PRISONER OF CHRIST (Eph 3:1)

Three, this is book three, God is my strength and portion forever, a psalm of Aesop. Where he writes, truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death, their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are, they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

Therefore, pride is their necklace, violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness, their hearts overflow with follies, they scoff and speak with malice. Lofty, they threaten oppression.

They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue struts through the earth. Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know, is their knowledge in the most high?

Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands of innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.

If I had said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God.

Then I discerned their end. Truly, you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. Oh, Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast towards you. Please, church, stand with me. Let's finish out this psalm as a call to worship. Psalmist says, Nevertheless, we are continually with you.

Oh, you guide us with your counsel. Whom have we in heaven but you? Our flesh and our hearts, they may fail. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. But for us, it is good to be near you.

All God's people said, and let's let's pray together prayer of adoration this morning. Father, God, we thank you for bringing us here to worship and honor your holy name. God, you are worthy of all praise and honor that we could ever get.

God, we just thank you, Lord, for seeing us through this week and bringing us here as a church family to worship and honor you. Thank you that we have this time. We have this place to meet God. You are worthy of it all.

We praise you, Lord. Praise you, God. Sing this with me. In days of peace. In days of peace, in days of rest, in times of loss and of ease. No rich or poor, your word is true that on my ways I've come beyond your hand.

No step I walk beyond, the earth is dark outside my view, still all my ways I'll go. And oh what peace that I have found, I may be, I know my soul, who else commands all the hosts, who else commands all the hosts, who else can make every key, who else could whisper any darkness true.

Only of other beauty shines the sun, majesty rules with justice. We praise you, Father, for being here in our midst this morning. God, I pray that you'd open our ears to the word that the Spirit has for the church this morning, God.

Thank you. In the dawn, you didn't threaten our dying, but that through Jesus and the blood of Christ poured out, that you have made us in right standing with you. Fathers, we continue this time of worship and giving, I just ask that you would prepare our hearts for the word, God, that you would penetrate our hearts and change us from the inside out, God, that we would be your hands and feet, as you have called us to be.

We thank you, God, for this church body, and we thank you for each person you've brought here to worship and honor you. In your name we pray.

Well, at the beginning of our service, we read our Psalm of the Week, as we as a church have been going through the Psalms consecutively, which happened to be Psalm 73, where we heard the psalmist confessing his discouragement.

This discouragement as he looks around, as he sees the wicked flourishing the way they do, and the righteous suffering. And this reality, though not always true with every single believer and every single wicked person, but has been the pattern of God's people since the beginning, hasn't it?

We think of the Old Testament saints, we think of Noah, undergoing such ridicule as the world is just going on their merry way, and living their life, and having children, and eat, drink, and be merry.

And he's there obeying God, building the ark, and undergoing persecution in the process. We see Abraham looking around at the world, at the wicked who are having children and posterity, and he's married to a woman who is barren.

We look at the people of Israel, in captivity in Egypt for hundreds of years, and then the Israelites, once they're delivered from that, they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Then again, the Israelites oppressed by Rome, by the time we make it to the New Testament time, Jesus' time, and ultimately, Jesus himself.

Jesus himself, in his earthly ministry, ridiculed, hated, and even murdered. And this pattern didn't stop with Jesus, did it? We see it in the lives and really the deaths of the apostles, and the apostle Paul being one of them.

Paul, of course, had obviously, but previously, been gone by the name of Saul. He had been on the other side of that persecution for so long. Life looked good for Saul, didn't it? He was rising in the ranks, he was flourishing as he persecuted Christ's people.

But God had other plans for him, didn't he? He had different plans for him. So go ahead, let's see one of those ways that God had planned something different for Paul. Open up your copy of God's Word with me to Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians chapter 3, as we enter into week 22 of our study through this great letter. And I'll be honest with you, as I've been preparing every single week, I feel as though we've been moving so quickly through this letter.

We've been walking so fast through the book of Ephesians that we're leaving so much meat on the table. But I'm reminded of an older, wiser pastor that told me once, he said, don't try and exhaust the text because you couldn't even if you tried.

And so I have to be cautious of that. However, we are going to slow down today and examine a singular verse. We're going to look at one verse, verse 1 of chapter 3, a verse that is so rich that I think Paul himself interrupts his train of thought in order to further explain what he means.

