Hebrews 12:4-11

[0:00] If you're looking in one of the Pew Bibles, that is page 1008. Hebrews chapter 12, today we're looking at verses 4 through 11, but I'm going to start at the beginning of the chapter, which we read last week as well.

[0:22] So, chapter 12, beginning at verse 1, and we'll be focusing in on verses 4 through 11. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

[1:00] Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

[1:15] And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

[1:28] For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.

[1:40] For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

[1:51] Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them.

[2:06] But he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

[2:22] A few years ago, my wife and I decided to do some exploratory house hunting in New Haven. We weren't actually quite ready to buy a house, but we wanted to see what was out there.

[2:33] So mostly my wife poured over real estate listings online, and I'd periodically get two or three emails with links to potential houses somewhere in New Haven that we could buy.

[2:48] Now, two of them I remember in particular. Both were in neighborhoods we liked. Both were in our price range. Neither was a fixer-upper. We knew we couldn't deal with that. And both had a series of attractive pictures online.

[3:01] But one of them, when we visited it, had been recently broken into, and all the copper piping in all the radiators had been cut out, which apparently is not a totally uncommon experience.

[3:17] The other looked nice from the outside, had nice hardwood floors, but every floor was warped. So one end of the room was about one or two feet higher than the other.

[3:29] So everywhere you were in the house, you were topsy-turvy and tilted. And even the real estate agent who was showing it said, I don't think you should buy this house. High expectations, disappointing results.

[3:45] Have you ever embarked on a journey, started a new job, begun a new relationship, gone away on vacation with high expectations, but found that the results were disappointing?

[3:59] And so you begin to wonder, should I keep at it? Should I keep looking for a house? Or should I keep even consider buying? Or should we just rent?

[4:11] Should I keep at this new relationship, or this new job, or search for something else, where I can direct my energies? Well, the people that the book of Hebrews was written to were in a similar situation spiritually.

[4:28] They had become Christians, and they were initially excited to embark on this new journey of following Jesus, and being a Christian community together, and displaying Christ's love to the world.

[4:41] But over time, the initial excitement faded away. It was harder than they expected. Perhaps they expected that becoming a Christian would make their life easier.

[4:52] The opposite happened. They were suffering. Not just in the normal ways that everyone else suffered, but they were suffering particularly because of their faith.

[5:03] They were being insulted and rejected. Some of them had even lost their property. It had been taken away. And they were tempted to throw in the towel or to gradually withdraw from their commitment to Christ and begin to shift their energies and place their identity in something else.

[5:24] The question they were asking was something like this. If we are, in Jesus Christ, God's sons and daughters destined for glory, why is our life full of suffering and shame?

[5:37] And the whole book of Hebrews is written to address that question. And today's passage gives us an important piece of the answer. Now, this passage doesn't give us a comprehensive explanation for why there is suffering in the world.

[5:54] Suffering is a complex reality. And different passages in the Bible speak to different aspects of that reality. But this passage does give us a very important perspective for when we face suffering personally.

[6:06] Now, what this passage says is this. It says, In Jesus Christ, yes, we are God's sons and daughters destined for glory. But God, as our Father, is training and shaping and preparing us for that glory through painful sufferings, through discipline, as it says.

[6:30] Now, in this passage, we'll see three things. We'll see first the character of God's discipline in verses 5 and 6. Second, we'll see the necessity of God's discipline in verses 7 and 8.

[6:41] And third, we'll see the benefits of God's discipline in verses 9 through 11. So, first, the character of God's discipline. Now, the word discipline is repeated over and over, nine times in this passage.

[6:53] And I think it's not anywhere else in the book of Hebrews. So, it's clearly the main theme of this passage. But you might ask, Well, what exactly does discipline mean? Now, most of us, when we hear the word discipline, we immediately think of correction.

[7:10] Now, that's part of, one important part of God's discipline is correcting us. Verse 5 talks about being reproved. That word means verbally rebuked or verbally corrected by the Lord.

[7:25] And if you look through the Bible, there's numerous examples of this. So, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront King David when David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

[7:36] Or when James and John came to Jesus and they were asking for the best seats in God's kingdom, Jesus rebuked them. He said, You don't know what you're asking for. You don't know what my kingdom's all about.

