So a quick reminder there. Why is he talking about temptation and God tempting and things like that? Well, keep it in context, right? So the idea, first off, the one who receives praise, the one that's blessed, right? The one that gets favor, is the one who remains steadfast in the trial.

We're staying focused on the prize, not just the person and word of God, but we're thinking about the rewards of God as well. That's not sinful to desire those things. That'd be a whole other message.

But the simple idea is it grows our capacity to glorify God in eternity. We want those rewards because that's how we can show how great God is. We want that.

That's a whole other message, like I said. Okay, so they receive this crown of life, and I'm not going to spend time talk about that, what exactly that would be like. But trials, what are they doing? They're revealing the reality of a person.

When life squeezes you, what pops out, right? And God is trying to grow us into the image of Christ. When the fruit of the Spirit you look at what the fruit of the Spirit is, peace, joy, self control, all these sort of things, you know the list. And you think about, how do you know if you have that if you're filled with the Spirit? Well, if I have a cup of coffee and I always drink black coffee, okay? And if I had a cup of coffee and somebody bumps into me, what's going to spill out? It's only black coffee.

Why? Because that's what the cup was full of. If you're filled up with God, filled up with the Holy Spirit, when life squeezes you and bumps you, what's going to come out? It's going to be the fruit of the Spirit, okay? And so it's a real test. The trial will show you what's actually inside, and it reveals who we are before God.

So a lot of times during trials, we are tempted to sin. Life is squeezing us. We are tempted to sin.

Will we do that? And the temptation is different for everyone. It's really general here because it's different for everyone. Everybody has different temptations in life.

It's almost like a bell going off when this thing hits. That's kind of neat. All right, but let's stay focused here.

That's my problem. During trials, we want to be on guard for our temptation to sin. We think to ourselves, okay, it's me that's tempting me to sin.

I am the problem. Some would blame God for things. These trials.

They'd blame him. They'd blame Him for the reason that they are tempted or weak. But it's not him.

It's not his fault. It's ours. It's my fault if I'm sinning, if I'm tempted to sin, who's at fault? It's me.

Me alone. I'm responsible for that. God is not tempting me.

He's testing me. There's a big difference there. Tempting is when you're trying to prove something as a failure, you want it to lose.

Testing is you're proving the value, the success. You're proving the worth. It's good.

So you think of school. There's tests, right? A good teacher would prepare those students for that test so that they could get a good grade. That's the idea.

A lot of students will disagree with that. Maybe, but that's the general idea. I know there's a lot of home school people here, and you're thinking about that teacher that's in the room right now.

Just stay focused, okay? So we want to stave off sin by remembering the end result. The end result of enduring trials. Well, with God's wisdom is the crown of life.

It's being complete, it's being whole. In other words, being like Christ. But the other end, if we are sinning during trials, we're not enduring them.

Well, what's the end result? It says death. Temptation to sin. To death.

Death. That primarily means separation. Sin creates a barrier between us and God.

And so until we confess and repent of that, restoring that relationship, you're not losing salvation for those that are saved. But the idea is that you have a relationship that needs to be restored. There's a barrier there now.

So you have to fix that. Then the last little section here about trials, verses 16 through 18. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Now, often we think to ourselves, does that verse actually go with the previous paragraph or this paragraph? Do not be deceived. Well, about which part? The easy answer is to say, well, both. But I think it is one thing, and if I had to decide, I'd say, well, maybe it is with this new paragraph.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, because that is a lot of people, I think, are deceived in that area. Coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Simple ideas here, do not be deceived. Trials are both good and from God. A lot of times we think these trials are evil, purely evil.

Now, suffering does ultimately come from evil. We're going to talk about that a little bit. Obviously.

Genesis three. Garden of Eden. Right.

That's where it all started. But trials in and of themselves from God are good because of what they result in. It's actually what makes us more like Christ.

Is it good to be more like Christ? Yes. The tool God uses often most of the time is trials. So then is that good? Yes, it is.

Yes, it is. That's a hard truth. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

It's easy to be deceived in that. This trial is horrible. Why would God allow it? Well, because it's a good gift.

It's a good gift. That's why he'd allow it. And he's unchanging.

Okay, so we'll move on here. God is unchanging. He's good in the easy times and the hard times.

