Review / Introduction:
1 Corinthians 10:13 - No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
2 Corinthians 12:1-6
The Path to Living in God's Strength in 3 Easy Steps! (2 Cor 12:7-10)
- Step 1: Acknowledge God's Sovereignty. (2 Cor 12:7)
- Step 2: Get Real with God. (2 Cor 12:7)
- Step 3: Be Weak, so that grace is your strength. (2 Cor 12:9)
- Last Step: How Do I Know I Am Living In God's Strength? When I am Content. (2 Cor 12:10)
Isaiah 40:31 - they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:43-00:45
Open up your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 12.
00:47-00:52
Today we're going to be talking about trials and hardships that we go through.
00:52-01:02
Specifically, we're going to be talking about how do we get strength to get through those trials.
01:04-01:23
When we go through hardship, Sometimes people try to encourage us, even well-intentioned people in the church try to encourage us, but quite frankly, they give us terrible cliches.
01:25-01:27
I compiled a little list for you.
01:28-01:30
We'll do a family feud style, right?
01:31-01:35
We surveyed a hundred people, top five answers are on the board.
01:38-01:46
Give me a terrible cliche that somebody in the church tells someone else who is going through a hardship.
01:48-01:54
Number five, "This too shall pass." "This too shall pass." How many people have heard that?
01:54-02:13
"This too shall pass." You're going through a hard time and they come to you and they're like, "Hey, I've got a word of encouragement for you." "This too shall pass." "Well, thanks! I feel so much better now, knowing it's gonna pass!" I'm sorry, but that is so not helpful. So not helpful.
02:14-02:14
Number four.
02:17-02:20
You know this one. I spent a lot of time talking about this one about a month or two ago.
02:21-02:24
Number four is, "All we can do is pray."
02:25-02:26
[gags]
02:27-02:28
I hate that!
02:28-02:36
All we can do is pray. Our last-ditch effort is to cry out to the God of the universe who has all power and wants to bless us.
02:37-02:39
That's the only option we have is to cry out to Him. All we can do is pray.
02:41-02:41
Lame!
02:42-02:45
How about the best thing we can do is pray? How about that?
02:45-02:47
All we can do is pray.
02:49-02:51
You know what happens if you say that at harvest, right?
02:53-02:55
Your tithe goes up to 15%.
02:55-02:56
(congregation laughing)
02:58-03:05
Number three, terrible cliches that we try to comfort each other with in the church, but are so bad.
03:05-03:09
Number three, when God closes a door, he opens a window.
03:11-03:17
You know, somebody was really trying to get this job or really banking on something and the Lord didn't allow it.
03:17-03:20
And we come along where God closes a door, he opens a window.
03:21-03:23
You know what, if that's what you were going to say, just don't say anything.
03:25-03:29
Just smile, maybe give a side hug or something, but don't say anything.
03:30-03:34
Number two, God helps those who help themselves.
03:36-03:38
Yeah, God helps those who help themselves.
03:38-03:39
You know what the Bible says?
03:40-03:41
You know what the Bible says?
03:41-03:43
The Bible says God helps those who help themselves.
03:43-03:44
That's not in the Bible.
03:44-03:46
I think Benjamin Franklin said that, actually.
03:48-03:56
But really that's our way of saying, you know, when we say that to somebody, that's our way of saying, "Look, this is totally your problem, not mine." Right?
03:56-04:10
Like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, I'm just really having a hard time and we're financially strapped." And we, "Well, God helps those who help themselves." Like, "Not my problem." Number one, this is by far number one.
04:11-04:21
The number one thing that lame cliches, just terrible cliche that Christians say to people that are going through hardships, this is by far number one.
04:23-04:25
God doesn't give you any more than you can handle.
04:26-04:27
How many people have heard that one?
04:27-04:29
God doesnt give you any more than you can handle?
04:30-04:38
Now right now, I promise you right now, somebody's sitting here, somebody's listening to this, and they're like hang on Pastor Jeff, hang on Preacher Boy, listen, that is in the Bible.
04:38-04:41
And I know for a fact that is in the Bible.
04:41-04:42
God doesn't give you any more than you can handle.
04:43-04:46
I know that's in the Bible, no it is not.
04:46-04:51
That is not in the Bible, that is not in the Bible, anywhere, like I know it is.
04:51-04:52
It's not in the Bible, it's not in the Bible.
04:52-04:52
It's not in the Bible.
04:53-04:54
Trust me.
04:55-04:56
Let me show you what is in the Bible.