So let's look at Ephesians chapter 3, verse 1, where Paul says, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles. Stop. This is the reading of God's word this morning. Let's pray that he would give us the wisdom and the Holy Spirit would illuminate our hearts and minds to this great truth.

Pray with me, please. Dear Heavenly Father. Oh God, we come before you once again and we acknowledge our frailty. I acknowledge my inability to comprehend your truths at times. God, you are giving us spiritual truths here and sometimes we just can't see past the physical.

So Father, I pray that you would help us in this. I pray that we would honor you and how we talk about your word and your text here. Lord, I pray that you would illuminate the hearts and minds of those here listening.

I pray that you would allow them to see with clarity. Father, guard me from error, that I would speak only truth from your word. In Christ's name, amen. Well, have you ever read through one of Paul's letters like this one here in Ephesians, Philippians, Romans for that matter, and found it difficult to follow?

Found it difficult to follow Paul's train of thought? Well, there's a reason for that. Some cases, historians have often accused the Apostle Paul of being a terrible writer when it comes to his grammar and his structure and how everything is supposed to be right in literature.

So they've accused him of being terrible at this. His incessant run on sentences, we saw that in chapter one, didn't we? Where he just starts a sentence but just never ends it. It just goes on and on and on and on without a period, without a stop, without a breath.

It just goes on. He doesn't stop with his thought. His stopping one thought in order to address a rabbit trail to only then just pick up right where he left off later on and you're like, well, where's this happening?

What's happening here? I'm not following you, Paul. It's like we need a cold case file wall right up on here with all the pins and the strings running to every little thing just to be able to follow Paul's train of thought at times.

Even the Apostle Peter affirmed that Paul's writings are difficult to understand at times. He said that in his second letter, second Peter chapter three. He says there are some things in them, in Paul's letters, that are hard to understand.

And here's the thing. I think Peter meant both theologically, because of how rich theologically Paul's letters are, but also I think possibly his writing. But here's the thing. Paul was highly educated.

Paul, if he wanted to write a paper that the loftiest literary professor would laud as perfection, he could, couldn't he? But that wasn't his goal. You got to remember that what we read from Paul here, these are letters.

These are letters that are written to those that he loves dearly. Plus, we also know something else from what Paul said to the church in Corinth. In first Corinthians chapter two, he says, and when I came to you brothers, did I come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech and wisdom?

He's essentially saying, I didn't use those means. I didn't use lofty speech. I didn't use the world's wisdom to speak to you. I spoke to you what the world perceives as foolishness, which is the cross, the gospel.

See, Paul's not worried about sounding lofty and academically astute. He's concerned with the truth. That's what Paul's after here. However, not only the truth, that's not where Paul's love and ambition starts and stops.

It starts with the truth, but it goes even further. It's for the souls and the lives of those that he's proclaiming that truth to. And there's a distinction here. It's not just the cold facts. It's the people that he's trying to portray these truths to.

And here in our text today, we see one of these academic literary no-nos. But I, for one, as we look at it, I hope you come to the same conclusion. I'm glad it's written this way because here we see Paul's heart.

We see his heart for the saints. So let's dig a digger deep into this. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 1. He says, for this reason. For what reason? He's referring to what he's previously said. We've talked about that the past couple of weeks.

We can summarize it back in chapter 2 verse 19 where he says, so then you are no longer strangers. Who's he speaking to? Gentile believers, right? He says you are no longer strangers. You are no longer aliens.

You are no longer separated from the covenants. You are no longer detached from the people of God. He says, but you are fellow citizens with the saints. You are co-heirs. You have all the rights and privileges of any and every Christian.

And he says that you are members of the household of God. And then he wraps up that thought in verse 22 before he jumps into chapter 3. He says, in him you also were being built together, Jew and Gentile, no distinction, into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit, a temple, a place where God meets with his people.

He says both you, Jew and Gentile, are being built up as the spiritual temple where God himself dwells. For this reason, because of this, in light of this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. You see, this book, this letter, Ephesians, is known as one of the prison epistles, along with, I think, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, I believe, are the four prison epistles.

And there was this two-year time period, roughly, I think, the years we've estimated around 60 to 62, of Paul's first imprisonment in Rome. You see, Rome had, of course, wrongfully imprisoned him, had him chained to a Roman guard 24 hours a day.

