2 Corinthians 4:1-12 (Do Not Lose Heart, Jeff Kliewer)

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2 Corinthians 4:13-18 (Eternal Perspective, Jeff Kliewer)

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that you lifted the veil, you removed the blinders, and now we can see. So we pray,

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Lord, that even as you first saved us by lifting the veil, that you would right now lift away any distraction that's in our minds.

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That you would clear our thoughts of all of the concerns of the day and the thousand responsibilities that each one of us has to take care of.

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And focus our attention now upon Jesus Christ, whose glory outshines the sun.

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Help us to see the glory of the Son of God. Open our eyes that we can delight in him.

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Thank you for your word to us this morning. I pray that it makes us confident, not in ourselves. We don't preach ourselves, but Christ.

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I pray that we would see ourselves as jars of clay that hold an all -surpassing power that does not come from ourselves.

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But it's Christ in us, the hope of glory. So we pray now that you would open our eyes to see him, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Justin Martyr did not lose heart. When the first almost 300 years of the church began, there was persecution.

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And Christians were thrown to the lions, they were lit up as torches. They were often killed and very often run out of town.

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They lost their businesses. They suffered greatly for naming the name of Christ. But when Justin Martyr wrote a letter to the emperor,

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Antonius Pius, he said, you can kill us, but you cannot harm us.

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Martin Luther did not lose heart. He stood before the Pope and before the empire, the

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Roman Empire being very much controlled by the Romanist church, told no longer to speak of this

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Protestant gospel, told to recount his writings. They were all laid on a table before him, and he was told to recant or else he faced death.

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And he said, here I stand, I can do no other. God help me.

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He did not lose heart. More recently in our day, you guys, last year, I'm sure, were following the story of Andrew Brunson, locked up for a couple of years in a

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Turkish prison for preaching Christ in the city of Izmir. His trial was a sham.

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He was charged with sedition and operating against the Turkish government, but of course, he was there because he was preaching the name of Christ.

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Well, we picture a hero of the faith like that, and we think, this guy must have been just on fire the whole time he was in prison, singing praises just like Paul did in the book of Acts, chapter 16, when he was in prison in a

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Philippian jail. But no, Brunson was suicidal for part of that time. It was his wife who sustained him, coming to see him once a week for 35 minutes, talking through a glass on a telephone, encouraged him with scripture and reminded him to cling to Christ.

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And as Brunson thought about the legacy of faith that he wanted to leave for his kids, he began again to hope in the

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Lord, and he did not lose heart. He did not lose heart.

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He wrote a hymn while he was in there, in that Turkish jail. Of course, we know he got out in 2018, but at this time, he didn't know how long would this go on.

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It had already been two years he wrote these words. You are worthy of my all.

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My tears and pain I lift up as an offering. Teach me to share in the fellowship of your suffering.

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Lamb of God, you are worthy of my all. That's a modern day testimony to the power of God to sustain us in the midst of suffering and how

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God uses suffering for the building up of his church and the crushing of Satan's head.

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Because in the suffering of Andrew Brunson, as millions of people worldwide prayed for his deliverance, he was delivered, and he came back and he prayed with the president in the

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Oval Office, and he now is going out speaking the gospel, proclaiming the supremacy of Christ over all things, that Christ was treasure enough to him to sustain him in suffering, and the head of the devil was crushed under the foot of a servant of God.

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There's purpose in our suffering. Last week we talked about how the new covenant changes us from the inside out, the internal work of the spirit.

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We talked about how we're imputed righteousness that's not our own, and this is a permanent transaction.

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It's not fading. All of that is described in 2 Corinthians 4 .1

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as this ministry by the mercy of God. We're gonna review that briefly this morning, and then we're going to have two more reasons to hope in God and to not lose heart.

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One of them is that our gospel is pure light. It is pure light.

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It is powerful, sanctifying, purifying light that strengthens us by grace.

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And the other is that the afflictions that we go through, they will not crush us.

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We will be persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. God is using those for a purpose for the building up of his church and the crushing of Satan's head.

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So let's read it. We're gonna read 2 Corinthians 4 .1 to 12.

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Remember that in this book, Paul is the author, and he's writing to defend his apostleship, his ministry.

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The big idea that he's getting across is that he's sent by God, and they need to listen to his authoritative teaching.

