[0:00] And we'll pick it up where we left off last Sunday, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We studied last Sunday the difference that Jesus Christ can make.
[0:19] And it was in this passage, we'll read it again, verses 8, 9, and 10. And we'll add 11 to it. And then refresh where we've studied and then pick it right up and roll on.
[0:35] Verse number 8 says, We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.
[0:47] Cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
[1:07] Now, as we read last week, this is an intimidating, yet a realistic view of the Christian life that the Apostle Paul described personally. But he says, we, and he's got company with him that are experiencing the same things.
[1:23] And the thoughts aren't exclusive to the ministry at all. If you've got breath in your lungs and you're living in this present evil world, then you've experienced some of these very things. To one degree or another, heavier, lighter, whatever the case, no matter what, you're going to or have already experienced some of this language.
[1:41] You can relate to the terms that Paul uses. He said that we're troubled on every side. And he gives four things. Then he says we are perplexed.
[1:52] And today we'll see that in verse 9, we're persecuted and we're cast down. Yet in all four of these ugly and intimidating thoughts, there's a help with it. There's a repose.
[2:02] There's a positive for every negative. And that positive can be nothing but Jesus Christ. It is definitely not Paul's flesh.
[2:13] It is definitely not his company. It is not his inner strength. But it is the Lord Jesus Christ that makes this difference and this possible. And so the difference that Jesus Christ can make, it's incredible.
[2:25] It's wonderful. Now he said we're troubled on every side. And as we studied last week, Paul was troubled from the lost all through the book of Acts. Both Jews and Gentiles, he had trouble everywhere he went.
[2:36] He received trouble from the brethren. Even coming to the end of his life, no man stood with him. They all forsook him. He had trouble with his health. He had real trouble.
[2:47] Something that God gave to him, a messenger of Satan to buffet him. It was something that he couldn't shake. God wouldn't take away. God wouldn't fix. And rather just said, my grace will be sufficient.
[3:00] So Paul had to deal with that. Then he had trouble in his spirit. And that is, he had fears within were fears, he said. He also had the care of the churches that weighed on him heavily every day.
[3:12] And he was a man subject to the same passions and feelings like we are. He felt it just like you felt it and feel it. He was troubled on every side. Not an overstatement. But then he says, yet not distressed.
[3:25] And as we studied, stress is such a popular thing today. It's a popular word. It's something that feelings of anxiety and pressure and strain on your heart and on your mind.
[3:38] And it's stress is hard to bear. And the idea is that something is overloaded. It's stressed. It's strained. And when it gets overloaded, it tends to weaken and break.
[3:51] And they say that we all have our breaking point. And there's only one reason that Paul could be troubled on every side and in so many facets of his life yet not be distressed.
[4:02] There's only one reason. There had to be somebody there that was picking him up and holding him up and strengthening him. Oh, it hurt. It hurt. But Paul said, I'm not distressed.
[4:14] I can go on. I can continue on because of Jesus Christ. We read in Matthew 11 that Christ invites us to bring our heavy laden burdens to him and he'll give us rest.
[4:27] We read in 1 Peter 5 that he tells us to cast all our cares upon him because he cares for us. And the Lord Jesus Christ can make the difference when you're troubled on every side.
[4:38] And then he said we're perplexed. To be perplexed is to be confused and to not understand and to not have answers. And Paul obeyed God and he served him and he just gave it all in to the ministry.
[4:52] And yet along the way he didn't have Jesus Christ just saying, yay, Paul, you're doing a great job. And let me hold your hand. Sometimes Paul was just, what is happening? He didn't know what was going to happen the next day.
[5:04] He was hopping from boat to boat, from town to town, avoiding persecutions as we'll see. He had it rough. And he was stuck in jail and he's floating out there in the deep.
[5:14] And Paul didn't have answers to everything. But he trusted the Lord without knowledge of how this is going to work out. There were certainly times where he was perplexed.
[5:26] I think the Christian life is, I think it can be perplexing. I think we all have experienced that when you give your heart to the Lord, you kind of hope and expect even that things are going to start going better for me.
[5:42] Because I'm going to just be doing right and trusting God. And then things just start to fall apart. And why is that? The age old question, why do the righteous suffer? It is perplexing.
[5:54] It is hard to understand how God is behind this or allowing this. More than one believer has been in despair and cried out, God, why?
