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Pastor Ben Mitchell
All righty. Good morning, everybody. Great to see everyone once again. The month was very strange because in some ways it flew by, in other ways it didn't. As we speak, Mom and Dad are on their way back from Galveston, which is where their ship ported, and Katie and Dave and their family went and picked them up, so they're all back on the road heading our direction, which is a good feeling, so it'll be great having all of them back.
But obviously, as I've already said pretty much every Sunday since I've had this opportunity, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to fill the pulpit for Dad. It's been quite the honor and privilege, as it always is.
And just getting to share some studies that have been on my heart for quite a while with you all is always probably one of the most special things, very near the top of the most special things that I could ever get to do.
And so, I appreciate all of you for bearing with me throughout this full study, this very brief series, and we have quite a bit to get to today to fully round it out, and I'm excited about that. So, turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 to get us started this morning, Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
And as we all know, the overarching theme of this series has been the sufficiency of Christ, but we've broken that down into specific individual studies in a few particular areas. We started with how to simply rely on his sufficiency in the first place, and from that, we moved into his sufficiency in our salvation.
Last week, we talked about his sufficiency in life in general. We looked at some specific areas in our life, from contentment to fulfillment to being able to ward off just the influence of false teachers, of men around us, his sufficiency in all of those categories.
And today, we're going to be talking about what may seem at first to be a somewhat heavy topic, especially a heavy topic to be ending on, of all things, but one thing I want you guys to keep in mind as we go throughout the material for today is that the purpose of it isn't necessarily for it to be heavy, but more so to give all of us some mental equipment, if you will, for being prepared for tough times, whenever they may befall us, whenever they may befall people we know, people we love, our loved ones, our family members, our friends.
Today, we're going to be talking about the sufficiency of Christ in suffering, but it's from the angle of preparing for it, not necessarily for being right in the middle of it. Now, I'm aware that all of us are outliving our own individual lives, and there's a lot going on for each and every one of us, so for any one of us in this room or perhaps listening online or perhaps listening to this recording, ten years from now, you may be going through a time of grief, a time of suffering, in which case, I do believe that these passages we're going to look at today will be very helpful.
Being able to be prepared to be hopeful and to not fall into despair, which can be a very easy thing for any human to do, but to also be prepared to help those around us as well, our loved ones, our friends, and so forth.
Look at this passage in Ecclesiastes 3 .11, just one verse to open us up with, and then we'll move on from there.
It says,.
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful day. Thank you for bringing us all together once again to abide in your word as a local church body, to be encouraged, to be edified by your word, and also just by our fellowship together, by being together in an otherwise very turbulent world around us, a very turbulent culture, certainly at this time, among others as well.
But with as much as is going on right now, Lord, we are so thankful for the opportunity, the privilege of being able to gather and to, again, encourage one another and to have this steady foundation of your word brought forth, proclaimed, discussed.
And we just ask that you be with us throughout this service. Be with every word that is spoken. We thank you for the passages that we're about to dive into, and we ask all these things in your name. Amen.
So, many millennia ago, the human race was tempted with the knowledge of good and evil. They were tempted with increasing their knowledge beyond that which God had bestowed upon them when they were created in a perfect environment, in a perfect human body, with perfect human functions from their intelligence to their emotions across the full spectrum.
Everything was perfect. But they were tempted with more than that. They were tempted to increase their knowledge, again, beyond the capacity that they were ready for at that time. It was a temptation that bore too much power to turn down, in fact, because, as we know, when that temptation was delivered, we partook.
We became as gods, which was actually part of the temptation, and that was confirmed by God himself a few verses later in Genesis 3, where the fall of man is described. We became as gods, and this portal was opened up for our knowledge, so that we could perceive not only the goodness that was already abounding in our presence, but also the evil.
We, for the first time, had the knowledge of good and evil together. So, in other words, what happened was we got exactly what we asked for. We wanted it, we asked for it, and so we got it. We received it, the knowledge of good and evil.
And by we, by the way, I do mean exactly that. I know it was Adam and Eve, they were the instruments, but I do believe that every one of us, any given one of us in this room, any given human being that has ever lived, I do believe that they would have grasped for that exact same power that was so tempting to Adam and Eve in the first place.
Just as Eve, just as Adam, we would have grasped for that knowledge of good and evil ourselves. So, in light of that, what exactly do we have on our hands today, in the 21st century, as believers in Christ?
What do we have on our hands now? Well, what we have is the reality that if we live long enough, if any one of us lives long enough, we will suffer. We will experience grief. We will experience times, in some cases, of acute suffering.
Very, very bad stuff. If we live long enough, we will suffer. We will experience that. We will experience grief and hardships and sorrows because we got what we asked for. Now, on top of that, as we know, the range of suffering in a fallen world is very comprehensive.
We have cancer and disease. We have natural phenomena, just like we experience with Hurricane Milton. Tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis. Of course, there's financial distress, like the stress of perhaps losing a job or being in a tough spot at any point in your life.
The loss of a spouse, the loss of a child, the loss of anyone that you love. These are all forms of suffering and grief. All you have to do is live long enough, and you'll experience some form of these things.
And, if you don't live long enough to experience any of them, your departure will be the cause of grief for somebody else. It's all interwoven, and it's all a result of what we asked for. The truths that we just discussed leave us with two important questions to ask.
Number one, what is the purpose of this suffering? Is there a purpose? If so, what is it? And, number two, what do we do about it as we experience it? So, answering those questions, or those questions themselves, actually, are going to kind of set the context for our ultimate topic today.
Of course, as I mentioned, is the sufficiency of Christ in suffering. And, that's actually going to be our third point. So, point number one, we're going to discuss the source of grief. Point number two, we're going to discuss the purpose of grief.