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As he does that, he hopes to build up the maturity of the church. What is maturity?

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If you didn't write this down yet, I'm gonna try to repeat this a lot through the book. Maturity is suffering well.

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Maturity is suffering well. He's building up the Corinthians to suffer well. So he'll give these lists four times.

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He'll reference his terrible sufferings, but show that this is building him up in his faith and building up the church.

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And then he wants to raise them up to be like him in ministry, to lay down their lives for the gospel, to preach boldly and proclaim the gospel, as he himself does.

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So we see him trying to establish the church in maturity and in ministry.

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These are kind of the big themes that we're tracing through the book. So let's read now, picking up on this argument in chapter four.

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Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

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But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

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But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the

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God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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For God, who said, let light shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

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We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair.

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Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

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For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

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So death is at work in us, but life in you. Amen. Doesn't that make you just wanna close the

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Bible and say, amen, we got it? That's the sermon right there. It preaches for itself. The word here is just so powerful in and of itself.

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And now we have the privilege to exposit that, to unpack it. The unfolding of your word gives light.

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It imparts understanding to the simple. We get to look deeply and to cling onto certain words and take concepts that change us.

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So the first point is a review of last week's sermon because of that word therefore.

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Chapter four, verse one. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

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What is this ministry? Well, last week we saw it is the ministry of the new covenant.

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The old covenant was written in stone by the finger of God on tablets of stone, the 10 commandments, and then the whole

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Mosaic code, 613 laws. And those letters carved in stone were a ministry of death.

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Why were they a ministry of death? Because they were commands given to an unholy people.

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The command itself was righteous and good and it had glory in and of itself, but we come to that command and we fall short of it.

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We're broken by the command and so we die. The soul that sins shall die.

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The wages of sin is death. So we're broken against the command of God. But in the new covenant, the promise is that the spirit of God now will be poured out into our hearts to change our desires, our affections, so that we will obey the law of God from the heart.

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Now the spirit is a ministry that changes us from the inside out.

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It's no longer outward commands that we fall short of. It's now the very living water from God that fills us on the inside and flows out in how we treat others.

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Love God and love neighbors. We fulfill these commands by the spirit of God working in us.

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Secondly, we saw that the new covenant is a ministry of righteousness over against a ministry of condemnation.

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These are legal terms. You will not be condemned if you be in Christ. If you're in Christ, if you've accepted him, genuinely believing in him, that's what accepting means, that your heart genuinely believes in Christ, his righteousness is imputed to you.

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It's credited to you. So all of his law keeping is credited to your account and all of your sin is put on him and carried away on the cross, covered by blood, washed in the blood.

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You are righteous and so you are never condemned. You may be disciplined, but discipline is different than condemnation.

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You will never be condemned and so you should be encouraged by the new covenant because you will continue to fall.

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You'll fall short of his glory and yet his righteousness never leaves you and that's the third point of the new covenant.

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It is permanent. Moses had to put a veil over his face because the glory that came with seeing the old covenant was a fading glory.

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It was fading from his face so he covered his face so as not to be embarrassed by the transient nature of that glory.

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When he would go into the tent of meeting, glory would cover his face and he would come out with his face shining like the sun, but then he would veil himself because the glory was fading.

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The glory that is covering us never fades. He will never leave you or forsake you.

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The work that he began in you, he will see through to completion. You will be glorified in his presence one day.

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It's a permanent transaction and we're told in that last verse of chapter three that he is transforming us from one degree of glory to another.

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If you're like me, sometimes you think, wow, I feel like I took a step backwards today. You ever feel like that?

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But the promise in the word is that over time you are being sanctified and Romans 8, 28 to 30, the final glorification, when you're given his glory in terms of reflecting it purely without a sin nature, that day is coming.

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It's a certainty. It is a certainty. You will reflect the glory of Jesus Christ sinless in heaven one day.

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He said, this is good news, isn't it? It should make us confident. When you go out to minister to someone, we're ministering a new covenant with confidence in him, not in ourselves.

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The strength of the spirit in us, the ministry of the spirit, not our own ability.

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So verse one, let's recap that. Having this ministry by the mercy of God, this ministry of the new covenant is described as the mercy of God.