[7:47] You're totally missing the point. Or after the resurrection, Jesus told Peter that Peter would suffer a painful death for Jesus' sake. And Peter turned around and looked at John and said, But Lord, what about him?

[8:01] What's going to happen to him? And Jesus said, What does that matter to you? You follow me. Verbal rebukes are not unusual in the Bible because even the best of Jesus' disciples have a tendency to go off track and do stupid things.

[8:18] So, the book of Proverbs says, Better is open rebuke than hidden love. A loving, thoughtful, clear word of correction or rebuke should not be unusual in a community of growing Christians.

[8:34] Second Timothy says, All scripture is useful for many things. And the first thing it says is rebuking and correcting. You know, if nobody ever dares to correct or rebuke you, it is probably not a sign that you are perfect and you don't need any correction.

[8:54] It may indicate that you are too proud or too private or too prickly and you are missing out on some of the correction that God knows that you need and will benefit from.

[9:08] Now, verse 6 goes even further in talking about correction. It says, The Lord chastises every son whom he receives. Now, the word translated chastise refers to physical affliction for wrongdoing.

[9:24] Sometimes God afflicts us physically in order to correct us. In other words, sometimes God intentionally allows us to experience the bitter fruit of our own foolish decisions to show us how poisonous sin is and to bring us to hate it and turn away from it and turn back to him.

[9:47] In the Old Testament, we see this pattern over and over, especially if you read the book of Judges. Basically, the book of Judges has this cycle and it happens about eight times. The people of Israel, they abandon God, they abandon the Lord, they go after other gods, and so God says, okay, I'll let you experience what it's like to not be under my rule and to be under the rule of oppressive idols.

[10:17] So he lets them go into the hands of their enemies and their enemies oppress and enslave them and finally they cry out to the Lord and God sends them a deliverer. You see, God never abandons his people, but he afflicted them for a time in order to correct them and bring them back to him.

[10:36] Psalm 119 verse 67 says, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. So God's discipline includes both verbal and physical corrective measures.

[10:50] But the concept of discipline in this chapter is actually much broader than correction. The word translated discipline commonly referred to educating or training young people in a variety of contexts.

[11:05] It could refer to athletic training. It could refer to scholarly instruction or moral development. And in the context of this passage, the dominant image is of a parent instructing a child.

[11:18] And again, as a parent, the role of a parent includes correction. It's an important and necessary part of parenting. And sometimes that's, you know, for those of us who are parents, it's hard, right?

[11:30] It's never pleasant to correct your child. And sometimes when we have to administer corrective discipline to our kids, whether it's a verbal rebuke or age-appropriate physical discipline or consequences, or simply saying no to a request, sometimes it feels like we've failed as parents.

[11:52] Or our kid was bad, so we had to discipline them, right? And maybe you feel ashamed, especially if your kid makes a scene in front of other people. Or we feel bad about saying no to a request.

[12:05] But the Bible says, actually, if we're correcting our children in a godly manner, not out of impulsive rage, but out of concern for their ultimate well-being, we're doing exactly what a parent is called to do by God.

[12:21] Loving correction. But on the other hand, the role of a parent is much more than reactive correction. The role of a parent includes provision for a child's needs, encouragement of a child's strengths, preemptive warning against future dangers, intentional training for future opportunities, and attentive presence in a child's life.

[12:44] The writer of Hebrews begins by quoting from Proverbs 3, a father's words to his son. And the whole book of Proverbs is framed in this way as parental guidance, parental exhortation, parental encouragement to a growing child.

[13:03] Now, God's discipline, like that, of a good teacher or coach or parent, is proactively training and testing us to develop in us a greater capacity for endurance.

[13:16] It's not only correcting us, it's also training us. And God envisions a glorious future for us far beyond what we can imagine. And he leads us through painful experiences in order to shape and prepare us for that future.

[13:31] You know, if you are a teacher and you are assigned a class of eighth graders who are failing math and who say they hate math and are completely bored by it, you don't just come into the class and start berating the students and saying, you guys are all a bunch of failures.

[13:49] Look at how you've failed in the past. Look at how terrible you are. No, if you're a good teacher, you see not only their past failures and their present struggles, but also their future potential.