[6:06] Because they were perplexed. And they didn't get it. And the ministry can be that way. The Christian life can be that way. But Paul said, we're perplexed, but not in despair.
[6:20] To despair is to feel like there is no answer. There is no possible way this can work together for good. There is no way out of this situation. It is over.
[6:31] To despair is to feel there is no hope. And to accept it, that it just can't get better. But Paul said, oh, we're not in despair. We believe there is hope. And as long as Jesus Christ is in the situation, there is hope.
[6:45] And the strongest hope we have, and we could probably analyze it in smaller areas, but we took it all the way to the big one, the one that's called in Titus, that blessed hope.
[7:00] In 1 Thessalonians 4, he describes that we don't sorrow as others which have no hope, because there is a hope that Jesus Christ is going to descend from heaven with a shout.
[7:12] And there is a hope that we have as believers, that he's going to one day lift us up out of this world, and away from all our struggles and sorrows, and away from the trouble and the perplexing and just understanding nothing.
[7:27] And one time God, one day God's going to come and take us away from that. And that is a hope. That may not fix the pain today and fix the problems of tomorrow, but it's a hope that you can never have taken away from you.
[7:42] If you're a born-again Christian, that thing is settled. It's called the day of Christ, and you are sealed until the day of redemption. And the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back and change our vile bodies and fashion them like his glorious body.
[7:58] And so shall we ever be with the Lord. You and I will always have that hope. So we can be perplexed. We can not understand. And things can be slipping through our fingers and falling away, but there's one thing that can never, ever be taken away from us is that one day we're going to be with the Lord.
[8:20] It's going to be done. So that should give you a little bit of courage to put one foot in front of the other, knowing that God knows and he's going to get you. So life has its problems.
[8:32] The ministry has its troubles. The Christian experience is not without confusion and not without fear and not without real low valleys at times. But you can still trust the Lord Jesus Christ and you can still believe and walk with him because he can make the difference.
[8:52] Now this morning we'll pick up verse number 9 and consider these two thoughts from verse 9 where Paul begins by saying, persecuted.
[9:05] We are persecuted. To be persecuted is to be on the receiving end of an action that is against you. It's meant to harm you or to stop you.
[9:18] Now understand, persecuted is not a state of mind. It's not a feeling where I'm a victim. Everybody's against me. I'm a victim. No, it's not this little inward little nonsense that people have been waving in this day and age.
[9:33] No, this is real oppression. This is being mistreated or attacked by others on the grounds that they disagree with you and they disapprove of you or of what you do.
[9:45] It can come from somebody you think should love you. It can come from your family. It can come from somebody who hates you, your foes. It can come from all areas. Persecution.
[9:56] Now biblically speaking, it's associated with the world's hatred for the Lord Jesus Christ. It's kind of that good versus evil idea. And if you align with Christ, and if you come out from among them and be separate, and you're in Christ, and you love Christ and speak up for Him and live for Him by His standards and ways, you're going to find opposition.
[10:18] You're going to find the world's against you. Now turn to John 15. I want to read a verse. We looked at this on Wednesday night as we were studying taking up your cross and following Jesus Christ one step at a time.
[10:33] And some of the things you'll experience in that walk and in that life that's hid with Christ in God is you'll experience suffering. And I want to reread these verses again, 15, 18 through 20.
[10:48] Some things Christ warned His disciples about. Persecution. Verse number 18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. In other words, I'm the cause.
[10:59] They hate you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant's not greater than his Lord.
[11:12] If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept by saying, they'll keep yours also. So you can expect persecution.
[11:23] As a disciple of Jesus Christ and as a follower and a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ. But more specifically, we won't study this out, but the persecution is associated with the gospel of Christ.
[11:36] Nobody's going to stone you because you're a good person. Nobody's going to hate you because you got baptized. They're going to be against you if you proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and declare that only Jesus Christ saves souls.
[11:54] Now, in regards to the apostle Paul, take a look at Acts chapter 8. I want to run you through a few verses on this. He was a persecutor before he was persecuted.
[12:05] And what you sow, you reap. And so Saul, his name was, in Acts chapter 8, persecuted the church.
[12:18] In verse number 1, Acts 8 verse 1, and Saul was consenting unto his death, that being the disciple Stephen, from chapter 7. And at that time, there was great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
[12:36] And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women, committed them to prison.
[12:49] Skip over to chapter 9. He has a confrontation with the Lord Jesus Christ, where Christ says, it's not the people that you're persecuting, it's me.
