Christ Scourges his Children

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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All right, we are going to pray we're going to get started those of you online if you have questions

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This would be the time to actually put them into the chat window because now that I've joined in I won't they won't disappear so and You guys have no audio.

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Let me unmute you there. There we go. Can you all hear me now there? There you go. Okay good. All right, let's pray and we will get started

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Lord Jesus again as we open your word We ask that through your Holy Spirit We may rightly believe confess and do according to what you have revealed there all to the glory of your name

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We ask in Jesus name. Amen All right. I know we have at least one potential follow -up question as it relates to the sermon

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You'll note I spent a large amount of time in Psalm 107 which is one of these fascinating texts because Psalm 107 is

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Telling us to think on to meditate on the steadfast love of the Lord But there's this there's this there's this pattern that happens in Scripture.

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We see it in very small little vignettes in Psalm 107

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It's practically the entire story of the book of Judges and I think if we argue correctly

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It's actually the story we find ourselves in have you have you stopped to think about it?

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and and that is is that We are all to one degree or another and it seems like a lottery, you know

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Like we've all won prizes in a really bad lottery, you know, it's you know

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So, you know for me, you know Dealing with a slow metabolism.

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It doesn't matter if I exercise by the way, it's just so annoying You know, my wife put me on keto and all it did is make me hungry you know, so you know, so so I Struggle with weight issues and I'm being polite by calling it.

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Let's just call it what it is. I'm fat Okay. All right, and I hate and I hate it and I want to see my feet again

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But you know all my efforts at this have just resulted in just things getting worse and even when

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I have lost weight It's as soon as I go back to eating normal, which for me is not a lot

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You know it I really just don't eat a lot of food I still start to climb the charts and then of course

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I talked about my anxiety and the fact that I struggle with depression my first bout with clinical depression was when

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I was in fifth grade and It was just and I didn't know it at the time that that's what it is

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Somebody had to help me recognize that fact and then you know, then I always keep pointing this out

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I look at all of y 'all and it's like whoa, what's happened to you, you know, you guys are way worse, right?

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And so the idea then is is that oftentimes what we try to do is we try to play that Pharisees game where we try to figure out the particular sin the way in which we

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Didn't specifically follow what God told us to do. We didn't have enough faith. We didn't tithe

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We didn't whatever and and and somehow connect the current trouble that we're having to that but Unless and I like to point this out.

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It's very rare that you see anything like that So unless you've like robbed a bank Always cracks me up the story of the guy who in Minnesota on a summer day

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Robbed a bank by driving up in a snowmobile On A warm day.

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He drove up to a bank parked in the parking lot left a snowmobile running Had a mask on robbed the bank and they caught him because Snowmobiles are not exactly known for their their great agility when it comes to out rate outpacing the law and then of all things

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When he got out of prison, he did it again He pulled up to the same bank on a snowmobile and that time they didn't even wait for him to rob the bank

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They called the police as soon as he pulled into the parking lot because they knew what he was gonna do You know Look it up.

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You could Google it's actually it's a story and thinking what a moron Okay, so there he is.

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He's sitting in prison and there's a real reason why he's sitting in prison because he's stupid

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Okay, you know and had he been shot like, you know, let's say that the you know

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Bank robbery number one had resulted in him discharging a weapon in in order to defend himself

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And he got shot in the leg and and he now walks with a limp if that had happened you could sit there and go all right, the reason why his leg is

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Janky, and he walks with a limp is because he was robbing a bank when he got shot in the leg

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But when things show up in our lives, it usually starts with the annual visit to the doctor, by the way

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It's real simple. If you don't want to have anything go wrong in your life. Don't go your annual visit This is a solid logic right, you know, this is the reason why

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I'm so healthy, okay But but it starts with you going for your annual checkup and the doctor goes

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Interesting, right? I hate that word. Okay, when a doctor says interesting, it's not interesting. It's gonna be expensive.

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Okay He's the first words out of his mouth are how good's your insurance, you know This is gonna cost a lot of money and then you know, and then they put you on meds

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You have surgeries and all this kind of stuff This is when we first find out about these things and there's not a specific thing that you can point to that says

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All right, so that time that I called Bruce Burns a booger head That's the reason why

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I now have cancer, you know, it doesn't work this way, right Bruce You're here and so I just had to tease you

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Yeah, all right but instead the idea then is is that the collective consequence of our sin and if this you have to go back to Genesis 3 and this is this is real really the big if you would, you know the kind of the big overarching

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If you would governing text on this in Genesis 3 when God is handing out his

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Punishments to Adam All right So we start with the serpent work our way up to Eve and now we get to Adam to Adam He said because you've listened to the voice of your wife

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See this this tells me God I'm not supposed to listen to my wife. Okay. All right. No way. That may be an overreach.