That's something we got to remember. We got to focus on who God is good in, the easy and the hard times. Okay? So let's go to our next passage, two Corinthians One.

Let's go to two. Corinthians one. So big takeaways from the Book of James there.

Chapter one, the idea that we are to bring out the joy in our trials. We are to ask for wisdom and faith because we need that skill, God's wisdom, to endure trials. Well, we recognize that they're hard for everyone.

No one has it easy. No one has it easy. Sometimes we look around and go, man, they all have it better.

That's not true. Just get to know that person a little better. We're all struggling and then pursue joy by submitting to trials.

You got to submit under it, endure it, and there is a great results. Being like Christ, having that crown of life, things like that, and recognizing that these trials are actually from God and it's a good gift. 2nd Corinthians one.

Here, I'm going to start in verse three and just going to read verse three right now. It says, Bless be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. There you go.

That's the end right there, right? Okay. So first, when we have major trials in our life, what do we do? We recognize who God is. We stay focused on the person of God.

Who is he? Okay. He's the only one who's worthy of praise. Blessed be the God and Father.

It's like saying, Praise be to him. It's the idea of having favor, having joy, being lifted up, that sort of an idea. So it's praise be to Him.

He's the only one worthy of praise. Ultimately, he is the Father of mercies. That means he's the originator of mercy.

Who was the first one to show mercy in the Bible? It's God, right? When God speaks of himself, he often mentions mercy. He loves to give mercy. He can't always give mercy because he's also just and holy, right? There's other attributes that he balances within himself, but he loves to give mercy.

He's also the God of all comfort. When it changes, father of mercies and God of comfort, there's a different emphasis there. So Father, he's that giver of it, ultimately all mercy comes from him.

If you've ever experienced mercy, it's because of God. And then you have the God of all comfort. We have that word, God.

It's that idea of total mastery. This is the ultimate comfort. This is the unique comfort.

It's unlike another comfort, and there's nothing to be improved on with it. Comfort in verses three through seven is used ten times. Ten times.

Now, maybe your translation handles it a little different, but it's the same basic Greek word, very close to what we call the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, or you may have heard paraclete, that kind of idea. There's different parts of speech that this word is used, but the idea of encouraging, consoling, comforting to be called alongside of it's, that help. Okay, that's what that comfort is.

Even in the pain, even during the pain, there is God's comfort. I'm just going to read this for you, but you can jot down the reference if you want. Psalm 94, verse 19.

Psalm 94, verse 19 says, and I'm just kind of ripping it out of context, but it doesn't change the meaning. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Yeah, so you can have both at the same time. That's a unique comfort. You have both at the same time.

Matthew 54. You're probably very familiar. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Why would you be happy while mourning? That doesn't make sense. How can those two things go together? It's because it's only when you get down in the depths of mourning and grieving can you actually experience God's special comfort. And that's a beautiful thing.

That's a really beautiful thing. Let's move on to the next section. Here I have verses four through seven.

So it continues on the middle of the sentence. It's talking about this, father of mercies and God of all comfort. It says, who in verse four, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For as we share abundantly in Christ's suffering, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too. If we are afflicted, and of course you are, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, and of course you are, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. Okay, so some takeaways there with that one. So what are some purposes of trials? We already.

Talked through James one. There's some things there, but what are we getting out of this passage? One big purpose that we have in these trials is so that we can experience God's comfort in our relationship with Him. We can experience God's comfort in our relationship with Him.

You have to be walking with Him. You do have to be doing that. Another one.

So that we can comfort others as God has comforted us. Why did you go through that thing? So that now you can reach out to someone else and show them the same comfort that you received from God. How's God comfort us? There is this inward peace.

There is this inward joy that we can have. But I think a lot of times it also comes through basically three avenues through prayer, through the word of God, and through God's people. And so you have to be sharing these things.

You have to talk about it and let brothers and sisters in Christ come and minister to you. And you have to receive that. Sometimes it's hard to receive that.

So we can comfort others. We experience God's comfort also. There's a promise here.

It says, as much as we suffer in Christ, in verse five here, as much as we suffer in Christ, we are comforted through Christ. So there's a promise that we will suffer. But equally, there's a promise that you are comforted in just as much.

So you're not going to have less comfort than suffering. You're going to always have it. You're always going to have it.

You're never going to be left hanging out to dry, so to speak. So looking at verses six and seven here, the body of Christ shares in both sufferings and comforts. This is an important idea.