04:57-05:04
1 Corinthians 10.13 This is the verse that people get that terrible cliche from.
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But we highlighted some words here.
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I want you to see something.
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"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
05:11-05:47
God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it." Now I'm no John MacArthur, but what do you think that verse is about? Because he says it three times. Here's a little Bible study 101. He says it three times. What's this verse about? Say it. Temptation. Is there anything in that verse about going through trials? No. That is not about going through trials at all.
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What that verse is teaching is that when you are being tempted, God is never going to allow you to be backed into some sort of a corner where your only choice is to sin.
06:02-06:04
That's what that verse is teaching.
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You're like, "I have no other choice.
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I'm going to have to sin.
06:08-06:19
I'm going to have to, whether it's violating my marriage covenant or stealing something or being dishonest at work, I don't have any other choice but to sin.
06:19-06:22
The Bible says God will never let you be put in that situation.
06:22-06:24
That's what that verse is about.
06:24-06:34
It does not say, God won't give you more trials, more hardships, than you can handle.
06:35-06:47
Because honestly, if that were true, and that's what we're getting to our sermon today, if that were true, that God doesn't give you more trials than you can handle, If that were true, that would be horrible!
06:50-06:52
Listen to me, church, thank you, I was waiting for that.
06:54-06:55
Try this one.
06:55-07:03
If all the trials you get is what you can handle, you would never need God.
07:05-07:07
You wouldn't need small group.
07:09-07:10
You wouldn't need church.
07:11-07:14
Listen, you wouldn't even need to pray.
07:14-07:21
If the only amount of trials that you ever got in your life was just what you were capable of handling, you wouldn't need to pray.
07:21-07:28
In fact, your prayer would just only be, you know what God, I got this, because you promised I'd be able to handle anything that comes my way, right?
07:28-07:30
You're not gonna give me more than I can handle, God, so I got this.
07:31-07:34
That would be the sum total of your prayer life.
07:35-07:43
You would live a life free of ever needing to really call on the Lord, And that would be worse than any trial that you would ever have to face.
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Could you imagine?
07:46-07:51
Living your whole life and not knowing what it means to cry out to the Lord?
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Not knowing what it means to be delivered from one greater than yourself.
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That's worse than any trial.
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Here's the truth.
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This is a promise.
08:10-08:14
God is going to give you way more than you can handle.
08:14-08:23
He is. He is going to allow into your life way more stuff than you can handle on your own.
08:23-08:28
He is going to allow that, I promise you. He is going to allow that.
08:29-08:34
Because He wants to teach you a very fundamental lesson.
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And that is this, you need Him.
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You need Him.
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So I want you to think this morning as we talk about your trials.
08:47-08:48
I want you to think about your trials.
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Maybe for some of you it is a relationship problem.
08:54-09:05
Maybe it's a family member that you've had a falling out with, or several family members that you've had a falling out with, and you have this trial of reconciliation that just doesn't seem to be happening.
09:05-09:08
Maybe for some of you it's a health problem.
09:10-09:16
You've received a diagnosis of something chronic or maybe something even terminal.
09:19-09:22
Maybe for some of you it has to do with finances.
09:24-09:33
I need way more money than I have and way more than is coming in anytime soon and I don't see how I'm going to financially cover this huge debt that I have.
09:35-09:39
And suddenly you find yourself in the situation that, you know, things that only happen to other people, right?
09:40-09:42
Things that only happen to other people, now they're happening to you.
09:43-09:44
And you're like, now what?
09:47-09:54
So in those times that God allows us to have more than we can handle, what do we often pray for?
09:54-09:59
what do we often ask others to pray for on our behalf?
09:59-10:13
Over and over and over, we hear this phrase, we use this phrase, I'm not criticizing this phrase, this is a good phrase, but over and over we say, please pray for strength.
10:14-10:15
I mean, how many times have we said that?
10:15-10:18
We're talking about our problems with somebody and they're like, well, how can I pray for you?
10:18-10:20
And we say, we just pray for strength.
10:22-10:25
And we do it before the Lord ourselves, God, give me strength.
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God, give me strength.
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God, give me strength.
10:27-10:30
And the question is, well, when we do that, what does that even mean?
10:30-10:31
What are we asking for?
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And what does that look like?
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That's what we're going to be covering today.
10:37-10:39
So what do you think of when you consider the word strength?
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What do you think of when you hear that word strength?
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Just that word strength.
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What's that mean?
10:51-10:56
Is that, maybe for some of us, it's like Popeye is the first thing we think of, right?