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Okay Yeah, sorry, sorry I was reading it in a different problem that The one being addressed because you've listened to the voice of your wife and you've eaten of the tree of which you commanded you shall

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Not eat of it curses the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life

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So you'll know immediately Planet Earth itself is is put under a curse

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The current the land is cursed. And so I you know, I always point out that when it comes to Garden weeds that you know,

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I somebody had actually corrected me if you remember a few months ago I was talking about I'm one of the most gifted weed farmers and all of North Dakota somebody thought

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I was talking about cannabis. It's like what? Yeah Wow, okay

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No, I I'm not growing cannabis in my yard These are dandelions and wildflowers and things with prickly burrs and stuff like that And you know, so you gotta be careful what you say

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But the the reason why all of this exists is due to the fact that we're under the curse

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So the the the earth itself if you would is fighting us The earth itself is fighting us and then you'll note that the toil and the labor

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That that results in us being able to put food on the table thorns and this thistles

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It shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face

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You shall eat bread until you return to the ground for out of it were taken for dust you are and dust you shall return

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That we learned from other passages like what we what I preached from Psalm 107 that the toil that we engage in harms us

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It wears us out All right. One of the things that I I never had an appreciation for until I got here is just how

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How deadly Not only hard labor is but exposure to the Sun on a day -to -day basis is there are some folks that Live in this area who no joke

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They are they may have five to ten years on me as far as age But they look like they're in their 80s or 90s

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They're just weathered cracked leathery Because of all of that constant exposure to the

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Sun and the hard work that they've done as farmers, right? You know, I've been lucky

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I've had a desk job for like my entire life and it shows but you know in other ways but the thing is is that Having a desk job doesn't wear my body out the same way other people's bodies are worn out by doing hard physical labor

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And then we learn then that there's a method to all of this And so God has allowed these consequences to occur and then you'll know we all we all break down differently

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Although we're made of the same stuff. We're all breaking down. So, you know, you know, you might know somebody who's

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You know, they they've they've gone to be with the Lord and in the last years of their life, you know

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We're spent, you know, it's fighting cancer or something to this effect, you know I remember when I first got to Kongsvinger there was a woman who was

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I had met the year before and she was a lovely lady and she was perfectly healthy and Right before I came to Kongsvinger she her mother had passed and she was emptying her mother's house after the funeral and She slipped on a patch of ice and broke her hip, but it shattered it in such a terrible way that It started creating health complications for her and one of the health complications that she as is kind of a weird

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Ancillary effect it wasn't the wreck result of her breaking her hip but that because she was having

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Complications that one of the complications created in her that she was getting these cauliflower growths on her heart valve and so, you know, she was in a dire situation where she needed her body to Become strong enough so that she can have a surgery on her heart valve

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Because the you know the the domino effect of her slipping on the ice resulted in this in this problem and her and when the deadline came for her to For the doctor to say we're either gonna go with the surgery or we're not because they didn't want to kill her on the table that way

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The doctor said you're not strong enough. You're you're actually getting weaker And so the doc

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I showed up, you know That that was the day that I was visiting her at the hospital and I showed up and she had just been given the death

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Sentence by her physician, you know She didn't have much more than a few months to live after that And the first thing she said to me when

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I walked in is I don't want to die the first thing she said and I asked her what the doctor said and I said well

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Then you know, this is above my pay grade. My job here is to prepare you for your death And so although you do not want to die and I understand that Today you are alive and today today we were going to prepare you because in a few short weeks

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You're gonna be with Christ and she was first funeral I did here and and and so the idea then is is is that you'll note that I'll say this kindly

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Kong's vinger is not a place for the bright shiny pennies You fit right in Bruce just from the pastor all the way down, right

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Yeah, right Okay And and the thing is is that each and every one of us being made to suffer the way we have

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God has worked that There's a logic to it. So when we get to Psalm 107, so we'll take a look at that Psalm 107

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All right, and I'd love to kind of work back through this it is it encouraging us to think on to meditate on the steadfast love of the

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Lord and It's defining it in ways that make you sit there and go say what and And then

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I knew it was coming. There's Bruce's hands Yes Yeah Difficult if it's more difficult if you look at it alone and it's much yes

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You'd understand if you look at it as things are related to us in God's Word particularly in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ Well, this is why

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I tried to connect it to Bartimaeus today well, I So I'd say like keep the

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Hebrews Hebrews 12 Hebrews 12 6 5 and 6.