Nothing should be isolated. Nothing should be hidden. Don't just say, hey, this is my burden to bear.

I got to figure it out. Don't do that. Put it out there.

It takes some humility, some meekness to actually say, hey, I need help. I'm hurting, I'm suffering. Pray for me, please.

It's hard to do sometimes, but it's necessary. Nothing should be hidden or isolated. How do we expect to be comforted by God? We need the church.

The church works together, okay? If one of us hurts, everyone hurts. Whether you understand or realize that or not, don't let your sufferings be for no use. Comfort others.

Don't let it go in vanity. Endure the trial. So it actually makes you more like Christ.

That's a plus. And then also, once you've experienced that comfort of God, when you find that opportunity. So we've had this miscarriage, right? That's our recent thing this past week.

And so now we have the ability, when we hear about someone else, we can come alongside them and say, hey, we've been there. This is how God's helped us. Here's some Scripture passages that really helped us.

Let's pray with you. Can we pray with you? That kind of thing. There's a special comfort that comes there.

It's a beautiful thing. Don't let it go to waste. You could even use it as evangelism.

When someone sees you walk through something and you just talk about how great God is, they say, I don't have that. I want that. I don't have that, I want that.

When God answers the prayer requests, make sure everyone knows about it. You'll notice this with Paul the apostle. One big thing he says we got to get as many people and he says this in Philippians too, which I think as in Philippians also, I'll probably have to skip my Philippians.

I basically go through the whole book of Philippians after. So we can't do that. But big thing he does, which he does here too, is he says I want as many of you praying for me as possible because I know God's going to have an answer to this prayer.

And so then we can all rejoice in answered prayer and we can brag about God together. That's awesome. Get as many people to pray very specifically for you in certain things and then let them know how it's been effective.

That's a wonderful thing. Sometimes people have doubts about things because they're either not praying, they're praying way too generally, or they're praying wrong in some other way. That's a whole other message too right, praying.

And so it's a big deal for us to pray, hey, specifically, I'm hurting now. I don't think I can get out of bed. Maybe it's one of those situations and then you get out of bed and you can actually get some things done the day, hey, tell people thanks for praying for me.

It worked. God helped me out. He gave me the strength I needed.

That's a wonderful thing. So when God answers the prayer requests, make sure everyone knows have you been comforted? Have you been able to minister to others? Has God been glorified? Share those things. Those are the goals.

And then this last little bit here in this passage, verses eight through eleven. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, he's not just speaking generally anymore. Now he's saying, let me give you a specific example of what's going on.

He says, for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

That's a pretty cool thing here. And so what is he doing? He's exemplifying exactly what he's talking about here in verse eight. He confirms that the wording here is so utterly burdened.

It's actually the word that we get. Hyperbole. That's basically the Greek word there, hyperbole.

That's what it is. So it's the idea this is like huge, giant you wouldn't even believe it. I can't even really describe it to you.

It's such a big deal, such a huge thing here. So I kind of like that translation there. So utterly burdened.

It's just beyond the scope of words, basically. So then what do you do? He said he despaired of life. He gave up his hope of survival.

Paul the apostle, even he says, this is it, we're dead. We're basically dead already. I'm just waiting for that point of death.

That's it. Totally. No hope of survival.

That's a pretty big deal. Have you ever had a trial like that where you felt that know, I don't think I can go on. I think we've probably been there before.

Paul explains verse nine. Paul explains why God allowed them to suffer to the point of near death. God helps us to learn to rely on Him and his strength, not our own.

And that makes life actually easier. If you can figure that one out, you're resting in God. You're using his strength, not your own.

Boy, does that make life easier. And then also we focus on the person of God. That's what he's teaching us here.

His character, his ability, his plan, those three things, his character, all those attributes, good, faithful, just, wise, powerful, all knowing, those are all affecting us in our trial. To know those things as truth, his ability, he can take this away. He chooses not to.

Why? Because he gives good gifts. He knows the end result of this. His ability not just to do that, and he still allows it, but also his ability to give you that wisdom, to help you endure the trial.

That ability that's there, we need to pray for it. And then his plan. We have to recognize that God has a giant plan.

He's got a giant plan and everything fits into it. So that ultimately all creation is glorified. Right? That's Romans eight.