And, point number three will be the sufficiency of Christ in suffering. So, let's start with point number one, the source of grief, the source of suffering. As we've already alluded to, the source of grief is, of course, tied directly to our choices, getting what we asked for.
We want the knowledge of good and evil. And so, the grief that comes with that evil comes directly from the choices that were made, specifically our choice, again, to have the knowledge of good and evil in all things.
Now, this is a very important foundational piece to have laid out because, as we know, the Bible explicitly discusses God in His character and His creation as what? Good. In fact, not just good, but everything that God made was made very good.
So, then we're left with this predicament of, if everything that God made was good, how can there be so much suffering in this world? Well, we know it couldn't proceed from what God made directly because, as we know, what He made was very good.
Therefore, what is the source? Well, the source of such grief and sorrow that totally permeates the human experience must be derived from something else. And that thing is what you might call the fall, the fall of man.
Genesis 3 discusses the full narrative, the source of the grief that we observe around us, the source of the types of things that we will be discussing. The fall of man is such an essential reality that, even though it's not always the most fun topic to talk about, it is nonetheless instrumental in a topic like this because the fall is what is wrong with the world.
It's why we look around and have a tough time understanding certain things sometimes, understanding why things are happening the way they are to the people that they're happening to, whatever it may be.
It is so important to remember the answer ultimately comes back to the fall of man. That is why things happen. That is why things are happening. The origin for pain, the origin for suffering and evil, it all comes back to the fall.
The fall is why I am here today preaching the sermon and why we're not all walking with the Lord in the cool of the day right now. It's the fall. The fall is why you need imperfect humans like me to proclaim the word of the Lord and not getting to hear it from the Lord himself.
Every aspect of life that is not ideal is a result of the fall of man. In other words, evil and suffering, in some way or other, is tied back to that, and that is the source of our hardship. So when we read through the Bible, one thing that we're going to find is a very curious thing, because we find that despite the utter moral failure of people, including us, but people throughout all of human history, beginning with Adam all the way until the day that the Lord comes back and sets things right, the second Adam, we find that despite that utter moral failure on our part, over against, by the way, because you've got to remember the contrast, over against the utter holiness of the God that created everything in the first place, to the highest degree, holiness to the highest degree, the curious thing is that people aren't just wiped out wholesale.
How can the presence of such sin and moral failure ever even exist in a universe where the Holy God exists somewhere and also is the source of all of that as well, the source of the universe itself? How can these things coexist?
How can this contrast even be allowed, for lack of a better term? Well, the reason that it can even be a thing is by the Lord's long-suffering Spirit. It's by His long-suffering Spirit, His forbearance, that His judgment has not already fallen upon the world.
And so, you know, how is this even possible? Well, suffering and grief, of course, isn't the surprise of the biblical narrative. The fact that we are not totally wiped out, the fact that there is something called grace, is the great surprise of the biblical storyline.
And so, go to Luke chapter 13 for a second, and I want to demonstrate what this grace looks like in the midst of a race that otherwise is deserving of much worse than it receives around us, much more than what we do see happening around us, as much grief and suffering as there is.
You think of the story of Noah and the ark, of course, you think, well, there's an example where the human race was wiped out, but it wasn't wiped out wholesale. Of course, there was Noah, there was the eight that survived and that propagated the human race that currently exists.
We are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, of course, but we are also all descendants of Noah and his three sons. And so the Lord, in His grace, it was grace that Noah found in the eyes of the Lord that we are here and not wiped out of the presence of a holy God to the fullest degree.
Look at Jesus' words in Luke chapter 13. Let's start in verse 1, and this is a very bizarre story. I think you'll see why in just a second. There were present that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Already kind of bizarre. What on earth is he talking about? Pilate? Okay, we know who he is. He's a man in leadership. And apparently, because of Pilate, there were these people whose blood was mingled with their sacrifices.
What's that about? We'll look at it in just a second. Look at verse 2. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things?
An interesting question. Look at verse 3. I tell you, no, but except you repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And then look at verse 4. Or what about those 18 upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them?
Do you think that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but except you repent, ye shall all likewise perish. What is going on here? Think about this for a second. There are two types of suffering here that Jesus brings into this story.
Two true stories, by the way. This isn't a parable. This is him recounting actual historical facts that are surrounding their immediate area. And within those, you find two forms of suffering. Number one, we see that there was suffering caused by a wicked man.
This man called Pilate. What he was doing is he was sending in Roman soldiers to punish these people that were bringing sacrifices to their altar and killing them on the spot to the point where it was mingling their blood with the sacrifices that they were going to sacrifice to God.
And so the first example of suffering is brought forth by the wickedness of man, the wickedness of a man like Pilate, slaughtering people before the very altar that they were going to worship from and mingling their blood with their sacrifice.
That's what's happening in verse 1 of chapter 13. So you have suffering in that sense, but you also have suffering caused by acts of nature. You have this tower that just randomly fell one day. There wasn't a siege around it.
There weren't men attacking it or anything like that. You had people around this tower or in this tower, and the tower just fell. And 18 people died because of it. Really bizarre stuff. And 18 people died as a result of it.
So Jesus gives us two very distinct examples of suffering, very different from one another. Suffering caused by a wicked man, suffering caused by acts of nature. Now, in light of all of this, I want you guys to think about Jesus' words in both cases, His response in both cases.
In both cases, Jesus wants to make sure that people don't come away with the wrong conclusion about the people involved in these very sad things that took place. He wants us to make sure we don't have the wrong conclusion.
You can't conclude that those who died are more wicked than those who didn't. That's exactly what He said when He says, Do you suppose that those Galileans that were killed by the wicked man Pilate, whose blood was mingled with their sacrifices, do you suppose that they were sinners above all the other Galileans?