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All right. Hang on a sec. I was being in it There's a lot of connection to Psalm 103 which kind of describes the salvation that is the end product

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Uh -huh, and then no, you know knowing the method from Hebrews 12 the end result in Hebrews 103

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We can get to Romans 5 and rejoice in our suffering. I'm gonna ask you to get a whiteboard and diagram that out

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I see that I see that. Okay, so Bruce Burns is here. By the way, in case you haven't figured that out

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He's apologizing and he shouldn't okay, so You'll note that what what he what he wants to see here

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And this is this is a good right and salutary thing and I'll even add some more text to yours It is that it that when we looked at Psalm 107

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It obviously we looked at it in connection with buying Bartimaeus why because this is a fellow who had to suffer the life of a blind person and And yet at the same time he has this this confession of who he believes

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Jesus is and it's spot -on. It's Fantastic, and he ultimately receives

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From Christ his sight back. He does receive a miraculous healing but more importantly the thing that blind

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Bartimaeus received from Christ is salvation right and hence the

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The words of Christ your faith has saved you that that's exactly what the

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Greek says It says your faith has saved you and so as we consider some of the bigger issues as it relates then to suffering

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Bruce Burns has thrown his hat in the ring and said we might want to consider something from the book of Hebrews So Hebrews chapter 12, which verses?

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Three through six. All right, so here so here's a different spin on it in and adding more biblical data to the concept because over and again what the person who says well

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The reason why you're suffering is because you haven't tied there You don't have enough faith or because you have unforgiveness in your heart

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Yeah, right, yeah Yeah, that sounds like The Calvinist now like faith healers

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Got it. Okay, you've been dealing with Baptists on Facebook. Why why would you do that to yourself? Okay, all right and there before we get to the passage yes

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Yeah Yeah, so that does come up then the question of it. Well, does it does my long -term?

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Suffering prove that I'm not saved and the answer is no absolutely, not

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Absolutely, not and so I always remind people that in the gospel in the New Covenant the promise we have are

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We have the promise of the forgiveness of our sins and we have the promise of an inheritance in the new earth we also are promised suffering and persecution and Christ hasn't set us free from Dying in the sense that our

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Christians have been dying for two millennia, but instead Christians Their death is different Qualitatively different than the death of somebody who's an unbeliever.

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So we'll note that but that doesn't mean that Christians don't suffer So the text says consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself

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So that you may not grow weary or faint -hearted and that is a major theme in Scripture It's it's like practically the entire theme of the book of Revelation patient Endurance don't grow weary.

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Don't grow faint -hearted In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted at the point of shedding your blood

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I I did get a paper cut one time. Well, never mind. I would just okay, and You have for had have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

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And so my son do not regard regard lightly the discipline of the

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Lord Nor be weary when reproved by him for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and he chastises every son whom he receives

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Yes All right, hang on a second here

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Let's get this to a state where I can actually read it because that is too small for my old eyes.

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All right verse 6 hangar Hug a gappa curious by do a

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Mastigui, all right, so must Mastigas It's a it's a whip.

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It's a scourge Yes, all right, so Yeah, right

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So you're gonna know in the context and the Lord disciplines the one he loves and listen to the

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Greek word He scourges every son whom he receives and you're right now

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Here is where I want to add a different text one that that speaks and uses this exact language

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So we saw then in Psalm 107 That God will use deserts and difficult circumstances

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For the purpose of bringing somebody to their senses and for the Christian then these difficult

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Circumstances are exactly this. They are a Mastigas. They are scourging. It's a discipline

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God is disciplining us through them. It seems kind of odd, but that's the right way to put it.

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So So there is there is a fantastic cross reference to this. Give me a second pull that up Our fantastic cross reference.

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I think it's in Mark 5. Let me see here Yeah yeah, this is our text and The this is

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When I preach this I always like to point out the the kind of the interesting wordplay that's in here

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But when Jesus had crossed again in the boat He had just by the way cast out the legion of demons out of the demoniac of the garrisons

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Sent them into a herd of pigs you shouldn't be her pig herding in in Israel and then they went over a cliff died in the

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Sea of Galilee and then the The insurance guys are still working the claim out to this day

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But But when Jesus gets back, so Jesus has crushed so he's crossed over the the top part of the

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Sea of Galilee came back to the Northwestern Shore there where where Capernaum is when he had crossed again in the boat to the other side a great crowd

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Gathered about him. He was beside the sea Then came Jerry's one of the rulers of the synagogue and I love the way the

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Greek works here because the Greek is so Insanely vivid this is like 8k high -def television when you read it in the

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Greek and It just seems like it's happening in the moment the way the way the were verbs are working so then came one of the rulers of the synagogue

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Jerry's by name and seeing Jesus fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying my little daughter is at the point of death come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live and Again if you were to just kind of fill in just a little bit of the backstory because it helps in in kind of humanizing

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Jarius Jarius is is going to be the fellow who when this woman shows up Who's had the issue of blood for 12 years?