That kind of an idea. Everything will be made better. He already has a plan in motion for evil and suffering to end, and all his people can rejoice.

So then Paul explains, god will deliver out of any trouble. Verses ten through eleven here. He'll deliver out of any trouble.

As God's children, by grace, through faith saved people, by grace, through faith as God's children, we will always end up with Him. That's an awesome thing. What do we really fear? No matter what happens, we're with Him.

I'm with Him in a degree right now. What's the worst thing? Is death really the worst thing for a believer? Absolutely not. We then will be with Him in a much better way.

Even as Paul always focuses on be absent from the body, to be present with the Lord, right? You notice that Paul never says, I can't wait to get to heaven. Paul never talks about going to heaven, ever. You know what he talks about? He talks about his relationship with Christ.

He says I want to see him. I want to be with Him. I want to be in his judgment.

I want to get his rewards. It's all about him. That's a wonderful thing.

Jesus didn't do what he did to be second in line. When you get in heaven, he's going to be the first person you go to, and you think to yourself, what's the first thing you want to do in heaven? And if it's not something about being with Jesus, you're out of place. You need to correct that.

So let's move on here. Paul also notes, just to wrap up this passage, Paul also notes the importance of praying for those in trials. Why? So you can see God's hand move when you pray and something happens, you're seeing God's hand move, right.

You're seeing Him work also so there can be more to brag on Him. That's a wonderful thing. Drawing people to glorify him.

That's an excellent thing. Okay, so this is the point where I have 3 million things in the Book of Philippians. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to run through some highlights of the Book of Philippians, and I do have verse numbers and things here.

I'm going to skip it. If you want to get a hold of me later and get specifics, I'll have it. I can give it to you either today or just email me, and I can send something to you.

Totally fine. But the idea with the Book of Philippians is that Paul is in prison, a Roman prison, a really bad place, and he can't stop talking about how joyful he is. It was interesting, is the word rejoiced that's used so many times throughout Scripture.

It means to leap again. That's what it literally means, to leap again. So the idea is you're so happy, you just can't stop hopping.

You see, this is like with kids, birthday, Christmas kind of thing. That's what you usually see, this kind of thing. Or you ever see cows jumping around? They get so happy that pasture or something.

That's kind of a funny sight. Yeah. So it's a wonderful thing.

It's that rejoicing. He's so happy. He's so happy he can't stop jumping.

Kind of an idea, like maybe just inside, but still it's there. Why is that? To boil Philippians down to its core center. The idea is this I am content, which kind of goes together with the idea of being joyful, because we're advancing the gospel.

That's what it's all about. We're advancing the gospel. I'm actually able to advance the gospel more in prison, is what Paul says.

He goes through all that he talks about being united. How do you do that? How are you united in a church body? Well, it's humility. That's Philippians Two, right? Philippians Two having the humility of Christ.

And that's how you can be united, being all under Him, right? And then it goes on. Philippians Three. Big focus there is just forgetting about all your accomplishments, forgetting about even all the bad stuff, the good and the bad, forgetting it all behind you.

And just keep straining forward to the prize that Christ has before you, that relationship with Him, even to be with Him, you're striving to please Him. You're constantly moving forward. So kind of my highlights here.

We're joyfully evangelizing. We're joyfully growing. We're joyfully advancing the gospel.

We're joyfully living and dying for Christ. That's another one. In Philippians One, he goes, I can't decide, do I want to be with Christ more or do I want to be on Earth serving Him more? Ultimately, he expresses that struggle because he wants to teach the Philippian people it's way better to keep staying on Earth as long as I can, because then I can really labor for God.

I know I'll be with Christ soon enough. I'm going to labor for God as much as possible because I know that that's a much better result. I will be much more satisfied that way.

And it goes on through that. We're joyfully through humility serving the body of Christ through trials. We're joyfully straining for Christ and his rewards.

We are joyfully staying focused. It goes on to chapter four, talking about how he's learned contentment, right? Whether he's got it all or he's got nothing. And both are a struggle.

When you've only had one, it's hard to imagine the other. But both are a struggle. And he says, I've learned contentment.

Something I learned So then the famous Philippians 413, within context, I can do all things through Christ. What does he mean? I can be content? No matter what, I can be content with Christ's strength. I can have joy.

Why? Because I have his strength and I am advancing the gospel. I am walking with him. I am focused on him.