Do you suppose they were more wicked than you? I say, no, they were not. Repent, lest you perish. That was His response. So they weren't more wicked than those who didn't die. And obviously we can't conclude that, well, okay, so the playing field has just been leveled by Jesus.
That can't mean that everyone is inherently good, because there is, of course, death and suffering before us here. So what does it mean? What it means is that everyone, what Jesus is saying is that everyone deserves the same thing.
Everybody, including those He is talking to, deserves to have what happened to these other people happen to them. In other words, this isn't Jesus bringing kind of the cliche, why do bad things happen to good people, forth.
He's saying, do you see the suffering and grief happening around you? Do you think it's happening to them because they are worse sinners than you? The answer is no. And unless you repent and believe, you will also perish.
That is how He addressed this particular issue. So again, the proper conclusion here with regard to grief is not that it should be this confusing anomaly when it pops up in our lives and all of a sudden we're suffering.
It shouldn't be confusing. It's not an anomaly. But rather, when it occurs, it's a necessary consequence of the sin, of our sin in general, the human race's sin, and getting what we asked for in the first place when we wanted that knowledge of good and evil together.
Not just goodness isolated, not just the pleasure that was the Garden of Eden, but we wanted to be as gods. That was the temptation, and so we took it. And again, secondly, as we read this biblical storyline from start to finish, from the first verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation, the great surprise is not that we have to deal with grief and suffering in the first place, but rather that there is grace that covers all of it.
That there is grace from the condemnation that each and every person deserves. The source of our grief, the source of the suffering that we will experience, comes back to the fall of man and to the sin that ushered in that fall, that ushered in all of the grief and all of the suffering.
So now we've covered the source. We know that everything God created was good, and yet man wanted to be as gods. And so the fall occurred, and suffering and grief followed. But now let's look at point number two for a second and consider what could possibly be the purpose in all of it?
Because surely if we worship a sovereign Lord, if we worship a sovereign God, there's going to be purpose in everything even when we can't even come close to understanding it yet. Well, by God's grace, speaking of that, He lays out many things in the New Testament to help us start to grasp it.
It may not be in full, because we are meant to be sanctified and to be continually growing in His Word through His Spirit until the day we meet Him where all of that is consummated. And then we continue learning about Him even in heaven, even in the new earth someday.
So all of that's by design. But remember, there's purpose in everything. If we worship a sovereign God, if we serve a sovereign God, if the Creator is sovereign, then there is purpose. So let's look at the purpose of this grief.
And to increase the context just a bit for this section, I'd like to point your attention to the fact that everything that we go through in this life, everything that we experience, should be considered in light of eternity.
In other words, when we experience suffering of any kind, we have to ask, what are the eternal implications of this? Oftentimes, it's really easy to shift our focus in the immediate now and start asking questions from that point out rather than starting with, well, wait a second.
I've got a lot of life to live. Those around me have a lot of life to live. And I know that after the life on this earth ends, it's really just the beginning. The life on this earth is just the preamble to eternity with the Creator.
So what does all of this mean in light of eternity? You don't have to turn back to Ecclesiastes if you don't want, but I want to look at that verse we opened with one more time, Ecclesiastes 3 .11. Let me read it really quick one more time and just highlight a couple of things that help breach this a little bit for us.
It says, again, He hath made everything beautiful. What's the key phrase? In His time. So everything is beautiful from the eyes of the Lord because all of it is moving toward this great, again, consummation of the creation, of redemptive history, of His return.
Heaven will be brought down and it will be experienced on this earth. And so in light of all of that, everything that He has made is beautiful. In His time. But it continues. Also, He hath set the world in their heart.
Now the word, the Hebrew word for world there, He hath set the world in their heart. It would be better translated eternity. It would be better translated eternity here. It could mean a couple of things, but in the context, think about it in these terms.
He hath set eternity in their heart. Who is the they? It is those faithful to God. Solomon is talking to men that are faithful to the Lord, that recognize His sovereignty over things so that they can take pleasure in life and not just fall into total despair.
It's one of the great themes of the book of Ecclesiastes. He hath set eternity in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Now this is interesting because He just told us that He put eternity in our heart.
And you would think, well, maybe that's the beginning of a deeper knowledge of the why behind everything. But He immediately follows it by saying, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
He put eternity in our heart because He loves us and because we have an eternal spirit that will dwell with Him forever. And that eternity in our heart does give us a yearning to know more about Him. But at the same time, He is a God so much bigger than us that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
Now the fact that we have the world or eternity, more literally, in our hearts doesn't mean that we understand eternity. I kind of alluded to that just now. It's actually quite the opposite. It says no man can know the work which God does from the beginning to the end.
It requires faith in God to actually enjoy life. Think about this for just a second. It requires faith in God, trust in Him, relying on His sufficiency. In spite of the fact that we don't have the full knowledge of His power, the full knowledge of His purpose from the beginning to the end, it requires faith for us to have joy in life and rejoice in all things in spite of that lack of knowledge rather than to despair because of that lack of knowledge.
We could walk around, and because we just don't have the answers to all of the things that happen to us, all of the things that happen to those around us, we could walk around despairing that because we are meager humans and God is God.
Or we can actually flip the script a little bit and rejoice in life and actually enjoy the pleasures that we get when the times are good during peacetime because of the fact that everything is ultimately in His hand.
Faith, having faith in Him can bring that joy. The fact that we trust that everything is in His hand. But because it is in our hearts, because we have eternity in our hearts and because we have a yearning to know why things happen the way that they happen, it means that we can and that we should consider everything that happens around us in light of eternity.
We should be thinking about what does this mean in the grand scheme of things. Yes, it's hard now, and remember, this is all to set the groundwork for being prepared for things. I realize that in the midst of crisis and in the midst of grief, we'll actually talk about that near the end, there are different approaches that might be necessary, but getting prepared for it and considering the suffering and the grief in light of eternity, in light of the grand scheme of things, we have eternity in our heart.