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He's the guy at who's the head of the synagogue who says nope. You're still unclean.

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Nope. You're still unclean Nope, you can't come to the synagogue yet. Nope. Nope. Nope.

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That's as part of his job It's kind of a gross job, but it's part of the job so you'll note that's part of what's going on here, but he's got a 12 year old daughter and Those of us who are parents know exactly just how difficult this is going to be

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We all remember those times when our kids have gotten sick It's horrifying because what ends up happening while everything while they have a fever

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You are literally standing guard. I mean your entire mental life seems to be brought down to a very sharp narrow focus on your child and You're you're checking their head.

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You're making you're dobbing your head Making sure they're taking care of you know, you've got their meds They're not endangered and stuff like this

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And in this particular case, we can tell by the details that this girl was also throwing up And we know that from the details.

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So she's got some kind of something serious going on She's probably running a fever. She can't keep anything down and there's just kind of a few things that this could potentially be but We're not told the exact details of what she had just that she's near death

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And so while Jesus is gone taking care of the demoniac of the garrisons He's looking at his sundial

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Thinking I don't have a lot of time here has have any of you seen Jesus Oh, he left this morning or he left yesterday

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And he we saw him in a fishing boat and and and the guy knows that Jesus can heal so his time is running out and Jesus lands while his daughter is still alive and He's you know rushed to find

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Jesus and he comes out of nowhere immediately Gets on his face and says, you know have you know, my daughter is at the point of death come lay your hands on her

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So that she may live in Jesus, you know without skipping a beat, you know went with him so a great crowd followed him and thronged about Jesus So they're all crowds are

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Ramazan. Oh, we're gonna go see a miracle. Cool. Jesus is gonna heal somebody again So there was a woman then who had a discharge of blood for 12 years if you know your

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Mosaic Covenant You can't you can't even visit her house because if you sit on on one of her chairs you become

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Unclean. All right. So the Mosaic Covenant the law of God has made her unclean for 12 years 12 years no church for you can't hear the

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Word of God and What how the text describes what she goes through is consistent with what we saw in Hebrews 12

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So she had suffered much under many physicians she had spent all that she had she was no better but rather grew worse

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I'm gonna just be blunt if you don't have a set if you don't die in your sleep

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This is what's gonna happen to all of you to me, too If I don't die in my sleep, you're gonna go to the doctor.

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Your doctor is gonna say here's your problem You're gonna pay the doctor to fix your problem and you're in the and you're gonna grow worse rather than get better and you're gonna

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End up dying your last illness will be this okay for her This goes on for 12 years and you have to wonder what kind of physicians these are right and she grown worse

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She had heard the reports about Jesus and she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment now

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We know from the cross reference here Here if you know the one of the rules for men and the

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Mosaic Covenant is that they they had to have Tassels coming off of their shirts off the corners of their shirt.

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This is called sit CEO that's the plural form of sit seat and basically there's these you know, these like tassels and Jews to this day

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Orthodox Jews wear those and people who are in the Hebrew roots movement, which is just modern -day judaizing

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They wear these things too. All right, so what the what the woman thought to herself was she had heard the reports

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She knew that Jesus can heal her She's gonna sneak in because she's got an issue and that is this that she can't show her face in public

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Because to do so is to break one of the commandments of the Mosaic Covenant as an unclean person

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She's required to announce her presence. She's required to distance She engage in social distancing like you wouldn't believe

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I think it's bad enough You know, they'd have six stand six feet apart from people at Home Depot Okay, this woman was by God required to socially distance and and not mix with other people.

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She is disobeying the Mosaic Covenant here and she's surfed into the crowd and She touches one of the sits the oath of Christ garment.

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That's what she was thinking. I'll just do that That's all that's needed Yeah That the hem of his garment

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Mm -hmm. So just touching Yeah, is not just I'm just gonna touch him random.

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Yeah, she's Correct she's acting out of faith

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That's what she's saying by her actions and she's believing the prophecy that that that Jesus's garments bring healing, right?

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so so if I touch his heart garment, I will be made well and This is where we recognize that the

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Greek word for made. Well is going to be It's saved.

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Okay, so she literally says if I touch his garments, I will be Saved and then you have to work out from the context.

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What does she mean? Well in this context since we know what's gonna happen.

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Does she merely receive a physical healing from Jesus? No, so This is one of those ones where you sit there and you go

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Which is it? Salvation or physical healing? Yes. It's it's kind of like that.