10:57-10:57
Popeye.
10:58-11:01
My son's been watching old Popeye cartoons on YouTube, right?
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You all familiar with Popeye?
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Am I totally dating myself here?
11:06-11:08
Younger people, like, I don't know, okay.
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You remember Popeye, right?
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Popeye the sailor man.
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Oh my gosh, and he eats the spinach, and da da da da da da, and you know, and then he, Popeye, strength, right?
11:20-11:52
For some people, they think strength is just mental toughness. Like, yeah, I'm going through this trial, but I'm mind over matter kind of thing. And mental toughness, and maybe for some they consider strength, it's just emotions that are dead to feeling the pain and anxiety that the trial is giving you. Which none of those things are really strength when we talk about it in the biblical sense. So again, praying for Strength is a good thing, but what are we asking for?
11:52-11:54
How do we know when we got it?
11:54-11:56
Well, that's why we're in 2 Corinthians 12.
11:57-12:04
First six verses, I just want to sort of summarize for us to give us a bit of an on-ramp because we're really going to be looking at just verses seven through 10 this morning.
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But in 2 Corinthians 12, verses one through six, Paul was talking about himself in the third person.
12:12-12:14
Paul was actually taken to heaven.
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And he saw things that he said no man could ever speak of on earth.
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Now if you think about it, that could be a real recipe for pride, right?
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Could you imagine Paul sitting down and having breakfast with maybe Peter and John and some of these other guys and Paul's like, "Oh, you think you have a thing with God?
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You think you and God are tight?
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Let me tell you how tight I am with God.
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Do you know God took me to his house in heaven?" "Oh yeah, I saw it.
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I saw it.
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How many times has God taken you to heaven?" "Oh, none." "Oh, okay, okay." All right, just checking.
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How about you?
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Anybody else?
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Anybody else been to heaven?
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Anybody been to heaven?
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Oh no, just me?
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Just me!
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So you see how that could be a recipe for pride?
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Well look at verse 7.
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It says, "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
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You see that twice in the same verse, "to keep me from becoming conceited." In other words, to keep Paul humble because of these revelations, like going to heaven as he just spoke of, to keep Paul usable in ministry, God allowed Paul to experience some terrible ongoing trial from Satan, which he called a thorn in the flesh.
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Thorn is actually a bit of an understatement in the translation.
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A better translation would be a spike.
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Don't think of a little thorn like on a rose or on a jagger bush that pricks your finger.
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Think of a railroad spike.
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That's more to the picture here.
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Stabbed into somebody's side.
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Thorn in the flesh.
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So what was the thorn in the flesh exactly?
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Well, some people say it was eye problems or some other illness or a false teacher who who followed Paul and harassed him?
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And the answer is, we really don't know.
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If God wanted us to know what the thorn in the flesh was, he'd tell us, but he kept it generic so we wouldn't limit it to just that one thing, whatever it was, right?
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Like for example, if the thorn in the flesh, if it was really like, let's say it was eye problems.
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And if in this passage, Paul's talking about eye problems and he's giving us this great principle about trusting God, we'd skim over it because we're like, well, I don't really have severe eye problems.
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I'm going to wear glasses, but nothing like Paul.
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And we just skim over it.
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We would totally miss the principles here.
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So he kept it general for us.
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Because truth is, we all in some level, to some degree, have some form of some thorn in the flesh.
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Whatever it was for Paul, it was so bad.
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Look at verse eight.
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He says, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me." It was so bad that Paul prayed over and over and over that God would take it away and he didn't get the answer that he was praying for.
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Look at verse nine.
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He says, "But he, the Lord, said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, "for my power is made perfect in weakness." Paul responds by saying, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly "of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
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For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
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For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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You notice at the beginning of this passage, Paul's talking about this horrible thwart in the flesh, but by the time we get to verse 10, it seems like everything changed.
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And the reality is Paul's circumstances didn't change, but Paul changed.
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And this is for someone here today too.
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I imagine this is for many someones here today.
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Whatever trial you're going through right now, your trial may not change.
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It might not.
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Oh, it might.
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Today, next week, next year, it might.
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The Lord might take it away. The Lord might resolve it.
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I've seen that happen thousands of times, but looking at Paul's testimony, We can give personal testimony, my family can, to this very fact that sometimes trials don't go away.
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But when you learn to receive God's strength, the way that Paul did in this passage, you're going to change.
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So the path to living in God's strength, we're going to give you three easy steps, straight from the passage here.