That's the idea. So we apply that to trials. We apply the trials in Philippians One as well.

At the end, it talks about just as much as we are called to Him. Maybe I'll just turn to that one section there. That'd be worth it.

So verse at the end of chapter one oh, whoops, my Bible flipped. I'm like, this is not even the right. Here we go.

At the end of chapter one, verse 27 through 30, only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. So that whether I come and see you or I'm absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation.

And that from God. The focus of the afflictions, the persecutions here was just that, persecution. I already gave the word away.

Their trial, their big affliction was persecution. But the principles can still be applied to any trial. To any trial.

So then he says in verse 29, for it has been granted to you, it's a gift that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for his sake. Engage in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now here that I still have. Just as much as you are called to believe in God, you are called to suffer with God.

That's just as much. Don't be surprised, be expectant of this. Learn how to do it well.

Don't waste a trial. Those trials are coming. You can't stop them.

They're coming. Endure them well. Endure them well.

Okay, let's go to second Corinthians twelve. Actually doing really well, mainly because I skipped basically all Philippians. Okay, second Corinthians twelve.

And I'm just going to look at verses eight through ten. That's really all I'm going to focus on. This is the famous passage you're probably already familiar, the thorn that Paul has, right? Okay.

So if I start in verse eight, he's just talking about this problem he has, but he's being very vague. He's not saying specifically what it is. There's lots of guesses.

I'm not going to go there today because I think the point that he made by being it vague was so that you can relate to Him. If he was too specific, you would say, oh, that's not me, and the passage would not be helpful to you. But because he's vague, the passage can be helpful to you.

And it is because it's the same principle that applies to all of us and all of our struggles, all of our trials. So verse eight, he says three times, I pleaded, I'm begging, I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me this problem, whatever it was, this trial. But this was God's response.

But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, Paul's conclusion, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content not just with weaknesses, right, with weaknesses, but also insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities.

Why? For when I am weak, then I am strong. So let's kind of flesh that out here a little bit. So looking at verse eight here, we often beg God to remove trials and difficulty in our lives.

Is that wrong? Not inherently. It could be, though. It could be good or it could be bad.

What's the difference? The big difference is your purpose. Why are you asking God to take something away? Sometimes we're praying harder for people to stay out of heaven than the people to get into heaven. Why are we praying for trials to go away, some affliction to go away? What are we trying to accomplish? Is it because I want this person better, because they are great on the spiritual battlefield? I want to be fighting side by side with them, advancing the gospel, discipling others.

They are such a great encourager, and I think they could encourage people more if this wasn't going on. Okay, is that the reason? Is it because, man, I know that this person over here, I think they're right on the edge of trusting in Christ, but if they could just see this person healed, then maybe that would be the thing that causes them to believe or something. I'm just spitballing here the idea.

I'm just giving you some ideas of why, what's the purpose? And sometimes we don't always say the right thing. That's why Romans 826 is there. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses.

What is our weakness? We don't know how to pray. We mess up in prayer a lot. Paul, the apostle, says we he's including himself in that he has a weakness on how to pray, and we all do.

So God helps us through that. And later in Romans eight, it also says that Jesus also intercedes for us. So we have the Holy Spirit interceding for us.

Jesus Christ interceding for us. We're praying to the Father as well. We have brothers and sisters in Christ praying to the Father for us.

That's a great deal. That's a great deal. I'm getting a little sidetracked there.

Now let's get back on track here. We often beg God to remove trials and difficulty, which is okay if it's to glorify Him, if it's according to his will, if it's according to his kingdom, that kind of a thing. What are we trying to accomplish? Sometimes God loves us so much, like Paul here, he denies our requests to take away our trials because he loves us so much.

Because James one, those trials are good, they're from God. We just need to endure them well, why are they good? Once again, he knows what they will accomplish. We are called to suffer, to be like Christ.

He wants us to be like Christ because he knows that's true joy, that's true satisfaction, that's true peace. This is how we can control ourselves back to the fruit of the Spirit idea again. It's all connected there.

So we go to verse nine then God's grace was sufficient for Paul. That's kind of an awesome phrase there. God's grace is sufficient.

That means it's enough to satisfy us. It brings satisfaction. You mean during a trial? You mean while things are super bad? Yes.