And let's be honest for a second. Let's think of ourselves in this situation that Paul's in. If you and I were wrongfully detained in this way, wrongfully imprisoned simply for sharing the gospel, for starters, we would probably wallow in self-pity, wouldn't we?

I don't know about you, but I think that would be my propensity. But secondly, we would be bitter towards those who have wrongfully detained us, in this case, Rome. As you're sitting there 24 hours a day, chained to a Roman guard, and he gets to rotate out with other Roman guards, and everything that you do, everything that you say, everything in your life is imprisoned, it's trapped in this moment.

However, we don't get a hint of this bitterness from Paul in any of these four letters, do we? As a matter of fact, we get the opposite. Look at what he says here in the passage. He says, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Rome.

Is that what he says? No, he says, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. And notice, Rome is the one that has imprisoned him, yet he doesn't even acknowledge them as the ones doing this. He doesn't even bring them up in this, because Paul knows something that you and I usually forget, doesn't he?

He knows a little something about God that you and I intellectually affirm, but when reality sets in, we forget this so often. You see, Paul, in his letter here, he's simply skipping over the middleman, in this case, Rome, and he's going right to the heart of his circumstances, the one that has ordained all things.

Similarly to what Jesus told Pilate, if you remember, Pilate felt as though he had Jesus' life in his hands. He's speaking to Jesus, and he just doesn't understand. He thought, Jesus' fate depends upon me, and he's looking at Jesus as prisoner.

He's thinking, don't you realize, like, say something. Don't you realize that I choose whether you live or die? Like, your fate is in my hands, and what does Jesus say? He says, you would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given to me from above.

I think Paul remembers this. He knows this. He realizes what Jesus is saying, because what Jesus said there didn't just apply to Jesus. This applies to absolutely everything, doesn't it? Some people will read that text and go, well, of course God is sovereign over Jesus' circumstance.

That's God's plan, but then they want to detach God's sovereignty from every other circumstance, but it doesn't work like that. Paul is acknowledging this. He's acknowledging that my imprisonment is in Christ Jesus.

For those of you who were with us a couple of years ago when we went through Philippians, you know this to be true. You know where I'm going here because of what Paul said in Philippians chapter one. As a matter of fact, flip over there with me.

Ephesians, Philippians, it's the next book, chapter one. I want us to look at verses 12 and 13. Remember, this is another one of his prison epistles. He writes the book of Philippians in this two-year time period just as he wrote Ephesians, so he's in the same circumstances.

In chapter one of verse 12, he says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me, what's happened to him, he's speaking of his imprisonment there in Rome, has really served to advance the gospel, advance the gospel, look at verse 13, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

If you remember, if you were with us in that study, you'll recall the fact that we talked about Paul always wanting to go to Rome. If you look at his ministry, he's always bringing up, hey, I'm trying to go to Rome, I want to go to Rome.

He wants to go preach the gospel in Rome just as he had in other cities. His desire was to preach the gospel there because of the far-reaching influence that Rome had on the whole known world. You've heard the phrase, all roads lead to Rome.

Well, guess what? All roads lead out of Rome. Rome had conquered the whole known world and it influenced everything that went on. So, of course, Paul wants to go there and preach the gospel. He wants to be as efficient with the gospel as he possibly can, but he's always hindered from going.

God has always stopped him, and now here he is. He made it to Rome. He makes it to the place that he wants to go so bad, just not in the way that he had thought that he would. So, instead of preaching in the streets as he commonly did and in the synagogue and in those types of places when he'd go into these cities, his imprisonment, him going to Rome in chains, gave him access to Caesar's own household, to the leaders of Rome through his guards.

Remember, he's chained to one of Caesar's own personal guards day after day, and they're rotating. You can only imagine how much gospel these guys are hearing, and he's continually pouring into them right there in the gospel.

Then what happens in Rome? The gospel spreads and it starts to go throughout the whole city, and then it starts to spread all over. You see, God had a better plan than Paul, didn't he? God had a better plan.

Paul had a good plan. God had a better plan. Paul wanted to stroll into the city, share the gospel, make friends, see the fruit of his labor. Paul also knew that God's plans are often not comfortable and convenient for us.