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It's by mercy. Every step along the way is him being merciful to us, not us earning anything from him.

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This gives us boldness. Therefore, we are very bold, such as the confidence we're told in chapter three.

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Now we move in to the meat here of chapter four, and there's two more reasons to be bold.

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That was kind of the positive evidence, but now the reality that in this life, we're getting smacked down.

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Most people to whom we preach this glorious gospel will reject it and reject us with it.

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And it's very easy to lose heart. When your body begins to break and you realize it's only a tent that's wearing out, you can get discouraged.

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When your loved one apostatizes and leaves the faith, it can break your heart, but do not lose heart.

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Look at those words at the end of verse one. We do not lose heart.

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So it says in two through six, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways.

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We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our gospel is veiled, so what is that the reference to? Chapter three, verse 15, there's a veil over people's hearts.

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That's why they don't believe when you preach. The veil that was covering Moses is now figuratively covering hearts.

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So they're hearing your words, but there's no affection born in their heart. It's just bouncing off or Matthew 13, the birds of the air are stealing it away or the sun is drying out that seed or the thorns are stifling it.

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It's veiled. It is veiled to those who are perishing. Well, what's going on here?

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Verse four, in their case, the God of this world. Most commentators see the theos there as a reference to Satan, believe it or not.

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Some do interpret that as God, but I think they're right to call it Satan because he has taken up a false rule in this world.

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In Genesis three, when he tempted and Eve fell and then Eve led Adam into temptation and he fell,

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Satan set himself up as a false ruler over them and they, obeying him, fell under his rule.

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So in that sense, he's a God of this age with a little g. We'll learn, though, that it's not an absolute authority by any means.

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But this Satan, this God of this world, has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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I love the description here of what the gospel is. It's described as light.

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It's penetrating, it's pure, it's truth. It opens eyes to see.

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And what is it that we see? What does the light show us? Glory.

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That's what you see. You see glory, but whose glory? It is the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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When eyes are open to see the gospel, a person is able to see that Christ is a treasure more valuable than anything else in this world.

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It makes the things of this world look like a candle next to the sun. When your eyes see this light, this glory, when you see who

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Jesus really is, the Son of God, this is the gospel, the opening of eyes to see that.

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You see the same language in verse six. God, just like Genesis 1 -3, do you see the reference there?

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Let light shine out of darkness. In other words, Genesis 1 -3, let there be light. Even as God spoke light into existence, he comes to us with his gospel, opens our hearts, lifts the veil, and says, let there be light.

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And there is light. What is that light? Again, the same language. Now instead of gospel, we have knowledge.

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So now you know the gospel. Someone told you this knowledge.

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And what is it? It's the glory of God in the face of Christ. That's the gospel, that Christ is glorious, and far more glorious than any created thing.

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So here's the gospel. Now what application can we make of this to how we live and preach and minister?

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Because the goal here is that every Christian become a minister. The first thing, and they're in your notes, number one, do not echo worldly sentiments in a misguided effort to make the gospel more attractive.

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Second Timothy 4 -3 calls this ear -tickling. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways, and we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

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Many pastors fall into this danger, desiring to see the church grow.

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How can you get church growth? Well, some people decide, how about we tamper with God's word?

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Instead of reading the pure, unadulterated light of God's word and taking it for what it says in the context that the author wrote it, tampering takes place.

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And that tampering is called eisegesis. Already wanting to make a point that the culture holds as dear, the preacher will decide on that point and then find it in the text, not because it's there, but by twisting and tampering with what

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God has written. Deliberately, in many cases, and sometimes subconsciously, there is a tampering with God's word, it's a cunning, it's an underhanded, disgraceful maneuver.

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In your evangelizing, don't tamper with God's word. Remember Sarah and Abraham?

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God had told them the promise of Genesis 12 that their descendants would be like the sand on the sea.

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Abraham's now 86 years old, and so what did they do? They went and found

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Hagar and made their own way of having offspring. But God was in no rush.

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It wasn't till 13 years later that Abraham and Sarah conceived and Isaac was born.

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Don't fall into the temptation when the culture is moving in a certain direction to think that we have to be in step with the culture and make our own way instead of waiting on God.

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Trust the word of God. Trust the power of God's word. So it says here, we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

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A second point, do not present the gospel in such a way as to make the unbeliever the judge.