[14:03] You see the beauty and elegance and usefulness of math that they are currently blind to. And you want to introduce them to that. You see the students' intellectual abilities, which they probably express in all kinds of other creative and mischievous ways.

[14:20] But if developed and focused, that could enable them to not only pass, but even excel in the math, in math. And that's what motivates you to challenge them and call them to a higher standard and refuse to give up on them.

[14:36] Because you can see what they can't or don't want to see. Now, there's a spiritual analogy here in many respects.

[14:47] For the most part, when we look at ourselves or when we look at other people, we see ourselves as we are today or as we have been in the past. But when God looks at us, He is not limited to the past and the present.

[15:03] He sees not only our past patterns and our present struggles, He also sees perfectly clearly the glorious creature that He has created us to be and that He is intent on bringing us to become in Christ.

[15:18] And so He brings us into situations that we think are far more than we can handle and might seem totally overwhelming. And we think, I can't handle this. There's no way I can get through this.

[15:29] And God says, but I can see what you can't. You know, when Jesus first met Simon Peter in the Gospel of John chapter 1, His name was just Simon at that point, but Jesus named him Peter, which means rock.

[15:46] But then if you go on and read the Gospels, Peter seems like the most unstable man of all the twelve disciples. Right? Jesus says, who do you say that I am?

[15:57] And Peter says, you're the Messiah. And Jesus says, that's right. And then, two seconds later, Jesus says, well, as the Messiah, I'm going to have to suffer. And Peter takes Jesus aside and says, oh, no, no, no, Jesus, you don't know this.

[16:09] I need to instruct you and tell you a better way. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. You've totally missed the point. You think you know what I'm about, but you need to learn.

[16:22] Or at the Last Supper, 1 Peter says, Jesus is coming around washing the disciples' feet, and 1 Peter says, not me, Lord, you shall never wash my feet. And then, he flips, and he says, Jesus, don't just wash my feet, wash my hands, wash my head, wash everything.

[16:44] And then later on that night, as the opposition grows, he says, Jesus, I'm ready to lay down my life for you. And then a few hours later, he denies Jesus three times.

[16:57] Right? Peter is the most bipolar disciple ever. Right? He's flipping from one end to the other, from one end to the other.

[17:09] And Jesus calls him a rock. You see, Jesus doesn't just look at Peter and evaluate him based on how he currently is and how he's currently behaving.

[17:20] He sees what he intends Peter to become. He says, Peter, I'm going to make you into a rock, into a stable person, into a leader of the early church.

[17:35] And he does. If you read the book of Acts, Peter stands firm. And he proclaims the gospel. In his first letter, Peter talks about how all of us, like living stones, are being built together into a house by which God lives, in which God lives by his spirit.

[17:55] You see, God the Father is committed to building his house. And he's committed to making every one of his children into all that he has called us to be. He's committed to correcting us when we go wrong.

[18:08] And he's committed to training us to develop our endurance. That's the character of God's discipline. Now, second, we see the necessity of God's discipline.

[18:18] We see this in verses seven and eight. And in these verses, the author is drawing on two well-known cultural practices in the ancient Roman world.

[18:30] Or cultural practices or family arrangements. So first, in the Roman world, fathers had absolute authority. authority over their family. Legally, and basically, no one could override a father's decision on behalf of one of his family members.

[18:48] That was the law in the Roman Empire. That's the first thing, the absolute authority of the father. And second, the unique status of sons. So sons, when they grew up, would carry on the family name and would receive an inheritance.

[19:04] And so the father was particularly involved in training and preparing his sons to receive that inheritance and carry on the family name. Now this was not true of daughters under Roman law.

[19:16] It was also not true of sons born out of wedlock or born to a slave. These were seen as illegitimate and not subject to the authority of the father. Now that's the cultural background.

[19:28] Okay, the author of Hebrews is not affirming every aspect of the cultural background. Actually, he's undermining it, some of it, as we'll see later. But what the author of Hebrews is doing is he's taking these common images from their culture and he's just using the imagery to describe God's relationship to us as his children.

[19:49] So he's saying God is the ultimate father. God has absolute authority over all his creation by definition. No one can override God's decisions.