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The path to living in God's strength, if you're taking notes, step one.
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It has to start here.
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Acknowledge God's sovereignty.
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Acknowledge God's sovereignty.
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Look at verse 7 again.
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So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
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So here's the $25 question.
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Is the thorn from God or from Satan?
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Well Paul said it was from Satan, but the structure of the text seems to imply that this was also from the Lord at the same time.
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And interestingly, Paul pleaded with the Lord to take it away.
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We don't see anything in the passage where Paul rebuked Satan.
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Right?
17:59-18:03
"I said to thee, Satan, away from me!" We don't see that.
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He took this problem straight to God.
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We need to start here because when we're going through a trial, we often feel like God has abandoned us.
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See it's obvious that Satan had a hand in this trial that Paul was going through.
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And Satan certainly has a hand in the trials that you're going through as well.
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The church, if we're honest, sometimes we give Satan all the credit.
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Like God has no idea what's happening, right?
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And Satan is just destroying us and wreaking havoc on our lives and beating us down!
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And God has no idea.
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God has no idea what's happening.
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And sometimes we pray like we're informing God.
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Like God, do you see this?
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Do you see what this guy's doing?
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As if he doesn't know.
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And we think, well God surely has nothing to do with this.
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God surely can't see what's happening to me and just sit by idly and let it.
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God obviously has no part of what is happening.
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Church, God knows exactly what's going on.
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And He's using it to accomplish something in you.
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Because this is one of the most profound truths from this passage and from others in God's Word.
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This is one of the most profound truths that you can spend the rest of your life trying to wrap your head around.
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That's this.
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Satan wants to break you down and discourage you.
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God wants to build you up and strengthen you.
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and they are both using the same thing to do that.
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Satan's goal is for you to be annihilated.
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For you to give up.
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For you to walk away.
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For you to abandon this thing you have with the Lord.
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Satan wants to beat you down.
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God wants to build you up.
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God wants you to have a greater and deeper faith.
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God wants you to find your strength in Him.
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Satan wants to beat you down.
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God wants to build you up.
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And they're both using the same thing to do it.
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It's the same thing that happened to Job.
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Read the book of Job.
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Just read the first couple of chapters.
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Satan wanted to destroy him and God wanted to display him.
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They used the same thing.
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Same thing happens to Paul here in this passage, right?
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The same thing is happening to you.
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wants to make a shipwreck of your faith. God wants your faith to be stronger than ever.
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And they're both using the same thing to do it. And it's whatever that trial is in your life. See, God wants to humble you. God wants to teach you to live totally in His strength.
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Our problem is not that we are by nature these humble people and God wants to come alongside and say, "Oh, I just need to give him a little self-confidence." That's not our problem.
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Our problem is we have a tendency to live in our own strength.
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Our problem is we have a tendency to try to live a life devoid of needing to lean and rely on the Lord for everything.
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And God allows trials in our lives to make us realize our dependence on Him.
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So whatever you're going through, church, God is not.
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God is not unaware.
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He isn't even just informed.
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If God's Word is true, and it is, God has first-hand involvement of using whatever trial is in your life.
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So that's step one. Acknowledge God's sovereignty.
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The path to living in God's strength. Three easy steps.
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Here's step two.
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We see it from verse 8.
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And it says, "Get real with God." Get real with God.
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In trials, what do we often do?
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We often complain, don't we?
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We often complain to other people.
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Sometimes we mask them as prayer requests, but sometimes we complain.
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Sometimes even if we don't complain to other people, we complain to ourselves.
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Have you been there? I have.
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I have. Oh, I wouldn't say it to anybody in the church, or bring it to an elders meeting or a ministry meeting, but I've complained to myself a lot.
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Like, "I hate this. I'm so sick of this.
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I'm so sick of living like this.
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Why doesn't God do something about this?" Complaining.
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Oh, and sometimes we'll even ask others for prayer, sincerely.
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But like Paul, we need to get real with God.
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Sometimes it's easier to ask others for prayer than to actually pray ourselves, isn't it?
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Look at verse 8 again, Paul says three times, "I pleaded with the Lord." Can you feel the raw emotion in his words?
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Three times, "I pleaded with the Lord." He didn't just say, "I prayed.
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I brought my petition before the Lord." He said, "I pleaded, I begged.
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God, this is horrible.
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Please, God." me. That's how bad it was. God, you need to get this thing out of here." So Paul got real with God, passionate, persistent prayer in church. Let me ask you, when was the last time that you were on your face, crying out and getting real with God? When was the last time you did that? By yourself, on your face, unapologetically, shamelessly crying out to Praying your prayers, but passionately and persistently praying.