[13:00] In chapter 9 and verse 5, and he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. So chasing these men and women, these Christians down, and putting them in prison, and more than that, actually turned to, I think it's 26.
[13:19] Look over at chapter 26. Yeah. Here he gives a little more detail of the action that he took against these believers. and understand it was against Jesus Christ.
[13:33] Acts 26 and verse number 9, Paul says, I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priest, and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.
[13:55] They're martyred. That's real persecution. And I punished them off in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme. How do you think he did that? Think he just said, I want you to blaspheme?
[14:08] He had to threaten them. He had to inflict pain on them. He had to, later on, the Catholic Church was doing the same thing, using fire, using torture racks, and being extremely mad against them.
[14:22] I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Yet Christ said, you're persecuting me. There it is again in verse number 15. So Paul was the persecutor of the church.
[14:34] It was against Jesus Christ and his church. Now, so get this though. To be persecuted, you've got to, you first have to take a stand for something.
[14:48] You have to be identified, in this case, with the gospel of Jesus Christ, with his name. If you're not a Christian, nobody cares. If you're not associated with Jesus Christ, if your allegiance has not been declared to be with him, nobody's going to take offense to that.
[15:08] But when you stand with Christ, then all of a sudden, persecution can come. And the thought though, to put it in our laps this morning, is much of Christianity cannot relate to this persecution.
[15:21] and they don't know what this is about because they haven't taken definitive stance against this ungodly world. The ungodly have no fear, no reason to resist them or to oppose them.
[15:36] For a lot of Christians, they've received Christ. They have eternal life. But nobody at their job knows it. Nobody in their neighborhood knows that person's a born-again Christian.
[15:49] So, of course, there's no persecution. It's not because we have freedom of religion in America. It's because Christians aren't associating and identifying publicly with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[16:06] Undercover Christians don't get persecuted. And I don't say that to prod you to go pick a fight with your neighbor and get persecuted like that.
[16:16] That's not the point. If you're going to live godly in Christ Jesus, let's see it in the Bible, you'll get persecuted. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 3. Nobody at work knows you're saved.
[16:39] Nobody at school knows you're a Christian. You have eternal life dwelling in you, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. They're going to drift off and drop into hell.
[16:52] And you don't say a word. I just read this recently. It's a common thought. But the idea was that if you truly loved that person, you'd tell them of their destiny.
[17:08] You can't hide behind, well, I love you too much and don't want to offend you or I don't want to harm you or get you mad at me or cut off this relationship. No, if you truly loved them, if your heart loved their soul, you'd warn them.
[17:21] Now in 2 Timothy 3, look at verse number 12. Paul said, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So living godly, what does that mean?
[17:34] Turn over to Titus chapter 2. If you live godly in Christ Jesus, the Bible says you'll suffer persecution. Titus chapter 2, verse number 12.
[17:50] Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people and it's not a period there.
[18:18] There's four more words that are applied to this thought of living in this present world why he gave himself for us to be a different people, a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
[18:31] these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. The Christian is supposed to live a godly life.
[18:42] He's supposed to stand out, to be peculiar from this world. In Philippians, I'm just going to read this verse to you quickly. In Philippians chapter 2, verse 16, or 15, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life.
[19:10] The believer is supposed to live godly. He's supposed to stand out. He's supposed to come out from among them. He's supposed to shine in this world. Let your light so shine before men that they may see something, that they may see your good works.
[19:27] You're to be zealous of good works. In Titus, he said it a few more times, you're to be careful to maintain good works. It ought to be seen. You're to walk as children of light.
[19:39] Now, I realize that the United States of America is a very diverse culture. It's a tolerant culture, meaning we tolerate everything, don't we? I mean, we have to tolerate everything.
[19:52] That's just crammed down your throat. The wickeder it is, the more we have to be tolerant. And so, we're a tolerant nation. We're a tolerant culture in this land. It's true. And so, people will tolerate you being a Christian.
[20:05] They'll tolerate you being a Muslim. They'll tolerate you being just pretty much anything on this face of the planet. Call yourself a rhinoceros and they'll tolerate it.
[20:17] They'll say you're weird, but you can take them to court for that. That's what our land's become. So, just because America's tolerant doesn't mean or doesn't negate the fact that sinners love to sin.