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You know, it does light travel and particles or waves. Yes Okay, the answer is yes All right

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So immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease wrong

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Okay, that is not What the text says? Hotty a tie hopper tastes musty guys she was healed from her scourge and This word again.

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It's the cat of nine tails. She was healed from her scourge Now connect this then with Hebrews 12

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God scourges those whom he loves

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Was The scourge that she received because God didn't love her or because God did love her This is where it gets tough

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The answer is because God did love her and in her own psyche in her own mind she does describing and thinking of what she had to endure as a musty guys as a scourge and This then sets up what

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I think is is one of the most beautiful portions of Scripture So Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him

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Immediately turned about in the crowd and said who touched my garments

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Now the disciples are thinking. Oh, no, Jesus is losing his mind. All right We've been working a little too hard guys,

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I think Jesus needs a couple of Sabbath days off So his disciple said to him Jesus you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you said who touched me?

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It's almost as if Peter's going John touched you. I was touching you shlomo was touching you it suck

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He was touching you too. You know, what is this Jesus, right? All right So who touched me and so he noticed he flat -out

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Ignores The disciples, all right So he yeah, he's in yet you say who touched me so he looked around to see who had done it now

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You're this woman and You have been declared and repeatedly told for 12 years

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You are Unclean you cannot have Visitors you cannot not social distance.

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You cannot come to the synagogue for 12 years Do you think

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God loves you you think God's really mad at you you think

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God's really mad at you Right is Jesus mad at this woman? No, what's the reason why

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Jesus is stopping? Is it to chew her out? It's beautiful watch what happens so the woman knowing what had happened to her she came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth and Based on this idea that she came in fear and trembling and fell down before him.

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We've all seen how this goes down This woman is Right, this is just ugly this is an ugly cry here and she just lays her heart out and Jesus said to her first word through the tear daughter

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I Just love it. It's so it's the most unexpected thing ever

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Jesus doesn't say like the Pharisees. How dare you you sinful woman?

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You've been God has punished you for your sins and made you suffer and rightly so I'll just look at what you've done here

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You've broken the Mosaic Covenant 50 ways since Saturday And how dare you touch

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Jesus and make him unclean with your uncleanness? Right. That's not what she gets

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Jesus in kindness in love and in mercy looks her dead in the eye and says daughter

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Your faith has saved you and that's what the text says your faith has saved you go in peace and be healed of your mastigas of Your scourge it is so amazing

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So here's a clear example of somebody who suffered horribly and their

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Suffering in their physical body. They even described it as a Mastigas and what does

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Hebrews 12 say that God scourges those he loves? and So we recognize then that in our difficulties the suffering that we experience

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These are not the mastigas of a God who's intent to send us to hell. These are the loving

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Disciplines of a father who cares deeply for our souls and deeply for us and The cross makes sense of it all

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Because you'll remember from that Hebrews 12 text it begins by thinking having us think back to the sufferings of Christ and It's described in Scripture that he

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Christ was made perfect in his suffering Kind of changes everything, right?

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But who of us doesn't know this Who of us doesn't know this and So these are the loving scourges of a father who wills for us to be done with ourselves done with our sin and to be full of him and So our sufferings cause us to come to the end of ourselves really

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Yeah, and reveal something fascinating. I recently was speaking with somebody on the phone who was

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Struggling because you know the toll that the That the forced isolation and the lockdowns took on them during During COVID and she told me she said, you know

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The only thing I feel like I have right now Is I have Jesus and the forgiveness of my sins.

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All I have is my faith. I don't have anything else at the moment And I said you never had anything else anyway, but your suffering made you realize that for real

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You know the one thing everything else got washed away and the only thing she had left was Christ So you'll note then that When the self -righteous and the

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NAR faith healers and all this kind of nonsense what these people are teaching us to do is to despise the discipline that God has put us under and And just rather than seeing it from a loving father as actually coming from the devil

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But The one thing I've note it noted in all the different ways I've suffered in my own life and and some of you here have seen me kind of in my darker days and you know and Today's not so dark, but give it and you give it a week things will turn around You're right the today's not so dark, but Have seen me in my darker days.

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It's it's hard to bear up and to be patient when you are struggling in my case with depression and The connections your mind makes are so bizarre and To be and just be angry just to be angry about the circumstance or the thing that's missing in your life or whatever right

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It's really easy, but these are the things that God uses to Discipline us yes

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Yeah When you're in your second or third mile and things are really hard it helps to have to see the goal

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Yep, and a passage that comforts me greatly in suffering. It's kind of a longer passage, but is actually

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Seeing where God would be bringing me through this suffering. Yes, very much and heaven is a great goal

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You know Romans 8 18 is great But something here earthly a shorter term goal that helps me endure my suffering is 2nd

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Corinthians 1 3 through 10 or 3 through 11, which is

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God's comfort in our suffering, but if you want to go shorter 6 through 11

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Narrows it down even more okay, so and so Bruce here is kind of tapped into What the scripture teaches us to do in the midst of our suffering because we don't know when your suffering is going to stop you don't know if Christ is going to answer your prayer and bring you bring your debilitating pain or agony or Anxiety to an end you don't know this so you know how do you day by day?