[19:59] But God is not just an impersonal force. He's not just a distant ruler. He's a father who loves and receives his children, as verse 6 says.

[20:13] From eternity past, God the Father has poured out his love and shared his glory with his only begotten son. But Hebrews tells us that God's only begotten son who became a human being in Jesus Christ has chosen to extend his status to us as sons and daughters of God.

[20:37] So everyone who is united to Jesus through faith, Jesus calls us brothers. Earlier in Hebrews it says Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers. And because Jesus were Jesus' brothers, we're now God's sons.

[20:51] Now, in using that language of brothers and sons, or verse 7 where it says God is treating you as sons, it's not excluding or marginalizing female Christians.

[21:04] What it is saying is that God's family operates on a completely different principle than the Roman world. What he's saying is that in God's family, male and female Christians both bear the name of Jesus and both have full inheritance rights.

[21:23] Both enjoy the blessings that were only reserved for sons in the Roman culture. And he's saying in the family of God, whether you're male or female, you receive all those blessings from God.

[21:34] Full inheritance rights and fully bearing the family name and an honored status in the family. So he says in a Christian church, it's totally different than in the Roman culture.

[21:45] But he says just as a Roman father would intentionally train and prepare his sons to carry on the family name, God intentionally trains and prepares every one of his children.

[22:02] So at times God rebukes us through his word. At times he may even chastise us through affliction. But he is always training us, stretching us, preparing us for glory through hard and painful experiences because we are his children and he is utterly committed to us becoming all that he has made us to be.

[22:24] So Proverbs says don't regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. In other words, don't disregard it. Don't run away from it. Don't ignore it.

[22:36] But he also says don't become weary when rebuked by him. In other words, don't fall into despair. God's not disciplining you because he's rejected you. He disciplines you because he loves you.

[22:47] He's training you and bringing you even through hard experiences to teach you a greater depth of trust in him. He's shaping and forming your character and forging you like metal that is refined through the fire.

[23:03] And when you are tempted, remember that your greatest brother, Jesus, was also tempted. It says Jesus was made perfect through his suffering.

[23:16] Now it doesn't mean that Jesus never needed to be corrected, but Jesus was tested. He was trained. He was stretched in order to develop his endurance and demonstrate his perfect faithfulness.

[23:31] So when we receive God's discipline, when we are trained by it, it is a sign that we are truly God's children, that we are truly connected to God through Jesus, that we are truly included in God's family as brothers and sisters of Jesus.

[23:48] So that's the necessity of God's discipline. We've seen the character of God's discipline, the necessity of God's discipline, and finally, we see the benefits of God's discipline in verses 9 through 11.

[24:00] Verse 9 says that God's discipline leads to life. Now in verses 7 and 8 emphasize some of the parallels between God and human parents, but 9 through 11 emphasize some of the contrasts, and both are important.

[24:16] Verse 9 says, we had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits? Now when you read that, the contrast seems to be this.

[24:29] If we respected our earthly parents, literally it's our fathers of the flesh, it means parents who are mortal and weak and subject to change. If we respected them, he's saying, how much more should we surrender our lives without reservation to God, the father of spirits?

[24:47] In other words, the father in whom there is no change or turning. But actually, the real surprise, if you're looking down at verse 9, you notice that I left out the last two words when I read it.

[25:00] We had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? That's the real surprise of verse 9 is the promise of life.

[25:15] It's saying, God doesn't just call out for our respect and deserve our respect. He also graciously gives us life. Eternal life.

[25:25] Abundant life. Life in his presence. So that's the first promise. That God's discipline is preparing us for abundant life. The second promise in verse 10 is that God's discipline is preparing us to share in God's holiness.

[25:41] Again, there's another contrast. They disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. In other words, human parents have a limited role and their efforts, even if well-meaning, are imperfect as it seemed best.

[26:01] But he disciplines us, God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. God's discipline has a lasting effect, an enduring role.

[26:13] And this is a very important distinction to remember because it's very natural for us to project onto our ideas about God our experience of our own parents.

[26:24] And sometimes that makes us hard, that makes it hard for us to relate to God as he really is because our experience with our own father or mother or even their weaknesses or their absence makes it hard for us to draw near to God in the way that he reveals himself as a father who loves and receives his children, who is faithful and committed and unfailing in his love.