No matter the trial? No matter the trial, you can have a satisfaction. Contentment must be learned, but it can be had. God explains that his power, that grace.

So he's kind of renaming it as power. It's his ability. It's his ability to give strength, his ability to give favor.

He has a strong ability. God explains that his power is what perfects us in our weaknesses. We are correct in knowing our trials are beyond our capacity.

That word weaknesses, it means incapacity. It's a limited capacity. I am overwhelmed.

Back to the wording in James One, right? I am over. No, it was second Corinthians. Sorry.

Second Corinthians one. That's where that was. He's just so utterly burdened in the ESV there.

So it's that overwhelmingness in James One as well. That's right. It was there.

I'm sorry. Yeah, I was actually thinking correctly there, too. So it's that idea of being totally surrounded.

It's beyond my ability. I don't have the capacity to handle this. Bingo.

You have gotten to a good place, because now you realize, I have to have God's strength. I have to have God's grace. I have to have God's wisdom.

And that's a wonderful thing. Then just ask in faith. Ask in faith for it, and he will give it.

He loves answering those prayer requests. When there's a guarantee of God answering a prayer request in the Bible, pray for it. That's a pretty awesome deal.

You're going to get it. Okay. This is how we become more like Christ.

Remember, that's the focus with this understanding. Paul is excited to have limited capacities in various parts of his life. Are you excited that you are limited? Are you excited that you don't have the capacity to handle life? Are you excited that you are a weak and broken vessel? You should be, because if we were strong in every way, then we would have no need of God.

We would have no relationship with Him. He would not be working with and through us. We would have none of his comfort, none of his anything.

Remember what Jesus said about the pharisees? The Pharisees? They don't need repentance. Why did he say that? Because that was their idea. That was their mentality.

I don't need repentance. So what did they miss out on a relationship with God? They missed out on mercy, grace, comfort. They missed out on all that stuff.

They didn't have the good life. The lowly person that's beating their chest saying, woe to me, a sinner, that's the one that has a good life. Okay, here we go.

We pretty much made it here. Just this last verse here, and we are done. Look at that.

Look at this, you guys probably yeah, it feels like it's 5 hours. Sometimes I say it feels like it's just 30 seconds. Then I say underwater.

Okay, verse ten. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. Okay, so not only these weaknesses, but these other things.

Your trials fit into any one of those categories? Those are basically all the categories of trials. That's it. If you're really to dive into that? Are you incapable of handling something that's a weakness? Are you being insulted? That can really be a big deal.

That's a trial. It could even be to the point of losing a job or something, because slander, it could be a lot of things, hardships, very general persecutions. Now, we've been largely spared from that here so far, and who knows what will happen? And then Calamities, that's the huge, big things, okay? He says.

So think of it this way, a sealed jar. Let's say you had this. This is pretty sealed, dark, has a thick wall on it and stuff.

If I were to put a candle in here and light it and it's all closed, let's just say I had enough air to keep burning, okay? You wouldn't see anything. The light wouldn't penetrate the bottle or anything. But if there was cracks all through here, broken pieces, the light would shine through.

In the same sense, when we have our weaknesses, our incapacities, our insufficiencies, that's like cracks in the bottle that allow the light to shine through. God's strength can be seen. He's perfecting us.

He's the One that makes us whole, not us. And when you let that happen, when you let God have his work, you submit and endure the trials. You're bringing out the joy.

Where is the joy? The end result, that's where the joy is. Faithfully. Walk with him.

And then trials aren't going to be this looming thing that beats you up and keeps you in your home, alone in the darkness with the blind shut kind of thing. You're going to be out there with the body of Christ, being comforted, having satisfaction and helping others. What a joy it really is to meet trials.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this time. I pray that Your Word would be a comfort, encouragement, a challenge to all of us.

I see, even going through this, how there are times that I would fail, that I need to do better. And I just thank you for just still giving mercy, still giving grace, helping me, helping us. I pray that we would rely on you, that we'd ask you for Your wisdom, faithfully and with faith, and that we would seek to please you in all ways through our trials and even through the times that we don't have a trial.

Thank you for all those times you are good and wise, knowing exactly what we can handle and what is best for us. I pray that we just submit to you and knowing Your kingdom, your will, your plan, and all for your glory. Lord, we love you.

Thank you for loving us first. In Jesus name, amen.