We want the comfortable mission trip, don't we? We want to stroll into Rome and share the gospel and hang out with our friends and have dinner in the evenings. We want to enjoy our life. But Paul knows, he's like, ah, this turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, my imprisonment.

It didn't go the way I wanted. God has not promised me comfort and convenience. As a matter of fact, it's usually the opposite. How did Paul know this? How did Paul know that this is typically how it's going to work for him?

Well, one, it's been the pattern of his ministry so far, hasn't it? Paul's the guy that keeps getting shipwrecked, stoned, kicked out of cities, persecuted. He's undergone every type of conflict that you can imagine.

Plus, he'd been promised that this would happen to him. And as a matter of fact, turn to Roman or Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9. It's right after the gospels. I want you to look at a couple of verses here, 15 and 16 in Acts 9.

Paul had been promised this. God had told a man by the name of Ananias to go lay hands on Saul. Remember, he's Saul of Tarsus at this time. And Ananias is afraid. He's like, oh God, I know what you're saying.

You want me to go lay hands on this guy, but I've heard about him. He like throws Christians in prison, like this is a bad guy. I don't want to do this. And then there in Acts chapter 9 and verse 15, God responds to him.

He says, but the Lord said to him, he's speaking to Ananias, go for he, Saul, who would be Paul, is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

For, verse 16, I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. It was written right up front, wasn't it? Paul was made very aware very early, this is what's in store for me as a follower of Christ.

You see, the trajectory of Paul's life had already been ordained by God, including his suffering, including his imprisonment, including his good times, including the ups, the downs, and everything in between had already been ordained and sovereignly chosen by God.

But notice, it's not suffering for suffering's sake. God is not malicious. God is not cruel. That's not the God that Paul serves. That's not the God that we serve. He said it's suffering for the sake of God's name.

Is there anything else worthy of suffering? No, I can't imagine anything worthy of suffering over. I look at my children, and I love them, and I'd be willing to suffer for them. How much more is the glory of the creator of all things, the mighty, holy, just God, that's worthy of suffering over.

And it's for his name's sake. And Paul saw this as an honor. As a matter of fact, he even encouraged his own protege, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 1 .8, he says, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner.

All right, there he confirms it again. I'm a prisoner of God. But share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Share in the suffering. That's, welcome to 12 .5 this morning, guys, right? Health, wealth, and prosperity.

You come in here, and we talk about suffering, but that's the pattern of the Christian life, typically, isn't it? All right, we're not trying to sugarcoat this thing for you and give you your Americanized white picket fence in a safe subdivision Christianity.

That's not what the New Testament lays out, is it? And Paul didn't live like this. Back in our passage in Ephesians 3 .1, Paul tells the readers why Christ has him in prison. Look at it with me again.

For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of the Gentiles. Remember, he's writing to Gentiles here, right? He's writing to the church in Ephesus, a Gentile culture. I'm sure there were some Jews there, of course, but this is primarily Gentiles that are being written to.

And if you remember at the beginning of this study, I said, this letter didn't even have Ephesians in the original manuscripts because the copies were meant to be dispersed amongst all the churches in the area.

So he's speaking to Gentile believers. How is this on their behalf? And that's what he says. He says, on behalf of you, Gentiles, you Christians, you people that are not of the Jewish descent that have seen the glory and majesty of Christ.

How is this on their behalf? Well, if you recall last week in chapter 2 and verse 20, this household that was being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. This church, it has its beginnings with Christ as the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets in line with that cornerstone being built.

And we are being built and layered on that. Paul being an apostle, he's unique from the other apostles in that he's the one chosen to go to the Gentiles. We see it all through scripture. The passage we just read a moment ago, Acts chapter 9.

He says, to carry my name before the Gentiles. That's what God had called him to do. Paul affirms it in Romans chapter 11. He says, now I'm speaking to you Gentiles in as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles.

He affirms it again in Galatians. He says, but when he who had set me apart before I was born, talk about God's sovereignty, and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

He's an apostle to the Gentile people. And since his imprisonment turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, as he said in Philippians, then that means that his mission to bring the gospel to the Gentiles has been successful in his imprisonment.