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When was the last time you've done that?
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Some of us, maybe it's been far too long.
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Paul says three times.
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Okay, three times wasn't some magic chant, right?
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Wasn't like, you know, "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice," or something.
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"Oh, I got what I wanted!
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I said the magic words!" Or maybe that's not the best example to use in church.
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That was the first thing I could think of, sorry.
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But you get the point. It wasn't some magic chant.
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He's saying over and over, persistently praying, which includes an element as we talk about how to get God's strength.
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We're starting to get closer to the actual reception of it here, because this type of persistent praying is what the Bible calls "waiting on the Lord." Isaiah 40, verse 31, very familiar passage.
25:10-25:18
Look at it again, it says, "They who wait on the Lord shall renew their..." what?
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Their strength!
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And that's what we're going after here, right?
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But here's the problem, we're too accustomed to the instant quick fix.
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And then when the preacher gets up and says, "You need to wait on the Lord." See the Bible says to wait on the Lord.
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You know, as soon as we say that, immediately in our culture, we say, "Wait, wait!
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"I don't wait for anything!" And our culture has certainly put us there, hasn't it?
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We're the kind of people that we stand in front of the microwave while our food's cooking, and we're like, "Oh, what's taking this thing so long?
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"Like, what am I, what am I, a pilgrim?
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"Like, what's taking it so long?" And we're not used to waiting.
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We don't wait for anything.
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Do you remember, at least I remember this, some of you guys remember this, but when we were kids, we were kids, you remember when like new music came out and you would wanna get that new music?
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You remember what you had to do?
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You had to actually get in a vehicle and drive down to National Record Mart, right?
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And then you'd have to go through piles and piles of whether records or cassettes.
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Do you know what cassettes are?
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Records are like still cool, so you know what records are, but maybe you don't know what a cassette is, but ask your mom.
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But we have to go through all these cassettes and look for the album that had the song.
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Do you know what we do now when we want music?
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I heard this, it's just totally floored me.
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I heard this Matt Redman song.
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I'm like, oh, I like that song.
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What's it called?
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I Googled it and found the name of the song, got on iTunes, oh, there it is.
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Boop, download.
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I had it in 15 seconds.
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National Record Mart.
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Look what I got. But you see the point. We don't wait for anything. We don't wait for anything. We want to buy something but we don't have the money for it? Pull out the credit card. What do you mean wait and earn and get more money and save up? What do you mean by that?
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It's not American. Waiting is such a foreign concept. We want the quick fix. We want instant results and then we turn to the Bible and the Bible says, "Wait on the Lord," and we aren't just unwilling to wait on the Lord.
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The problem is we're so unfamiliar with the concept of waiting.
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You don't become a scholar after going to one class.
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You don't become a bodybuilder after one day at the gym.
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You don't become a golf pro after one round of golf.
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All of these things happen with consistency over time.
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And if you want to grow strong in the Lord, if you want a strong faith, that's how your faith is going to grow.
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Consistently seeking the Lord, consistently trusting the Lord, consistently walking with the Lord, consistently, yes, waiting on the Lord, and then you realize that your strength is the Lord.
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And somebody's saying, "Wait, wait, wait, one second, Pastor Jeff.
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I hear what you're saying, but it didn't seem to work for Paul.
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Didn't seem to do him any good because his prayer wasn't answered.
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Paul's prayer wasn't answered.
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You're up here telling me about praying persistently and waiting on the Lord.
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Paul did that and his prayer didn't get answered.
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So why should I do that?
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His prayer didn't get answered.
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Well, you see, that kind of thinking reveals a common misconception.
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And the common misconception is this, answered prayer, answered prayer equals, I got what I asked for.
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And that is such an immature view of prayer.
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That is such an immature view of prayer.
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That when I ask for something, and I get exactly what I asked for, God answered prayer.
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But when I pray for something, and I don't get what I asked for, my prayers were not answered.
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That is not what answered prayer is about at all.
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Because the truth is God did answer Paul's prayer.
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Not by giving Paul what he asked for, but by giving Paul something better.
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Step 3.
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Step 3.
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Be weak.
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Be weak!
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So that grace is your strength.
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Step 3 is be weak.
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Be weak!
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This sermon was about being strong.
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Look at verse 9.
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This was Christ's answer again to Paul's prayer.
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"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" The structure of the Greek implies that this is the answer that Paul got every time that he prayed.