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I notice a lot in witnessing that the first argument that people begin to do in sharing the gospel is to present evidence that God is really

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God. Rather than first of all going to the gospel, the light of Christ and telling who he is and what he's done and quoting scripture, people will often make apologies for the

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Bible and say, I will prove to you God exists without using the Bible. Don't do that.

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It's not helpful. And I know there's important books that have been written that have been helpful. God can still use them like the case for Christ or evidence that demands a verdict.

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But if you present evidence that demands a verdict or the case for Christ, who is the judge in your story?

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The unbeliever is the judge. He's the judge or the jury sitting on the seat, listening to the evidence presented.

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But the scripture does not present the gospel that way. Romans 1, 18 and following, we're told that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth in wickedness.

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Why? The eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen so that men are without excuse.

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When you're talking to an unbeliever, here's what you need to know. They already know there's a God. You say, wait a minute, this is an atheist.

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They know there's a God. According to Romans 1, they're suppressing that truth. They're suppressing that truth.

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Convincing them with evidence is not going to change the condition of their heart. It's not going to lift the veil.

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So next, do not excuse the moral preference for darkness over light. In John chapter three, verse 20, we're told that men love darkness and so refuse to come into the light.

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The blinding that takes place here in chapter four, verse four, the blinding of Satan is not an excuse.

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Romans 1 told us that. Men are without excuse. But we're told in John 3, 20 that people hate the light and refuse to come into it for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

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So what's happening in this witnessing encounter? When you're witnessing to your friend, your loved one, who you care about, there is a veil covering their eyes.

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There is a darkness that is settled like a mist over them. It's not a blindfold as in a physical blinding to light.

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What is that blindfold? Well, Satan is using the philosophies of this world.

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He's distracting them with teachings and philosophies that the world holds dear.

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And these things are opposed to Christ. I just recently read on the internet a little meme that was traveling around from the

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Flat Earth Society. Everybody chuckles when you hear about the Flat Earth Society, but they posted something that said the

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Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe. I thought, yeah,

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I don't think they realize what they just said. But people become so passionate about that teaching all around the globe, across the board, right?

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So that thinking, that whole system becomes for many people a religion.

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Proving it becomes a religion. And it becomes a blinder to seeing true glory, which is the person of Jesus Christ.

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And that Flat Earth Society is just an example of one of a thousand things that Satan uses to blind eyes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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More regularly, he'll use football, which is about to start. Or basketball, or another sport, or some other preoccupation that keeps people's minds off of the glory of Christ and set on something else.

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These are the blinders that Satan uses. So, what to do? We're told in the text.

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State the truth openly. State the truth openly. It says here in verse two, by the open statement of the truth.

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By openly, I think Paul means boldly, clearly. Going into Corinth, he preached the gospel and many believed.

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Going into your neighborhood, you tell someone who's walking their dog that Jesus is the

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Son of God. I know that sounds really intense, because they're just out there to walk their dog, right? They're not trying to get in a conversation with you.

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You proclaim the gospel openly with boldness, trusting this, that the words of scripture, and especially the gospel, have a power and authority all their own.

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They have an authority not like other people's words. Trust in this, have confidence in this, that the scripture actually carries with it implicit authority,

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Hebrews 4 .12. It's like a two -edged sword. It judges the thoughts and intentions of people's hearts, not the other way around.

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The unbeliever is not the judge or the juror waiting for your evidence. You come with the boldness of the gospel, like a sword, and you commend

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Christ to them in the power of the Holy Spirit. Trust in this, because this is what rips the veil apart.

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How are you gonna get that veil off of your friend and your family member? Do you think you can convince them to take it off?

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They don't wanna take it off. They love the darkness. So you come with light, a sword that pierces the darkness and cuts it apart.

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You have to come with boldness. That's what the text is saying. Next, let your life and the outcome of your life commend the gospel that you preach.

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They will see the outcome of our lives. Did Paul say that? Verse five, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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We proclaim not ourselves, but Christ. Look up at verse two. By the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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As you live in the light, your life is shining a light to the unbeliever.

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They are seeing the outcome of your life. Hebrews 13, seven says take note of your leaders in the gospel and notice the outcome of their life.