It's on behalf of you Gentiles. My imprisonment that Christ Jesus has subjected me to for his purposes has been for the furtherance of the gospel. And I am sharing that gospel with the Gentiles. At the beginning, I made a comment of Paul's writing being difficult to follow and how this is one of those places.

I understand this chapter can be a little difficult to follow and how he has written it. But look at what he does next. Look back at the passage for this reason. I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.

And most of your Bibles will have a little dash there. It means that Paul has stopped his thought. And now there's a parenthesis. There's a section here that he goes and chases a rabbit trail. It's as though Paul had another thought right in the middle of his previous thought, isn't it?

And Paul chases this rabbit for the next 12 verses to then pick it right up right where he left off in verse 14. Look down at verse 14 for me where he says, for this reason. He's starting his thought over again from verse 1 and now in verse 14 as he goes into a prayer for these Gentile believers.

And we'll get to that prayer here in the next few weeks. But this is where he picks up his thought. So why this 12 verse interruption? I believe because of his great love for them. And we see the heart of Paul here.

This is not literary correctness that Paul is using here. This is kind of a no-no. You're not supposed to write like this because it's hard to track with you at times. But he has such a love for the people.

Listen to what Paul is telling them. He's giving them theologically correct things. He's saying things that are theologically hard but correct. He's saying, my imprisonment, me being shamed to a Roman guard, isn't so much because of Rome, even though they're responsible for doing it.

It's ultimately because Jesus Christ has placed me here for the furtherance of the gospel. That's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow, isn't it? And he's saying theological truths and correct things.

Yet he knows human nature. He knows our human discouragement. He knows how difficult it is for us to swallow that pill at times. And I think Paul knew that what he was saying was heavy. It weighed heavy on these Gentile believers.

He also knew that they would feel guilty about his imprisonment. Because this is on their behalf. They know it. He didn't even have to tell them this. But they know that he is in prison because of his ministry to the Gentiles.

To bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. If he would have only brought the ministry to the Jewish people, Rome probably wouldn't have bothered with him. And everybody knows that. But because of his ministry to them, and they feel the weight of that.

And so right in the middle of this theological treatise, this thought, this great truth, he seeks to give them peace and accurate understanding of what he's saying to them. Verse 13, look at it. As he wraps up this rabbit trail, as he comes to the end of it, we see it here.

So, because of the previous 11 verses here, I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. He still reminds them of a theological truth. He does it from a pastoral heart.

He does it from a heart of love. Don't lose heart, Christians. Don't be discouraged in this. You see me, the person that you love so dearly, and you care about, and has taught you so much of God's word, and serves God.

And you feel the weight of the persecution in your own community on you. And then you look at my life, and I'm sitting in prison. And it seems as though the gospel has been hindered. All of this stuff, this is hard to understand, but take heart.

What I'm suffering is for you. And this suffering, this is for your glory. Let's think about this big picture, Gentiles. Stop thinking in the here and now for a moment, and think of eternity. Think of something grander, and bigger, and more important than your day-to-day life in this very moment.

He's saying, I would gladly spend a million years in prison if it meant your redemption. That's a good rabbit to chase, isn't it? To remind them of this truth. So yes, is this a literary no-no? Yes, of course it is.

But again, Paul cares more for the truth, and for God's people, than trying to be accurate with how he writes, and according to what everybody else's standard is. So how about for us? Do we care more about being wise and lofty?

I'll be honest, that's a propensity for us reformed folks, isn't it? We want all the big words, and the big things, and the big thoughts. And we want to say them in lofty ways. I see some churches, and I think, what are you guys doing?

They've got these ornate pulpits, and they speak with such a weird cadence, and then all that comes with it. Well, why? What's the purpose of this? Paul said, I didn't come to you with lofty speech, or worldly wisdom.

I proclaim the foolishness of the cross to you. It's not that we throw out all of the terms, and all of the thoughts. We want to know God. Paul doesn't pull any punches when it comes to truth, does he?

We don't. We don't hold back on the truth. But it's our heart that matters. Do we care about the people that we're giving the truth to? Do we care about our families, our children that we're catechizing, and teaching the word of God to, and truths to?

Do we actually care about their souls? Or do we want them to quote a catechism in front of strangers, so that it makes you look like a good parent? What's our heart? What's our motivation? When we find ourselves in difficult situations, do we blame others?