So because of that, we should think about it. We should consider it even when we don't get all of the answers. Everything that happens to us, it's us witnessing the very storyline of the perfect storyteller.
And that storyline sometimes includes grief, but ultimately for our good. And that's one of the beautiful truths of Romans 8 .28. All things work together for good for those that love Him. That is obviously something that we shouldn't forget ourselves.
But what Solomon is talking about here, one of the things that he says is he hath made everything beautiful in his time, and that includes the grief of his people being a beautiful thing in his time. Sometimes his timeline looks different than ours.
Sometimes his timeline is different than the way we wish it were. But in his time, it will be made beautiful. So what does that look like to consider eternity? What does it look like to be in the midst of grief, but to consider the eternal?
Well, the Apostle Paul helps us with that.
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 4 now. We're going to be looking at a number of passages, by the way, so yes, we will be turning a little bit. But again, I want you guys to see these things with me because they're so beautiful, and they are so helpful in preparing us for the tough times that are inevitable.
Because of the fall, they are inevitable. Look at 2 Corinthians 4, and look at verse 16. In the midst of grief, in the midst of suffering, what does it look like to consider eternity? What does it look like to think about it in the context of the eternal rather than just the very moment, the singular, linear moment that you're in?
Look at verse 16. For which cause... Or actually, let's take a look at verse 15. It gives just a little bit of the context for what Paul's talking about. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
For which cause we faint not. The glory of God, that is the cause. For that cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. That's a reference to something that the Bible calls the new man.
That is the part of us that is regenerated. It's the part of us that has been re-gened in the likeness of God's lineage, God's heirs. We are His joint heirs. We are His family. And so that's a little reference there.
The inward man being renewed day to day. It's a reference to the new man. But look at verse 17. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us far more exceeding in eternal weight of glory.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not are eternal. So the apostle Paul, listen, if you want to look at a guy that experienced absolute severe acute degree, excuse me, acute suffering to the highest degree, look no further than the apostle Paul.
I'm excluding our Lord Jesus, of course, because He bore the sins of the world. Talking about humanity here, other men like us, the apostle Paul, is a great example of what it looks like to get through suffering and grief.
One of the reasons he was able to get through it is because he thought about eternal things. For this light affliction, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding in eternal weight of glory.
When we're experiencing that affliction ourselves, when we're experiencing that grief ourselves, remember that it is working together a far more exceeding in eternal, not temporal, but eternal weight of glory.
So at a minimum, we can know that one of the purposes of our suffering is to work out an eternal weight of glory far beyond our comprehension. Now, in light of Paul's words here, I want us to consider a few of the Biblical reasons behind grief.
So that was kind of, we're talking about the purpose of grief now. In the passage in Ecclesiastes, and then Paul's words here in 2 Corinthians 4, I believe, kind of set the tone for us to start to understand that there even can be purpose in grief in the first place.
But I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Turn to these passages with me because I want you all to see them. So important. Hebrews chapter 12. And I want us to start to get an idea of the various purposes behind grief that we experience.
And there are more purposes, obviously, than can even be touched in a single sermon, but we're going to look at a few. First look at Hebrews chapter 12, and let's look at verse 4, beginning of verse 4.
And this is another very interesting passage to keep in mind as we live our lives. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. It's kind of an interesting starter there. We don't hate our sin enough to where we have been striving to the point of bloodshed yet.
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son despise not thou chastening of the Lord, for nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
Now here's where it starts to get really, really interesting. Let me read that last part one more time. My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, inscourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with his sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof are all partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.
Furthermore, ye have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, and we might be partakers of his holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous. Can we get an amen? But grievous nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Now I want you guys to keep something in mind really quick.
In addressing this passage, I'm covering my bases here to the best that I can. Of course, the great failure of the friends of Job was assuming that he was being chastened because of some sin habit or something like that, when in reality it was all meant to be a demonstration of God's sovereignty and power all along.
And so in covering this passage, it's not to say that every bit of grief and suffering that we will experience in our lives is because of a particular sin, but the point is there are times when the Father chastens us.
But what's the purpose? It's to purify us. It's to make us better. Unlike the selfish, brutish guys that love power and that beat their subjects and chastise their subjects for the pleasure of that, that is a gross disfigurement of what a master should look like, what a father should look like, what a person in authority should look like.
What it actually looks like is the Father of life, the Father of eternal spirits that we have. And He chastens us and disciplines us when we need it, even when it doesn't feel good in the morning, in the morning, in the moment, in the morning too, but in any moment that it happens, whether it's morning, evening, or whatnot, on the weekend or during the week, it never feels good in the moment, which Paul was quick to point out, it feels grievous in the moment, but it is serving something far greater.
It is serving the growth that we experience in the sanctification process, something we talked about two Sundays ago. But even still, according to Hebrews, there are times of chastening for the believer.
There are times when that chastening comes, and while it does yield a form of grief, a form of suffering, it is actually a result of God's never-ending love for us. And so just consider that. When we go through times of suffering, of grief, when tough things are happening in our lives, there may be something going on where the Lord is pruning the tree.
He's the husbandman. He's pruning the tree, and trees look rather ugly when they're first pruned, but it brings a more bountiful harvest later. It makes them much more beautiful later, something we were talking about last week, Jared and Nisha.
And so this chastisement is for our own good, even though it brings grief in the moment. So there is at least one purpose of grief, at least one. Again, not that every situation of grief and suffering means we're being chastened by our Father in that moment, but sometimes it does.