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Have Something to hang on to so he used the analogy that when he was young back when

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Noah and the dinosaurs were still around Bruce used to run cross -country or he would run you know he

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Brought long -distance races. That's something we both have in common. I used I ran cross -country for a couple years, too

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I was never any good at it. I don't know why I did it now that I'm thinking about it, but But one of the things that helps when you're you know you're racing in a 5k

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And you're three and a half K into the 5k and your muscles are screaming at you and yelling for oxygen

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What what do you how do you get past that and you have to keep your eyes on the end?

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And which is which is what scripture teaches us to do Regarding the eschaton over and again the hope the reason why scripture reveals

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What's coming when Jesus comes back, and we only get a foretaste of it Sip of the soup that he's making is that that that taste is designed to keep our eyes focused on what is coming

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But sometimes you need something temporal and so Bruce's 2nd

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Corinthians chapter 1 Okay, so for Bruce for something in the more immediate term

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He looks to 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 and I'll start at verse 3 Blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ The father of mercies and of God and God of all comfort.

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Let's say that's already this I like this text Okay, because I can tell you in my own life I need comfort and I need mercy and I need him in large heaping portions

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He is the one who comforts us in all of our affliction So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction now,

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I want to pause there for a second I want you to consider the implications here. We are called by Christ to love one another

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Which means that the place you should be able to Get comfort and help when you are in the midst of your suffering is from another member of the body of Christ who may not be in the middle of suffering at the moment who

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Recognizes that what you're going through is difficult and is there to comfort you and by the way

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I said this in one of the Bible studies yesterday and I will reiterate it Christians are sometimes some of the worst people when it

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Comes to comforting. All right, if okay If you know somebody who has somebody close to them who died and they are mourning

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When they are mourning and they are like in the first days of dealing with that do not say

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Anything Sit quietly let them cry do not try to problem -solve their life for them

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It is just so annoying. I yeah, I remember one time, you know when my best friend died, you know

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I was really really wrestling with it and some well -meaning Christian said some really stupid things and murder became a

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Sin that I had to repent of and be forgiven of even though I didn't actually pull the trigger

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I mentally I did Okay, because I'm thinking you morons. Okay, you know, so you just you need you got

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We are there to help each other and to comfort each other and note then that comforting somebody says, you know

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You you just get your healing and your breakthroughs on its way if you in it because God told me you're gonna have a suddenly

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Okay, you know or you'd have your breakthrough and it's just on its way if you would just forgive that person that you haven't forgiven in Your heart what

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I just oh No, that's not comfort that those are the lies of the devil In fact, you sound like what

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Job's comforters when you start talking like that, right? But true comfort comes in in helping somebody bear up under their affliction so Blessed be the

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of mercies And and God of all comfort who comforts us in our affliction

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So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction With the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings

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So through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too If we are afflicted it is for your comfort and your salvation

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And if we are comforted it is for your comfort Which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer our hope for you is unshaken

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For we know that as you share in our sufferings you will also share in our comfort

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We do not want you to be unaware brothers of the affliction we experienced in Asia For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself

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That's written by the Apostle Paul Yeah, yes, ma 'am It doesn't say that no, the context doesn't allow itself for that If it was talking about persecution it would be specifically honing in on it

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And so this is talking about the suffering that we experience and here's the experience

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We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength. We despaired of life itself that sounds to me like Difficulties in a trap and while traveling remember the days before highways

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Traveling was a was an ordeal All right This isn't talking about, you know, we had people wanting to stone us and kill us because we were proclaiming

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Christ He's talking about an everyday kind of life experience Which was part of the standard danger you could experience while traveling on a road

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Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death But that was to make us rely not on ourselves

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But on God who raises from the dead He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us on Him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again

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Also, you must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf

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For the blessing granted us through the prayers of many So you can see the context here is not talking about persecution.

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This is talking about, you know an actual Dangerous situation that could have resulted in their death now, by the way, did

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God deliver Paul? from being executed by a Roman centurion

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Nope But yeah, but yeah Permanently right.