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Your life is on display. You are the light of the world. Our gospel is pure light, and he's banking that light off of you like the sun off the moon to show people his glory.

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And you're commending the gospel by how you live. Next, pray. Pray for God to lift the veil, to open blind eyes like Acts 9 .18,

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when like scales falling from Paul's eyes, he was able to see.

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Pray that God would do a miracle like that in your loved one. That he would say, let there be light.

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And finally, before we move on, have your heart strengthened by basking in the light.

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What do I mean by basking in the light? You ever been out on a sunny day, and the light just is glorious?

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It just feels good to come out of your house, and the light just swallows you up. Not like in Florida when it's too hot, but on a day like today in New Jersey, the light just surrounds you.

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This is how to be surrounded by the light of God, to hear the gospel, listen to a sermon.

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Go online, there's sermons, great preachers all over nowadays, we have access to that.

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Listen to great preaching from trustworthy teachers. Read the

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Bible. Worship, sing the gospel.

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The old hymns that you know, get a hymn book and sing those gospel hymns.

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Bask in the light. Because here's what happens when you do, you're strengthened by the light.

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It fortifies you, it solidifies you. It makes you strong.

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So our gospel is pure light, and confidence and boldness comes from this. Do not lose heart, and for the final point here, we need to recognize that hard times will come.

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And if we're not strong, we may flail and flounder when they do. So seven and following, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

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There's something good about being called a jar of clay. When you go to the

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Grand Canyon and look out, you don't go there to feel big, do you? You go to the Grand Canyon to feel small.

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And we talk about the Piper quote where he says, nobody goes there and sets up a hall of mirrors at the top of the

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Grand Canyon to observe themselves. They go to the top of the Grand Canyon to see how small they are.

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Here the Bible tells you, and it feels good, you're just a jar of clay. But in that jar is an all -surpassing treasure,

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Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is in you. So what happens to this jar of clay?

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Often it gets dropped, not by God, but by the world, kicked around, beat up, used for dishonorable things like Andrew Brunson, spit on, mocked.

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Verse eight, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. The afflictions that you have are permitted by God.

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He will never permit you to be crushed. And I know many who are hearing this sermon are suffering profoundly.

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And you feel crushed. You are afflicted, but he will never finally crush you.

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There's coming a day of final healing. That's the promise of the gospel. But in this body, this tent that we carry around, we will be afflicted in many ways.

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Not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.

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Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

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See what's happening there? The participation in the sufferings of Christ, the fellowship of his suffering, is accomplishing life for others.

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Verse 12, so death is at work in us, but life in you. You participate in his suffering, and you preach his resurrection and bring life to others.

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Your suffering, in other words, is meaningful and purposeful in building up the church. God has a purpose in what he allows us to go through.

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Satan also has designs on this church, and every church. We learned that in 2

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Corinthians 2 .11, remember that? We're not ignorant of his designs. Satan would tear down the church, but God is using suffering to build up the church.

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Casting Crowns has a song out right now, and they write some great lyrics. Casting Crowns, good lyric writing.

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Right now, they have a song called Nobody. And he said, Moses had stage fright.

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David brought a rock to a sword fight. And he says, I'm just a nobody trying to tell everybody all about somebody who saved my soul.

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When I was in high school, I, in my senior year, was called on to give a speech because it was a speech class, and it was my turn to speak.

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I was so terrified to stand in front of my class, mostly people who were younger than me, by the way.

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I was like the oldest one in the class. I was still so terrified. My eyes were watering, and I barely could mumble out the words

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I had to speak. Couple years later at college, I had to give another speech in another speech class, and I decided to share about Christ.

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And the sermon I preached was terrible. I went back and looked at it. It was very man -centered and just a lot of anecdotes and very little scripture.

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But I'll tell you what. When I stood to preach, I felt confidence come from nowhere and a boldness that came from God, not from me.

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And I loved it. Guys, I love preaching. I love it.

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Every Sunday morning, I love to preach. I get nervous before I get up here, but once I start, it's like better than a roller coaster.

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It doesn't come from me, though. I'm the jar of clay who couldn't speak.

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I love to preach because the Spirit comes to give the words to bring forth

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God's power from His word. We're jars of clay. He'll never let us be crushed.

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I wanna make one more point. Back in verse four, we saw it was Satan who's blinding the minds of unbelievers.