[26:58] And Hebrews reminds us that God is utterly distinct from even the best of human parents. He is the one who embodies and defines true fatherhood.

[27:10] Our parents did the best they could for a limited time. But God's discipline is utterly pure and lasting. It's so that we may share in his holiness.

[27:22] In other words, in God's unstained purity, in his perfect wholeness, unbroken. Hebrews has already told us that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we're set apart for holiness.

[27:37] We're sanctified. It's the same word. Set apart for holiness. And he's saying through his discipline he's making us into what he's already called us to be. He's making us to share in that holiness that we've already been set apart for.

[27:54] So there's the promise of life, of holiness, and third, the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Now verse 11 is very honest. He says, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

[28:08] Isn't that true? Right? In almost any kind of training there's an ironic pattern. If you're studying the more you learn the more you realize how much you don't know.

[28:24] I was a history major in college. I had to take two courses in American history, two courses in European history, three courses in other parts of the world, and three electives. I even took a couple of extras.

[28:35] What I realized over time is that I hardly know anything about history. Half the time when people come to me and say, oh have you read this book written by this historian?

[28:45] I'll say, I have no idea who that historian is. Or do you know about this American president who lived in the late 19th century? And I'll say, none of my history classes covered that.

[28:56] I'm completely ignorant. I'm sorry. I'm a history major and I'm nearly ignorant. Let alone all the other 50 majors that I didn't major in.

[29:07] There's a similar pattern in athletic training. The stronger you get, the weaker you feel. Right?

[29:18] You go out for a good workout with the team or you go to the gym to lift, you come back an hour and a half later feeling weaker and more tired and sore than when you started.

[29:31] Spiritually, the more clearly you see God's character and God's law and God's calling for you, the more clearly you see how far you have to go and the flaws that are still there.

[29:46] But he reminds us that's all part of the process of growth and training. For the moment, it seems painful. But in the long term, there's a peaceful harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.

[30:02] Let me close with a quote from C.S. Lewis. He talks about our life as a house, as God who has purchased us and bought us and is making us into what he's called us to be.

[30:15] He says, imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He's getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on.

[30:27] You knew that these jobs needed doing and so you were not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts terribly and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to?

[30:40] The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.

[30:53] You thought you were being made into just a little cottage. But he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in your house himself.

[31:06] Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you see as our Father far beyond what we can.

[31:22] we thank you that you have destined us for glory through Jesus Christ as your sons and daughters. We pray that you would teach us to endure, to trust what you are doing even when it seems confusing and hard.

[31:44] We pray that we would be trained by your discipline, that we would receive it, that we would not despise it or run away, and that we would not crumple under it and despair.

[31:56] But Lord, we pray that you would remind us that you are a faithful Father who disciplines those you love. Lord, thank you for this word.

[32:08] We pray that you would make it fruitful in our lives this week. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, this morning, we're going to celebrate baptism. baptism. And baptism is a wonderful, symbolic declaration of our status as God's children who are brought into his family through Jesus.

[32:32] Maybe you're here and maybe you're exploring Christianity. Maybe you haven't yet put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You haven't yet said, yes, I want to embark on that journey with him.

[32:45] Well, baptism is a symbolic picture of what it means to do that, to take the plunge, to surrender your life to Jesus. And so, it's an invitation to consider that and consider what God is calling us into.

[33:04] Baptism represents a few things. It's getting dunked in the water, washed in the water, and it represents the work of Jesus Christ that has cleansed us from our sin.

[33:15] Now, baptism is not the way to wash away your sin. Getting dunked in a pool doesn't wash away your sin. But Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we would be cleansed and forgiven, and baptism is a symbolic picture of what God has already done.

[33:30] It's also a public identification with Jesus. And, and, and in a short, and it's, when Jesus was baptized, the heavens were torn open, and God the Father said, you are my son, with you I am well pleased.

[33:47] And we, when we turn to Jesus and trust in him, and when we follow him through baptism, we receive an assurance that we also are God's adopted sons and daughters, beloved, and included in his family that he is well pleased with us.