[20:32] And if somebody will faithfully stand up against that sin and say, this is ungodly, denying ungodliness, if somebody will stand up and say, you are in danger of hellfire and the judgment of God for your sin and Jesus Christ can save you, then you're going to find out how tolerant people are.
[20:56] Then you're going to find out they don't agree with you. And so, let me ask you this. If you experience no resistance from the lost, if you experience no mockery, if you've never had rejection, how brightly are you shining in this present world?
[21:15] If nobody's against you, if nobody cares what you do with your life, I wonder, you think about this, does anybody know that you're saved?
[21:29] Anybody on this planet know that you are saved? Make a list of who knows you're saved. And how short of a list is that? Of course, you're not going to be persecuted.
[21:42] But Paul says, we're persecuted. Matter of fact, you're, look at 2 Timothy 3, 3, you were just there, 2 Timothy 3, and here's some of the localities and some of the things he says about that persecution.
[21:59] Verse number 10, Paul says, thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, and patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch.
[22:12] Notice these three places, at Iconium, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. These many localities, Paul experienced the resistance, the rejection of the gospel.
[22:31] And in doing, in that, he received attacks, and he received harm to his person and to his body. He was only the messenger of the truth of the gospel.
[22:43] He was only a preacher of righteousness. And the world rejected him and resisted him and persecuted him. Just like Israel stoned the prophets and killed them that God sent unto them.
[22:56] So the world's persecuting those that have a gospel message. But Paul says, we're persecuted, but not forsaken. Look at 2 Timothy 4 while you're there.
[23:09] Even in a jail cell, even while Paul would be running for his life to escape harm, he had the promise, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
[23:22] Even in 2 Timothy 4 at the end of his life when he's ready to be offered, the time of his departure is at hand. Everyone else forsook him. Verse 16 says, at my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.
[23:38] I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Those are his buddies. Those are Christians that he's praying and want to be laid. But verse 17, notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.
[23:54] Persecuted, but not forsaken. All the way to the end. When Christ commissioned his disciples at the end of the gospels, he said, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
[24:09] I'm never leaving you. I'll never forsake you. If you follow Jesus Christ, you probably will notice some afflictions along the way.
[24:20] And if you'll preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the sinners of this world, you'll get persecuted. Oh, it may not be what is experienced today in some places in Africa and India and some of the communist countries.
[24:33] It's still happening. And you may not feel that, but who knows? If the Lord tarries, who knows what's coming to this land? Persecutions are real. The body of Christ has known it.
[24:45] But you'll always have the Lord Jesus Christ with you that will never forsake you. He may not fix your problems, but he'll go through them with you. I want to read some of the, some poetry.
[24:58] Some of these songs here that we sing, they're powerful. And the words mean something to somebody who's going through some hard things.
[25:10] This song, I love to sing it. It's called Never Alone. I've seen the lightning flashing and heard the thunder roll. I've felt sin's breakers dashing which tried to conquer my soul.
[25:23] I've heard the voice of my Savior. He bid me still fight on. He promised never to leave me. Never to leave me alone. The world's fierce winds are blowing. Temptations sharp and keen.
[25:36] I have a peace in knowing my Savior stands in between. He stands to shield me from danger when all my friends are gone. He promised never to leave me. Never to leave me alone.
[25:49] When in afflictions valley I tread the road of care, my Savior helps me carry the cross so heavy to bear. Though all around me is darkness and earthly joys have flown, my Savior whispers his promise never to leave me alone.
[26:07] There's another one in this hymnal I'll read for you quick. There's a bunch. Earthly friends may prove untrue. Doubts and fears assail.
[26:19] One still loves and cares for you, one who will not fail. Though the sky be dark and drear, fierce and strong the gale, just remember he is near and he will not fail.
[26:32] In life's dark and bitter hour love will still prevail. Trust his everlasting power. Jesus will not fail. Jesus never fails.
[26:43] Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away but Jesus never fails. What a difference Jesus can make. You can be persecuted but you'll not be forsaken.
[26:55] Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. Why? For thou art with me.
[27:08] Jesus never fails. Whatever God asks you to endure he'll not leave you alone. He'll be there to comfort you and encourage you and strengthen you and he'll go through it with you all the way.
[27:22] So Paul knows persecution. Coming back to the chapter Paul knew persecution but he could testify that he was never forsaken. And in verse number 9 the verse finishes out by saying that we are cast down but not destroyed.