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That authority that Satan has is limited. In the book of Job, we're told even

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Satan had to present himself before God. And God allowed certain jurisdiction, a certain boundary to what he was able to do.

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God allowed it. So God has all power and Satan is an instrument that God is using.

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Now, Satan, of course, would willfully blind every human being to the gospel. And once he's failed at that and your eyes are open and you see that Christ is the

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Son of God, he would still destroy you. He has designs to kill you, literally.

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And if not that, he'll try to kill your faith. He is a defeated foe.

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And here is what I love about this passage. God, in his omnipotence, could speak a word like he said, let there be light, and there was, and crush

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Satan's head. He's promised to crush his head. And in a sense, he's already done that on the cross.

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Although Satan is still allowed to run free and accomplish certain limited things within God's plan.

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But here's what God is doing. He is taking the weakness of a jar of clay and the suffering and pain of that jar of clay, and he's using that to humiliate and crush the head of the serpent.

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Live at peace with all people, we're told in Romans. And we're told to be innocent of evil.

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For the God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath our feet.

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He can destroy that serpent with a word. But in his plan and in his program, flip with me just real quick to Ephesians 3 .10.

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He is using the church and a suffering church.

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He's bringing to light his plan in verse nine. Ephesians 3 .10, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

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In chapter six, we'll learn more specifically that those are demonic spiritual forces, the angels, the fallen angels, the spiritual warfare passage of Ephesians 6 that we're familiar with.

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But here in chapter three, verse 10, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God is being made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

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Back to 2 Corinthians 4. In other words, Satan and his host of demons are watching you suffer and trying to accomplish your demise, but God is using those very sufferings to crush his head and to make known his manifold plan to glorify the

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Son of God that as you participate in the sufferings of Christ and as you are resurrected in final glory, glorified one day, the triumph of the cross includes our stomping the head of every demon that attacks you and every circumstance that's weighing you down.

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Those circumstances will finally be defeated. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 11, for we who live are always being given over to death.

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Any theology that denies that and promises prosperity in a material sense, missing the point, badly missing the mark.

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We are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

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So in closing, for application, do not lose heart. You have the new covenant with the internal working of the spirit that is at work in you, transforming you from one degree of glory to another.

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You have the new covenant promise that righteousness is given to you. You're credited with righteousness.

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You have a permanent work, so he is not gonna withdraw his hand from you. Once you've taken hold of the gospel and he's really taken hold of you, it's a permanent sealing of the

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Holy Spirit. Moreover, our gospel is pure light. When people reject us, don't take it to heart because it's

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God whom they're rejecting and it's the blinding of Satan that causes them to do that.

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By their own willful love of the things of this world, the love for darkness, and when the affliction comes and when cancer comes and when broken relationships take place, know this, that even in that suffering,

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God is orchestrating a plan to crush the head of the enemy. And to advance the church and to build up the church, it is finally for the upbuilding of the body of Christ, not to be crushed or finally broken.

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So worship team, will you come up? Remember the words of Justin Martyr. You can kill us, but you cannot harm us.

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Martin Luther, here I stand. And Andrew Brunson, you are worthy of my all.

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My tears and pain I lift up as an offering. Teach me to share in the fellowship. Teach me to share in the fellowship of your suffering.

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Lamb of God, you are worthy of my all. Let's pray. God, we are so thankful this morning for your words in scripture and the pure light that strengthens us.

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I pray you strengthen us by grace. We pray that we as a people would be bold to openly state the gospel and to speak it with authority, not addressing unbelievers as if they are the judge and the jury, but rather to lovingly and respectfully present the truth openly, boldly, clearly, preaching

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Christ and him crucified. I pray, Lord, that our lives will match the testimony of our mouths.

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Sanctify us, Lord, that people can see the outcome of our lives and,

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Lord, I pray for those who are suffering in the congregation right now, Lord. I pray that you would touch them this morning with a reminder that you will never crush them and that the afflictions that we go through are to teach us to rely upon you.

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You will finally deliver. It's what you love to do. You are Savior.

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So this morning, we thank you for this passage. We ask that you fortify it in our hearts so that we're ready for whatever it is that you allow to come into our lives.

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We trust you this morning and we thank you for the pure light of the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.