[34:07] So, if you've been baptized, consider this a reminder and a reaffirmation of your own baptism. Remember what God has promised you. If you haven't been baptized, consider it an invitation. And if you want to talk more about it, feel free to find me after the service.

[34:20] Matt, would you come to the front? Matt's going to share some of his story of how God has worked in his life. I don't think he knew that I was preaching on this passage, and I didn't, we didn't coordinate our stories, but I've seen what he's going to say.

[34:35] It actually connects with this passage really well. So, Matt, why don't you come and share some of what God's done in your life. Hi, everyone. There's a lot of people out here.

[34:51] Morning. For those of you I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, I'm Matt Sherman. Hopefully, I'll get to meet a lot of you at some point or another. I came here just shy of a year ago to take up a job at the University of Bridgeport.

[35:07] as a librarian and thankfully, before I came out here, a number of friends I knew who knew folks in Connecticut had recommended Trinity, so it seemed like a good place to check out and I was really glad I had been able to spend the last 11 or so months worshiping with everyone and getting involved in small group.

[35:30] It's been a really good opportunity to worship and minister out here. so I'm particularly happy today that I'll be coming into membership and as Pastor Greg noted, getting baptized.

[35:44] I was baptized as an infant, but theologically I've come to a different understanding of baptism more in line with what Greg has mentioned. so I'm glad to be able to do all this and kind of publicly profess my faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, and I have not looked at this nearly enough, so I'll probably be paying more attention to the sheet than you guys.

[36:11] My apologies. But I've been asked to, you know, give you a little bit of idea how I got here and the work of grace that's been done in my life.

[36:21] So I started out growing up in a small town in Wisconsin with my family. We largely attended a United Methodist church. They'd done a pretty good job of providing a foundation to build my faith off of, but I wouldn't say I knew Jesus at that point in time.

[36:40] In high school I tended towards the more common misperception of him as a friendly God who would give us what we wanted and, you know, want us to be happy.

[36:52] And there's some truth to that, but even at that point I don't think I was entirely content with that viewpoint. And so when I started at the University of Wisconsin in my freshman year, I wanted to make sure that I got plugged in with a group of believers to really understand who Jesus was and learn more about him.

[37:16] Thankfully the Lord saw a fit to connect me with the local navigator ministry my freshman year and he used that just great, absolutely awesome community to teach me who he really was.

[37:31] By the end of my freshman year, I can confidently say that I knew who Jesus was and that he was my Lord and I kind of, I started loving him not for the nice things he could give me and fulfilling the sinful desires of my heart, but rather that I started loving him for who he was and what he's already done for us in his death on the cross.

[38:00] So I can, and I can see from that over the years how it's, he's been reshaping my desires to be more in line with his. Yet, unlike what a lot of prosperity preachers have to say, God doesn't promise us to fulfill all our desires and give us a life easy or to make us wealthy.

[38:20] So after graduating from Madison, I had to deal with my fair share of hardship as well. A few prolonged periods of unemployment, some very difficult work environments, being strapped for cash financially, some medical issues, and just struggling to put those habitual sins to death, which is still a really frustrating desire.

[38:47] Yet, while he doesn't promise to give us an easy, prosperous life, he does promise us himself that he'll be with us and that he'll never forsake us.

[38:59] And that is a promise I can definitely say I've seen time and again. I can remember the gracious way he used the situations and for my friends to place me in graduate school at a time that I thought it was entirely unlikely.

[39:17] I remember his provision and comfort during those periods of unemployment, comforting me, providing for my needs at the time, and helping me to see, even when I had no prospects, that he was good and he was sovereign, and that I was far better to trust on his provision rather than on my own skills.

[39:41] And I definitely remember his grace in giving me the opportunity to go overseas for six weeks and be part of a team to help with a short-term ministry and see seven people come to Christ at the time we were there, and be given the fun privilege to help those new folks understand and learn about the scripture and the gospel.

[40:05] And I've certainly seen his grace in him bringing me out here in a very rapid and rushed manner and being able to plug in with you guys and be provided for all of my needs in moving to this new community.

[40:22] So I'm particularly glad he's brought me into this community, and I'm happy to be able to join you all today and look forward to be ministering with you all while I'm here in New Haven.

[40:36] Thanks. Thanks. best Thank you.