So one purpose of suffering and grief in this life is to purify us, make us more holy as He is holy, to prepare us for the day that we see Him for the first time. Now, let's take a look. I know we're flipping back and forth a lot, but go back to 2 Corinthians for a second.
2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1 this time. And we're about to see another interesting reason why suffering and grief even exists. What is a purpose that is drawn out from the suffering and the grief that we experience?
And this is one that just warms your heart because it makes you realize the way in which God uses His people. He can actually work through the grief and through the suffering that we experience to make us better people for other people.
Take a look at this. Look at verse 1. Excuse me, chapter 1, verse 1. And we're going to read through a little bit of a portion of it here for context.
But it says,.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timothy our brother, entered the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen to this.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
Now, that's a little bit of a mouthful. But think about what he's saying for a second. He's saying that, number one, he's there to comfort us. But what is there to be comforted by if there's not some suffering and grief alongside it?
Suffering and grief, as they occur, brings out a particular character of God. Think about what is even the purpose of us existing. The purpose of it is so that the triune God who preexisted every aspect of creation had all of these wonderful, perfect attributes that no one knew about because no one existed yet, including the angels.
And so God, in this grand plan, created everything out of nothing but also set the course for the wonderful thing known as redemptive history. It's the history of man, but with the specific view of Christ's redemption of those men.
How could we know about this wonderful attribute of God if it weren't for a little bit of suffering so that he could comfort us in the first place? That's one of the purposes of grief and suffering. So think about that.
Look at verse four one more time. He comforts us in all of our tribulation. So there's the grief and suffering. He can't be comforting us without that tribulation being there too. He comforts us in all of our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them.
So it now equips us to do something. What is it that we do? We comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. We can actually comfort in the way that we learn from the Father himself.
So in our times of grief, our times of crisis, our times of suffering, the Father is there to comfort us. And isn't it beautiful that it is specifically the Father talked about here? Sometimes, you know, as his dad says, he's often a place that's not a place.
He's totally transcendent. He's totally holy. We only know him because of Jesus. And so sometimes we think of him as just being so far away. And yet, Paul was specific to point out that it was the Father here in this context that's the one doing the comforting.
Sure, Jesus comforts us too. He gave us his spirit of comfort as well through the Holy Spirit. So this is the Trinity in action. All persons of the Trinity, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father, they're all doing this together.
It's not just one of them. The Father is included as well. He is the God of all comfort. Now look at verse 5. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation or our comfort also aboundeth by Christ.
And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation or your comfort in salvation, which is effectual to the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is your consolation in salvation.
And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye also be the consolation or the comfort. For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia.
So just quick pause. Paul is about to talk about all of the suffering and grief and affliction that he and his men are going through. He says, I don't want you ignorant of these things. I want you to know about the trouble that came upon us, that we were pressed out of the measure above strength and so much that we despaired even to life.
The apostles knew what grief and despair looked like. They could empathize with us as well as any person could. Not as perfectly as Christ, as we discussed in previous sermons. But even the apostles despaired unto life.
They knew what it was like to go through such suffering that they just wanted to cry out and say, Lord, come quickly or Lord, take me now. And he wants us to know about this stuff. But look at verse nine.
But we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raiseth the dead. He throws in a little qualifier there and he wants us to know, look guys, this wasn't despair to the point where we lost faith in God because we knew that if we didn't die, he was going to raise us again later.
So I like that. That's Paul keeping everything in perspective. Even in his despair, he never lost faith. His faith was still just as strong as ever. That's a wonderful example for all of us too. And then verse 10 says, who delivered us from so great a death in death deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.
He also helping together by prayer for us that by the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. Brotherly love is happening there. Now, interestingly enough, one of the prime purposes of grief in this life of the believer is that he or she is being battle tested.
They're being prepared for something. What are they being prepared for? We, if it's us, are being prepared to be a comfort to those who will need that comfort in the future. It's not something that we consider often, but nothing is purposeless.
There's purpose behind all of it. When we experience the tough things ourselves, it is so we can then give comfort in our experiences and from the experience of knowing what it feels like to receive comfort from the father himself.
We learn in this passage that God is the God of all comfort,.
Verse three,.
And because of this, he comforts us in our times of grief so that we may be able to comfort our brothers and sisters later. That's verse four. Then we learn that while we do have to bear this reproach, that we do have to bear this reproach that Christ did as his sufferings abound in us is what it says in verse five.
His sufferings abound in us. We also likewise experience his comfort on the other side of those sufferings as they abound also by him. They go together. The sufferings that abound in us because of Christ's sufferings, because we believe in him, his comfort is also abounding us or by him at the same time.
It's abounding by him in us at the same time. That's verse five. Okay, so there's another purpose of grief and suffering that we may be prepared to comfort those in the manner that the father comforted us.
Now, there's another purpose of it as well, and that is to refine our faith. And there's a passage that I'll read quickly. You can turn if you want to. It's 1 Peter 4 .14. It's just a single verse. Peter says, If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, there's that reproach we were just talking about, the sufferings that abound in us because we follow him.
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ,.
Happy are ye.
Now, that's kind of weird. We should be happy because of the reproach that we have by the name of Christ. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.
So, what happens exactly? Do you know what happens when the spirit of glory rests upon you? Do you know what happens when the outside world looks at you? What that looks like when the spirit of glory is resting upon you?
When we are being reproached, when we're being reviled, when we are going through suffering and grief for the name of Christ, which is a form of suffering, it's a form of grief, then at that point we have the privilege of experiencing the spirit, the manifestation of the spirit of glory in our lives.
People see that. People notice that. When the spirit of glory rests on you in your time of grief and suffering, people see it. And when they notice it, because they will, they will notice it, your grief is now being used as the catalyst, possibly, for their first exposure to God.