[27:41] Cast down. There's a few thoughts here I want to bring to your mind about being cast down. and I'm reminded that true Christianity has never been popular.
[27:53] It's never been vogue. It's never been accepted worldwide. It's not trendy to identify with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of the time it's quite the opposite.
[28:04] It's the Christians that preach the gospel that get persecuted. It's the Christians that get ridiculed. They're cast down and despised in this world. Even kings and rulers historically have made serious attempts to exterminate Christianity.
[28:22] They tried to eliminate it from the globe. They saw it as a plague. They saw it as a danger to their kingdom or to their rule or to their religion.
[28:36] Paul was that very one. The apostle Paul. As we read in Acts chapter 8 9 and 26. Paul in his earlier years was a persecutor against Christians.
[28:50] Through the ages the Roman Catholic Church the church that calls themselves Christians one that calls themselves the church of Jesus Christ they've attempted to wipe out everybody that doesn't believe the way they believe.
[29:04] Anybody who would leave their church they declared you're damned to hell and you'll never have any ever experienced the grace of God because you left our church or our system and they literally killed murdered tortured our ancestors or our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
[29:26] They said you're heretic because you don't obey the holy church because you claim to be saved by grace through faith and that's all that's necessary and so you need to die.
[29:42] So Christianity has always been cast down. Paul says we are cast down outwardly speaking collectively as a body. Paul's preaching was always met with resistance and opposition and it's odd because God is all powerful and the message is the truth and is the power of God unto salvation.
[30:03] So why are we so cast down and despised and disdained? Why are preachers run off and run out of town? Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
[30:17] Why is it that believers have no place in this world when God created it and he sent his son to redeem it and we preach a message of peace with God and yet we're cast down?
[30:36] 1 Corinthians chapter 4 look at a few verses here of Paul's synopsis of believers verse 11 1 Corinthians 4 11 even under this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place and labor working with our hands being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it notice verse 13 being defamed we entreat we are made as the filth of the world and are the offscouring of all things unto this day in today's vernacular we're the scum of the earth that's what we are we're cast down but not destroyed and despite the opposition the body of Christ carries on it's indestructible oddly ironically the more it's persecuted the more it thrives and grows and so in one sense the body of Christ is cast down but inwardly speaking the word cast down that thought is to be brought low to be discouraged to be demoralized the psalmist said he said to his soul why art thou cast down why art thou disquieted within me because he was emptied and he was deflated he was overcome with trouble he was cast down and yet our verse in 2nd corinthians 4 says cast down but not destroyed but not destroyed be destroyed it's finished it's over there's no getting up it's impossible to get back up on your feet and continue and Paul was literally look at
[32:23] Acts 14 he was literally cast down this is the last passage I'll ask you to turn to go get Acts 14 and try to bring this scene in before your view this morning because it wasn't just the body of Christ or inwardly dealing with pain this was a thing Paul experienced physically he was cast down to the ground look at chapter 14 and verse 19 and there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium and where is he at he's at Lystra who persuaded the people and having stoned Paul drew him out of the city supposing he had been dead albeit as the disciples stood round about him let's get the picture here that Paul was had Jews
[33:25] I don't know if they if it was just a full on rage against this man to persecute him or if they had come and persuaded the people that he's blaspheming the law of Moses and the circumcision and the separation and that and therefore somebody in the crowd picked up a stone and hurled it at him whether it was all collectively or just it started and then just erupted they chucked stones they whipped them they started landing them on his body he's taken cover probably with his hands protecting his head but one after the other is pummeling his body to where he lay there lifeless limp not moving open wounds blood all over his body's clothes probably torn and they looked at him and they said that's what you get and then they grabbed a hold of him and drug him outside of the city and then they went back to the city they left his carcass there and so his disciples gather around him and look at him there's Paul there he is this great preacher preacher of the gospel of