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So so the idea then is is that Paul ultimately didn't experience that that physical thing where God delivered him from danger of death

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In fact put him in greatest danger and it resulted in his head being lifted off of his shoulder

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But Christ ultimately delivered him because Christ says anyone who believes in me, even though he dies yet Shall he live the one who believes in me will never taste death

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Yeah Yep It's a heaven only kind of a thing and I love this passage because no matter whether it's

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That issue or anything else and No moment in my life.

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Can I ever suffer needlessly? Yeah Yeah, because even if it brings no benefit for me

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It can bring benefit God can use it for to you help me bring it to others Yeah, even if it brings no benefit to others

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God can use it to draw me closer to him in total Desperate dependence. Yeah, and they can be benefit for me and if it you know and aside from benefit from others and the benefit for me

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Dependence on the church and fellowship and prayer and confession and that they can see God's faithfulness in my suffering

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Yeah can can build the church. So there is a trinity of use in Any suffering in my life, right?

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Regardless of outcome. Yeah, you know whether I whether I'm delivered On earth whether I have to relate, you know, whether God's mercy is

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Sufficient for my like Paul's thorn in the flesh, right? No, this is true for Prisoners for the sick for people just trying to balance their checkbook and anything in between There This passage in my life has completely delivered me from the despair of needless or helpless suffering, right?

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Because this lays out God's reasons and what God can use Regardless of what we normally look at as the result, right and no discipline is pleasant while experiencing

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Yeah, but but but I'll come back to you know if I could summarize one of the things that you had said that there's a trinity of benefit in suffering and And and I love the fact that this text and along with all the other passages that teach us this

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That everything is anchored back in the sufferings of Christ Our very salvation was accomplished by God Himself Suffering in fact the fact that he suffered so is held up as As proof that he does not he's not far off or he's that he actually cares for us and understands our weakness in the difficulty that we go through and So our very salvation was accomplished through suffering now

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This does not mean that we're some kind of a sick cult that believes that oh man the more suffering you have the better and then we can become like Opus Dei and The Da Vinci Code and you know put something on our leg to make us bleed or whip our so that's not what we're talking about Here, okay

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You don't get to pick your cross Christ will pick it for you and when and when he lays it on you believe me

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You'll feel the weight of that thing, right? But the point is this is that we then

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Knowing what scripture says regarding suffering We do not sit there and go

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There's something's wrong. It's I'm being made to suffer. I just doesn't make any sense. I'm the head and not the tail

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I you know, yeah right It's back scripture says don't act like that's something weirds happening to you.

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That's the Roseboro paraphrase We are to expect these things. This is the normal bit, you know

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I'm always leery of a pastor who hasn't really suffered much I mean you get the you get the 28 year old guy who went from high school to college to college to seminary

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Seminary to the pulpit and I'm sitting there going. No, I don't have nothing to do with you. You haven't suffered yet Okay, we'll talk in 15 -20 years

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Okay, you know, you know and I think about all the different ways that you know, we've been made to suffer as a family

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I mean there was a time when the people at the at the urgent care closest to our house

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We were on a first -name basis with the doctors and nurses there because my kids were so prone to accidents

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That it just was insane. It's like hey Chris, how's it going? It's going good Bob. Yeah here again

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Yeah, well, you know got kids bleeding out of his head might need some staples, you know, okay

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Well, yeah, how's the broken leg working out? I think he's healed from that. But you know, he'll we'll be in next week

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We might as well schedule it for Monday You know Yeah, it's always bad but you know and and and the anxiety and the difficulty and all of that I mean and and and none of those doctor bills ever came at a time when we were loaded, you know

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You know if you notice that it's like just when you think you're starting to get on a sheer footing guess what braces no

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You know You get the idea or oh, you got to go to the store again.

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I just bought you clothes six months ago I know but I've grown four inches stop growing I Married a tall lady.

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I wanted short kids. I should have married a short lady anyway, but but the point is is that when all of these difficulties and sufferings and the

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Anxieties that come from that none of this is this is outside of what we should experience as Christian this is not something abnormal this is normal and We recognize that these difficulties from come from God and they train us

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They train us to long for him. They train us to empty ourselves of ourselves

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To trust in him and not in the things around us And so, you know, you know when when people say

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I don't know what's going wrong My whole life has just become topsy -turvy. It's like well done.

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You were just baptized last week. I told you this would happen, you know You know, this is this is the normal Christian life in this life, it's not victory after victory

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We are in a parade following Jesus to death Because Christ is making all things new through death and resurrection

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Notice he's not he's not putting a new new coat of paint on this cursed creation

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All of this is going away. We're going away and he will raise us up on the new day

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So we look forward then to what's coming then as well a world without pain a world without sickness a world without death

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It's this is the thing that you know many times when I'm in the depths of struggling with my depression

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I have to figure out how do I break this cycle of meditating on these worst -case scenarios? For me, it's the eschatological text.