What is the purpose of grief? What is the purpose of suffering? It might be so that you are made a greater witness for others to come to a saving knowledge of Him so that they may be able to live with you in eternity as well, in eternity with their Lord.
So you, in your grief, may very well be the first exposure to someone else, their first exposure to God, to their Creator, because they see the spirit of glory resting upon you in that grief. They see your witness in the times that are the toughest to bear.
And yet, even still, what do they see? They see calm.
They see faith. They see peace.
And none of that makes any sense whatsoever outside of a supernatural working or influence of the spirit of glory. They know that it's not normal. There's something weird about the fact that you have peace and comfort in faith at a time like this, at a time of such affliction.
So what does that do? It creates a witness. When the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you in the midst of your grief, you become a witness of Christ in the peace that He offers to those who believe in Him.
People get to see that firsthand. Now, let's look at 1 Peter. If you'll turn with me, 1 Peter 3. And we're going to look at one more example of the purpose of grief, the purpose of suffering. Before we move to our final point, which will be a little bit more brief.
1 Peter 1. And start in verse 3. 1 Peter 1 .3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled in that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than that of gold, that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love, and in whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
Now, again, this is the last point on one of the purposes of suffering, but this is a beautiful one. Because one of the great purposes of suffering in this life is for the refinement of our faith, making us stronger, making our faith stronger in Him.
Though we are kept, and though we greatly rejoice, two truths that we can't forget about, we must understand that, if need be, we may experience heaviness through manifold temptations. That's verses 5 and 6.
It is through the trials that our faith may be found worthy of praise and glory and honor at the return of our Lord. That's in verse 7. Of course, this plays significantly into the topic we addressed two Sundays ago, the sanctification of the believer.
Suffering can be one of the greatest fuels for the sanctification process. And if you want an example of that, of course, look at the apostles, but look no further than the Old Testament prophets either.
The grief, the suffering, the humbling experiences that they went through, made them the most righteous men, by God's standards, alive on earth. And even still, even when Isaiah, the most righteous man on earth at the time he was alive, was in the presence of the holiness of God, even he was undone.
But the point being is grief and suffering refines our faith. It helps us in our sanctification process. In C .S. Lewis' brief treatment on grief, as a result of him in the grieving process of losing his wife, he said,.
Quote,.
God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their equality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial, He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once.
He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize that fact was to knock it down. When Christ brings suffering and grief into our lives, sometimes He does. The Father chastens us.
It is so that we can recognize our need for Him, so that our faith can be made stronger. Now let's look at our final point. Point number three, the sufficiency of Christ in suffering. And one more time, turn back to, 2 Corinthians is apparently the main book where all of these lessons are from, but turn back to 2 Corinthians 12, and I keep saying it over and over again.
Some of these stories are just so interesting, so bizarre in some cases. It's just like, what is even happening here? And we have another one. We had just brief context. Paul just told this church about a time some 14 years ago or something like that.
I can't remember exactly. Over a decade prior, saying, look, you haven't been listening to me, so I'm going to tell you a story just so that you know that I am who I say I am and that I have the authority and that I have all of these things that God bestowed upon me.
You're being stubborn, so let me tell you a little story. And he goes on to tell them about a time.
That he went to heaven,.
That he was transported to the third heaven,.
As he puts it.
He was in the presence of God. He says, I don't know if I was having a vision. I don't know if I was unconscious and that my spirit was there or if my whole body was there. I can't tell you, but what I know is what I saw.
So he tells them this story, these special revelations that he as an apostle received. And then he goes on to tell us a very interesting aspect of the story, which was because of how amazing these revelations were, God didn't want Paul getting cocky.
God didn't want Paul to get prideful. He didn't want him to boast in any of these things. So what does God do? Look at chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians, if you're not already there. 2 Corinthians chapter 12.
And look at verse 7 and talk about just interesting.
I don't even know how to put it.
I'm without words here. Look at this story. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations. That's what he's talking about. The story I just told you, getting to go to heaven, though, or lest I be exalted above measure because of that story, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh.
God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh, a form of suffering and grief. It came from God. And you know that it came from God.
Here in just a minute.
And Paul will tell us. It was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. This weird thorn in the flesh that was some form of strange spiritual warfare that was buffeting Paul, beating him up, keeping him humble so that he wouldn't exalt himself too highly because of the special revelations of heaven that he received.
This thorn in the flesh was given to him. This grief, this suffering was given to him. For this thing, I besought the Lord three times. Three times I called to the Lord that it might depart from me. And what did he say?
What was God's answer? My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And so then Paul continues and says, Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Paul goes on to literally lay out every form of grief and suffering that a human could experience and says, I will glory in every single one of them because when I am weak, I am strong.
That is Christ's sufficiency in grief. That is Christ's sufficiency in our suffering. My grace is sufficient for thee. One thing that we can learn about suffering from this passage is that it can be used to bring humility to human beings, especially those who are incredibly skilled.
They have reason to boast like the apostle Paul did. If there was ever a guy that had reason to be prideful, to be a little bit cocky, and for everyone to just kind of take it and be like, yeah, I mean, he really did do all that stuff.
If there was ever a person that could do that, it was Paul. And so sometimes grief and suffering are brought to us in our lives to keep us humble and to make sure that we understand, man, the only reason I'm even here right now and not just incinerated because of my egregious sins is because of God's grace.
I need to stay humble. So that's one bare minimum conclusion you can come from there. Because of the greatness of Paul's work and testimony, including a trip to heaven itself, the Lord gave him grief.
He gave him a thorn in the flesh. That's verse seven. Now, though Paul understood that this thorn, which again was some form of severe spiritual warfare, even though he knew that it was serving a purpose, he asked the Lord three times to take it away.
That's verse eight. And what was the answer from our Lord? My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. That's verse nine. So regardless of the form of suffering that we experience or the reason that has been brought to our doorstep in the first place, Christ's answer to our question of why would be the same for us here.