[34:42] Christ servant of the Lord Jesus Christ the blood still fresh it's still running off of his body under the dirt his body covered with blood and now covered with dirt from the drag he's filthy he's broken and beaten and then his eyes begin to twitch and open and it says in verse 20 he rose up how do you get back up on your feet after being stoned to death he rose up and came into the city this is some very abnormal behavior from a man who just got stoned by people throwing stones in a rage against him angry and seeking to kill him and then drag him and leave him be now you can surmise that okay he was just unconscious he got knocked out and therefore he just laid there and he wasn't as bad as they thought so that makes those people pretty stupid to suppose him to be dead you don't think they checked for a pulse you don't think they checked to see if he's breathing so he's dead and then he rises up now you can compare this with 2nd corinthians 12 where he describes that he was caught up to the third heaven and he heard things that there's things that he's not allowed to speak he even says in that passage that whether i was in the body or out of the body i cannot tell so he was alive somewhere and it seems like he was sent back because it wasn't the time of his departure yet that comes later in 2nd timothy 4 and so paul and so paul gets up and goes back into the city and then what at the end of verse 20 it says the next day he departed with barnabas to derby he's traveling the next day what a recovery verse 21 and when they had preached the gospel to that city and had taught many they returned again to the very town that he just got killed at and notice iconium and antioch there's those three localities that he said he had afflictions and the persecutions that he endured at those cities and there he is preaching and traveling and ministering the gospel of jesus christ he rose up he rose up he rose up he was cast down undeniably but not destroyed he got back up and that's the difference jesus christ can make because it can get bad and it can get hard and you can get knocked down but with jesus christ you can get back up you can always get back up the bible says the steps of a good man are ordered by the lord and he delighteth in his way though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down for the lord upholdeth him with his hand you can be cast down all right but not destroyed never destroyed now from these two weeks in these two verses in second corinthians 4 we've discovered and read that you can be troubled and perplexed and persecuted and you can be cast down but when you bring jesus christ into this situation into any one of them he can make a difference and he does make a difference because then you can get back up and you can toughen up and you can even wise up and you can go on when you're perplexed he has answers and he can help and he can give wisdom and he can give direction and leading but without him you're going to have trouble without the relief you'll have questions without certain answers without jesus christ you'll be alone and you'll just have to rely on yourself to pull yourself up by the bootstraps
[38:43] and carry on life has problems the ministry has troubles the christian experience is not without valleys and if your experience if you've tasted of these things this morning of resistance and rejection because you're trying to walk with christ and nobody wants to join you jesus christ can make the difference he'll never forsake you he'll be right there with you if you're cast down if you're struggling on the inside or on the outside the lord jesus christ can make that difference i don't believe that he'll just pick you up to the mountaintop but what he'll do is he'll come down to where you are cast down and he will minister to your wounded spirit he will strengthen and he will heal your hurting heart and then you'll realize i can get back up i can keep on i don't have to quit i'm not destroyed because the lord jesus christ is just there to put something inside of you that's the difference understand as we bring this to a close this morning that victory in the christian life is not walking above the clouds where nothing ever touches you that sounds pretty and somebody talks that talk somewhere but it's not realistic not to you and me but victory in the christian life is when you get knocked down that you get back up when you sin you confess it and you move on that's victory and you can experience it when you fail you go on you get forgiveness you get strength and one day at a time you stay in the fight i believe this i said it last week you can leave here this morning believing that jesus christ is all you need you can leave here knowing that things are not going to be perfect in life but he is all you need i said it from that passage it's in verse 5 we preach not ourselves but christ jesus the lord man can't help you he can't fix it he can't hold you up when you're falling down but jesus christ can he's the one you need if you need help if you sense any of these things happening in your life my advice to you is get to jesus christ he's all you need the lord will use hardships in your life to draw you closer to him the lord will use things that are not pleasant to cause you to depend on him and to call out to him and to lean on him to walk with him to trust in him to take his yoke upon you and learn of him so if this stuff's going on in your life don't think it's god being against you and why god why just run to jesus just walk with jesus christ get strength from the lord and allow him to make the difference amen father please take these thoughts take these messages of these last two weeks and this passage and these truths and help us change our thinking lord get the word of god in us so that our doubts and our fears and our worries can be dissolved thank you for the truths and promises that we've even read and considered that you'll never leave us thank you for promising that we don't have to ever be destroyed that we'll never be without hope and that no matter where the trouble comes we don't ever have to be distressed because you can bear it god be real to us
[42:46] be real to the one that's hurting be real to the one that's struggling and that the strain is getting to be more than they can bear and pray that you'll speak to their heart and open your arms to them and let them hear your voice calling them to come on in lord spiritually we probably all need to get closer to you not just to avoid storms but to be sheltered from them so that you can make the difference i pray this morning that somebody gets some help that we trust and rely on you and be dependent upon you and your word and on your spirit in us we pray in jesus name amen let's have a word let's have a song here we're going to sing