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I'll go to the end part of Isaiah. I'll go to the middle portion of Jeremiah I'll go to the book of Revelation, you know chapter 21 and Read what's coming because I recognize that God is doing something in the midst of the suffering that I'm going through But there's a new world coming and I I don't think

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I've done this with Kong's finger But give me a second here. You're gonna also get to see all the weird crazy books.

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I've been reading lately, but Count it all joy. Yeah. Yeah But there's there's a great picture here and I'll kind of end off with this thought in Okay, hang on a second here.

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I'm gonna go to my library and my apologies I've been reading a lot of books about Freemasonry and Gnosticism.

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So I Cannot wait to explain what I've been learning, but let's go here last battle last

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Battle. All right. Yeah, I'll ever read this the Chronicles of Narnia Pass that part for the sake of brevity, but hang on a second here

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That's the one I want what is this little note here it's not letting me load it

53:01

Let's see here. This book cannot be open. Please remove the book from your device and re -download it. Okay, I Hate it when

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I see the analog books never used to have this problem Hang on. Let's see here.

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So I got a room. Let's see here remove from device There we go and read downloaded.

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All right, we're redownloading it here. Give you a second here Pretty good internet But the last part of this book always tears me up in a good way

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So if you're not familiar with the story, I apologize there's going to be There's going to be a spoiler here.

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All right, and it's kind of necessary But if you remember the lion the witch in the wardrobe right in the lion the witch in the wardrobe

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You know, it's the story of Edmund and Lucy and Peter and Susan and one of the things that happens in the book is that Peter and Edmund and Lucy eventually cannot come back to Narnia, you know

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They've gotten too old or something like that. It begins with Peter and Susan couldn't come back and then eventually

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Lucy and Edmund couldn't come back and what happens in the last battle is that They finally are back

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Okay, and they're afraid that they're going to be sent back to earth again But what they don't realize and it was hinted at strongly

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Earlier in the book is that when they when they showed up in Narnia? The reason why they were there is because they were traveling on a train and it had something to do

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With that old professor and his silver apple from another book But they were they were traveling on a train in the in the

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British countryside and the train crashed and they all died and they didn't even know they were dead and That's the bit that's kind of fun here.

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But Looking to looking ahead here At the very end of the book the light ahead was growing stronger

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Lucy saw the great series of many colored cliffs that led up in front of them like a giant

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Staircase she forgot everything else. She's she's seeing this new world that that Aslan is created

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Because Aslan himself was coming leaping down from cliff to cliff like like a living

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Cataract of power and beauty and the very first person whom Aslan called to him was puzzled the donkey this is a donkey who participated in the apostasy of Narnia and Was shamed to do so And he you never saw a donkey look feebler and sillier than puzzle as he did as he walked up to Aslan and he looked

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Beside Aslan as small as a kitten looks beside a st. Bernard The lion bowed down his head and whispered something to puzzle at which his long ears went down But then he said something else at which his ears perked up again

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You know one has to think that Aslan forgave him for his apostasy and participation No human could hear what he said either

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Either time then Aslan turned to them and he said you do not yet. Look so happy as I mean for you to be

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Lucy said We're so afraid of being sent away Aslan And you've sent us back into our own world so often

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No fear of that Said Aslan have you not guessed And their hearts leaped

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And a wild hope rose within them There was a real railway accident said as Aslan softly

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Your father and your mother And all of you are as you used to call it in the shadow lands dead

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This is what gets me through This next line is one of the most brilliant lines in all of literature

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The term is over The holidays have begun We all know what this is like Remember that feeling that you would have on the last day of school right a summer break began

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The bell rings and you sleep with joy and You head out to the adventure of the summer that's ahead

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Tiny picture of what's coming the term is over the holiday has begun The dream has ended this is the morning

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And as he spoke he no longer looked like Look to them like a lion but things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them and For us this is the end of all the stories

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For we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after But for them it was only the beginning the beginning of the real story

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All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover of the title page

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Now at last they were beginning chapter one Chapter one of the great story which no one on earth has read

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Which goes on forever in which every chapter is better than the one before That's our hope

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Summarized by CS Lewis and he's already begun his holiday and soon we will too

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So today we talked about suffering and I don't want to answer a lot of questions and I apologize.

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I've run out of time But hopefully you have a better understanding that these are these are the scourges that Christ gives us as a result of being as children because he loves us not because he doesn't and The hope of the new world is real and Jesus will eventually show up someday soon

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To come and rescue us to save us to bring us into that new world where the story just gets better and better and better and All of this that we've suffered now will not even come to mind

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But until then may Christ give us the strength to bear up under the scourges that we suffer because He loves us