When we go to God and we say, why, Lord, why do I have this thorn in the flesh? Why do I have this suffering? Why do I have this grief? His answer, my grace is sufficient for thee. My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness.
Now, with these understandings, perhaps even we, like the great apostle Paul, can respond to that the way Paul did. How did Paul respond to that truth from Christ? He said, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches, necessities, persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak, I am strong. That was Paul's response. Perhaps that can be our response too. When we experience grief, when we experience suffering, maybe we can respond like Paul did in verse 10 there.
But let's face it.
As human beings, we do have a high capacity for vulnerability. We are very vulnerable. We are extremely vulnerable to grief and suffering of immense proportion. But God uses suffering to reveal our spiritual character, among many other things, just like Christ's spiritual character was revealed in its highest form in His agony.
Obviously, Christ's spiritual character was on full display for His entire life, but what was the pinnacle? What was the apex of His spiritual character? It was in His agony, in His grief. When He asked the Father to take this cup from me, and He wouldn't do it.
And He understood why, but He asked anyway. Paul asked for his suffering to be taken away. It wasn't, and He understood why, but He asked for it anyway. That is when our spiritual character will reach its apex, is when we are in times like that.
When things in this life get incomprehensibly hard, the very best thing that you could possibly do is to look at the cross. When you are in the trenches, asking the Lord, why am I experiencing this or that?
A return question that perhaps we could ponder in that moment is, what are we going to do with Jesus? Because yes, we're experiencing grief, but what about Him? We may have lost the most meaningful possession, or pursuit, or person in our life, but the Father lost His Son.
And actually, He gave His Son. Therefore, Christ is sufficient for granting us peace and comfort in our suffering, because He bore the greatest suffering in human history on His shoulders. Now, keeping these things in mind doesn't always give us an explicit answer.
Even when we keep these things in mind, we don't always get the clear, explicit answer to every one of our questions, to all of the whys that we may ask. But it does put our focus back on Jesus, which is the best place you could possibly start in a time such as that.
It kind of goes back to our original topic, how to rely on Him in the first place. Edith Schaeffer, she was the wife of the late, great Francis Schaeffer, and she was a wonderful, brilliant writer in her own right.
She says in her book, Affliction, our personal affliction, quote, our personal afflictions involve the living God. The only way in which Satan can persecute or afflict God is through attacking the people of God.
Now, you may pause there for a second and you think, now hold on, I don't really like the way she worded that. Satan can't afflict God. Well, think about it in this context. Our great shepherd, Jesus, who is God, lives in linear time and space.
He's in a higher dimension, but He still is living history with us. He sees everything. He's a part of all of it. He can mourn. He mourned while He was on earth. The saints under the throne in Revelation say, how long, oh Lord, are you going to let this happen?
You can't tell me that He's not sitting there hearing them out and has His fullest desire on His people to be brought into paradise with Him, but He is submissive to the will of Himself, the Father and the Holy Spirit.
He knows and He lives through this life along with us. And so, yes, when the devil is attacking and when Satan is hurting us and doing things to us, that will certainly afflict Jesus in the sense that He mourns with His people.
He was the man of sorrows. He fully empathizes with us when we are in sorrow ourselves. The quote continues, the only way that we can have personal victory in the midst of these flying arrows raining down on us is to call upon the name of the Lord for help.
It is His strength supplied to us in our weakness that makes victory after victory possible.
Close quote.
Now, let me look at the time. I know I'm running late, but I'm also finishing up a series here. So perhaps just a little bit of grace if y 'all could bear with me a little longer because this is so important.
This is the final passage we'll look at. Turn with me to Colossians 3. This is going to close out not only today's sermon, but also the series at large. Colossians 3, and let's look at the first four verses.
With a few thoughts.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Where is Christ right now? He is sitting on the throne of glory at the right hand of power.
And He knows us. He's there for us. And given that He's in that position, how great a comfort is that in and of itself to us. He sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection, verse 2, on things above, not on things on earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Now I want you guys to consider that one little phrase tucked in the middle of that passage there.
Your life is hid with Christ in God. That's a very comprehensive statement there as succinct as it may be. We have died with Christ, and our life is now hidden with Christ in God. No person or thing can touch us, especially in the eternal sense, without going through both hands first.
What do I mean by both hands? Picture this in the analogy of taking something. You take my ring here. So we are meager little humans in the hand of Almighty God, and we are placed in the hand of the Father, and then the hand of Christ is put over that.
That is what Jesus means by saying that we are hid in Christ in God. We are protected by both of them. We are totally encapsulated by both of them. What is there to fear in a position like that? Well, because of this truth, we can also deduce that only that which is allowed to touch our lives can.
Now this is a hard truth, and I realize that. But I want you to think about the truth that is Scripture, the fact that these words, these truths, are coming from God Himself. And though it's a hard truth, it's one we have to think about now because if we don't think about the hard truths now, when we get to the point of suffering and grief, at that point, from the human viewpoint, it's too late to be considering these things because we may be in such despair that we just can't even think straight.
Again, I want this to be a foundation set for future cases of grief and suffering. So this is a hard truth, but just think about it with me for a second. Because of the fact that we are in Christ, we are hid in Christ in God, only that which is allowed to touch our lives can touch our lives because we are protected between the hand of the Father and the hand of the Son.
There are things which seem beyond our comprehension or what we're even comfortable with which are at the same time not accidents. There is purpose. We may not understand it, but there is purpose. Now, while this may feel unnerving at first, it should be an amazing source of comfort in understanding that nothing is outside of our Father's control.
He which spoke the universe into existence does have the same power to keep us safe in His love, and He won't ever let us go through something that we truly can't handle. In other words, something that is truly, by definition, truly outside of our ability to handle it.