Do we blame Rome for our imprisonment? Do we blame our circumstances? Do we blame those around us? Do we grow in bitterness towards them because they've done this to me? I'm a victim. By the world's standards, Paul's a victim of Rome, isn't he?

If anyone's a victim, it's Paul. And Paul never claims himself to be a victim. Paul says, my imprisonment is in Christ Jesus. The one that ordains all things, and the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord, and he wields it wherever he sees fit.

And if Rome imprisons me, it's because my heavenly father has ordained it. And my savior, for the sake of the gospel, has placed me here. He has allowed Rome to do this. And he could stop them at any moment, if that's for my good and for his glory.

But we blame. We're victims. So often, aren't we? We blame our circumstances. And then at times, even worse, we blame God, don't we? We say, God, you're not good. You can't be good. You said you were good.

You said you wanted what's best for me. There's passages in the Old Testament that I like to distort and say that you want my flourishing in this moment in this life. Why are you doing this? I know you're sovereign.

I know that you're in control. And so you're responsible. I blame you. You guys quit looking at me with this holy look on your faces like, I've never thought anything like that. I have. I felt that. I felt that bitterness towards God at times in my life.

I didn't want to acknowledge it in that way. But when I really dug down, that's what my heart was saying. And we feel this at times. But then we see Paul chained. How many of you have ever been chained to someone 24 hours a day and lost your privileges for no reason?

Right? None of us. What are we complaining about? Paul says, this has turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. This has been ordained by God, my very circumstances of difficulty. My victimhood is done by God for his purposes.

And he has reason for it. And he has purpose in it. I am a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am not a prisoner of Rome. I am not a prisoner of my circumstances. I'm a prisoner of Christ Jesus because I'm a servant of Christ Jesus.

And I will do anything and everything that he asks of me. And if he asked me to sit in prison, then that's what he asked of me. Because that's his plan. Because he has children. He has an elect from every tribe, nation, and tongue that he is after.

And he will find them. And they will hear his voice. And they will come to him, whether I'm in prison or I'm the president of the world. And everything in between. This is our God that we serve, isn't it?

We see this beautiful heart from Paul here. We need to emulate this. Knowing that as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 17 and 18, for this light momentary affliction. This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comprehension.

As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen or the transient, but the things that are unseen. Oh, they're eternal. Paul had his focus and his attention on eternity, didn't he?

But so often I find myself gazing at the temporal, putting all my eggs in that basket. That's why we need each other to encourage each other. Oh, look to Christ. Look to Christ, look to eternity. Quit focusing on the American dream.

Quit focusing on what you can accomplish. Focus on what God is going to use and do in your life. Set your mind on things eternal. Our savior, he suffered for us. Are we greater than our master? How dare we think that our savior can suffer for us and that we should go on living happy-go-lucky with everything going smoothly.

He suffered in order to save us from the wrath of God. From the wrath. We don't talk about that very often, do we either? That's why Jesus came. Jesus came to save us from the triune God. But he did and he suffered in order to do so.

With that in mind, I want us to prepare our hearts as we do every week to go to the Lord's table. As we see the beauty of the cross, as we think of what our great savior has done for us, the suffering, the blood that was shed on our behalf, the body that was given over for us.

But before we do that, we've got a few moments. I want us to spend some time in prayer and reflection. I want you to go to the Lord. Seek the Lord. Am I content with where you have me, Father? Am I resting in you?

Am I trusting that my imprisonment, my circumstances are ordained by you and given to me for your glory and my good? And ask as a people that we would be able to live in light of that. That we would be able to serve God in whatever circumstances we're in with gratefulness.

Because I don't know what God has in store for us as a people. I don't know what God has in store for this church. None of us do. And if I look at history and I look at scripture, it's probably some suffering.

We need to be prepared for this, don't we? We need to be theologically grounded in it. But also we need to ask God, oh, help us, help me. And pray for each other. If you want to come down here at this area and kneel and pray, we can do so.

If you want to pray with someone, me and Pastor Jeremiah are available. If you need intercessory prayer, if you just want to pray with us or you want to search your own heart, just pray right there in your seat.

But here in just a moment, we will come back together and we will go to the Lord's table together. But let me pray first and then we will pray together as a people. Dear Heavenly Father, God help us. Lord, we know these theological truths.