He won't let us go through something like that, which means if we are going through it, there must be grace there. There must be something there that we may not have seen just yet. It might be a little bit murky, but He knows we can do it, and He's going to do it with us.
It certainly takes faith to trust, to rely in that, to rely in His sufficiency, but faith is a gift in the first place, and of course God is a gracious giver. So now we've laid out all the groundwork for preparing ourselves to face suffering or even to help others when they experience it.
We can point them to Christ's sufficiency just as much as we would want to be pointed there ourselves. It has to remain at the forefront of our perspectives, of our view. Now there's an important reminder that I want to throw out there, and that is when people are going through real crises, when they are in the middle of it, something different may be called for with regard to what would be the best form of encouragement to your brothers and sisters.
In other words, going through these biblical truths as I've just laid them out may not necessarily be the thing that you do in the moment of crisis. That's why I keep saying this is the foundation. These are the things we need to be thinking about before we experience suffering and grief and affliction, because when we're in the middle of those crises, then there may be other things that we need in that moment.
Again, we need to be thinking about these things before they happen. These truths form our mental approach in a biblical fashion. Now that doesn't mean we can't share them, and biblical truths should always be shared, no doubt.
But before you do, the first thing you do might be to go sit on the ash heap for a week. It might be to go into their home. It might be to take them meals. It might be to do their yard work for them, to pick up their groceries for them.
Anything that you can possibly do to give them some relief in the ability to grieve properly, do that. Point them to Christ, of course, but understand that there were times when the Lord himself, before he gave them the deep theological truths, met their physical needs first.
So use Jesus as an example there. Meet their physical needs. Go to them in all of the areas that you can. That may include sitting with them, not saying a word for however long it takes, before bringing the doctrinal truths that we just discussed today.
Jesus did it that way. We can do it that way, too. So, in conclusion, let's summarize this whole shebang. In Sermon 1, four weeks ago, we learned that the very first step to understanding Christ's sufficiency in our lives is to rely on it to begin with.
Now, how do we do that? How do we rely on his sufficiency? We humble ourselves as little children. We humble ourselves as little children. That's Matthew 18, verses 1 -5. That was our primary passage that day.
In our second sermon, we then took a close look at Christ's sufficiency over our very salvation, namely, our sanctification, our ongoing spiritual growth as we live our lives.
That's what that is.
It's holiness becoming more holy. He shed his blood for our sanctification, and therefore, his people will be sanctified through him. That's Hebrews 13, verses 12 -13. In our third sermon, last week, we discussed Christ's sufficiency in our lives in general as we surveyed a number of very important passages that demonstrated this in three specific ways.
Our contentment, our fulfillment, and warding off the influence of men. And one passage in particular that we looked at last week was Hebrews 13, 5 -6. And then, of course, today, we concluded by discussing his sufficiency in the purpose of and the relief from the inevitable suffering that we face as believers.
And then going back to Paul's statements in 2 Corinthians 12, 7 -10 will really, really help us with that. Now, I am done, but I've quoted a few people today. I'd like to end with one more quote because this whole series was on the sufficiency of Christ.
So, by obvious implication, that means that Christ himself is to be in view in all of these things at all times. Yes, there's all these specific ways in which he is sufficient, but ultimately, just keeping our eyes on him is the name of the game.
Now, I got this wonderful book from the kings, John and Brandy, on my ordination day. They gave me a number of awesome books. It's called The Forgotten Spurgeon. I'd recommend it to anybody. It's actually not a biography.
It's really interesting because it is a biographer that is tracking Spurgeon's theological consistency throughout his whole life. It's a really, really cool way of looking at Spurgeon's life. But in that book, we have an amazing quote here that I'd like to read to you all, just to bring home the importance of the sufficiency of Christ and focusing on him.
Remember, sinner, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee, it is Christ. It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee, it is Christ. It is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument. It is Christ's blood and merits.
Therefore, look not to thy hope, but to Christ, the source of thy hope. Look not to thy faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of thy faith. And if thou doest that, ten thousand devils cannot throw thee down.
There is one thing which we all of us too much becloud in our preaching, though I believe we do it very unintentionally, namely the great truth that it is not prayer, it is not faith, it is not our doings, it is not our feelings upon which we may rest, but upon Christ and on Christ alone.
We are apt to think that we are not in a right state, that we do not feel enough instead of remembering that our business is not with self, but with Christ. Let me beseech thee, look only to Christ. Never expect deliverance from self, or from ministers, or from any means of any kind apart from Christ.
Keep thine eye simply on Him. Let His death, His agonies, His groans, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession be fresh upon thy mind. When thou walkest in the morning, look for Him. When thou liest down at night, look for Him.
That was Spurgeon at the age of 22, preaching to his congregation. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this glorious day that you have granted us once again. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to gather as believers.
In your church,.
And to worship you, to bring glory to you, and to, of course, put you at the forefront of our minds so that we can be reminded each and every day that we live from today throughout the week and month to month for the rest of our lives that you are, in fact, the sufficient one for each and every one of our needs, our desires, for our contentment, for our fulfillment, for our suffering, for our grief, for our very salvation, for the growth and the refinement of our faith.
Lord, we thank you for being the one that does that for us because we know that we can't. So we ask you to remind us of these things. Remind us continually of your sufficiency as we go day by day so that we may not fall into the pit of despair like so many around us do by choice, but rather so that we can rejoice in the fact that we have life in the first place, that we get to live it, and that we get to joy in all of the glories that come with it until the day that we get to meet you face to face.
Lord, we ask you to continue to be with us this afternoon, be with our fellowship here in just a moment, when we ask all these things in your name.
Amen.
You are dismissed.