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My grace is sufficient for you.
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For My power is made perfect in weakness." Paul says, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." "My grace is sufficient for you," Jesus said.
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Grace used 155 times in the New Testament.
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Undeserved generosity.
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And when we think of grace, oftentimes we think of grace in terms of salvation.
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Right?
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We are saved by grace, we are saved by grace, and that's absolutely true.
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But grace doesn't stop there.
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Grace is power!
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And it's the power to save you, yes, but it's also the power to keep you.
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And as we see in this passage, grace is the power of God to strengthen you.
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Just as you are dependent upon God's grace for your salvation, You are dependent on God's grace for every step of your walk.
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I love this statement where Jesus says, "My grace is sufficient." Do you realize? This is humorous to me.
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Do you realize what an understatement that is?
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"My grace is sufficient." It would be like if you said to me, "Pastor Jeff, you know what I need?
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I need a handful of sand.
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Can you get me a handful of sand?" And I'm like, "Ah, yeah, get in the car." and I drive you to the beach." And I say, "Here you go." And then I say, "Is this sufficient?" And your answer is, "Yeah, that is way more than sufficient.
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I just needed a handful.
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Here's a beach." It's like that with grace.
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And we're like, "Oh Lord, if I could just have a handful of your grace, oh Lord, I could get through this." and Jesus is like, "Here's a beach.
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Way more than you ever need. My grace is sufficient.
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It's enough. And it's more than enough." You're like, "Pastor Jeff, I'm not sold on any of this.
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I don't need strength to get through this.
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You know what I need, Pastor Jeff? I need this trial to go away.
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I hear what you're saying, I see it in the text.
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I totally get this Jeff, but I don't need strength.
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I need this trial to go away.
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And I want to tell you that that might not happen.
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That might not happen.
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And maybe that's not what you really need anyways.
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Because God uses the trials in your life in many specific and customized ways, but there's one thing that God accomplishes in every single trial.
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He wants you to learn to depend on Him for His strength.
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So instead of turning away the trial, God often chooses to turn up the grace.
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Because you can't live in your strength and in God's strength at the same time.
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You can't do it.
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You can't live in your strength and God's strength at the same time, And if you are striving to navigate through your life and navigate through your trials in your own strength, God can't pour his strength into you.
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You see, Jesus said, "My power is made perfect in weakness." And this is another paradox of the Bible.
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The Bible's full of these things, right?
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You want to be exalted?
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What do you have to do?
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Humble yourself.
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That's a paradox.
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What?
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Bible says you want riches?
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What do you do?
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Give everything away.
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That doesn't seem like the way to get rich.
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Bible says, here's another paradox.
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Do you wanna be great?
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You wanna be great?
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Who doesn't wanna be great?
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Jesus said, you wanna be great, you have to be what?
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A slave.
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It's a paradox.
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Here's another one.
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Do you want power?
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Do you want power from God?
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Do you want the power of God resting upon you?
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What do you have to be?
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You have to be weak.
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You have to be weak.
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Is your tank on empty?
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That's great news.
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Because God only fills tanks that are on E.
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His power is made perfect in weakness.
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God's not going to be able to pour into you if you're full of yourself.
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So how do you know you've received strength from God?
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Well, here's the last step.
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You're like, oh, wait, wait, wait, you said three steps.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, three steps.
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You can leave now if you want.
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But I would advise against that because the question is, well, how do I know, did it take?
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Am I living in God's strength?
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How do I know that I really receive strength from God?
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How do I know I'm living in God's strength?
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And here's the answer, when I'm content.
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That's how you know.
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That's how you know you're living in God's strength.
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It's when you're content.
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Because look at verse 10.
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He says, "For the sake of Christ then I am content.
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I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities." And then Paul says why he's content.
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Look at this last phrase.
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He got it.
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He says, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." You know that you're living in God's strength content.
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Do you want to find somebody that's living in the strength of God? You find the guy. You find the guy who's going through trials. Who's going through severe trials.
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Who you're thinking, "Man, I could never go through what he's going through." And he says, It's okay. God is good. He's going to get me through this a day at a time.
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I'm content. That's biblical strength.
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You find the lady, that from a human perspective, you're like, "I don't know how she does it. I don't know how she survives. I don't know how she makes it." She says, "God has a plan. It's okay. I appreciate your prayers. It's okay." Content.
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I'm not complaining about it. It doesn't consume me.
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And listen, church, it doesn't define me.
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I'm content in trusting God each day that He gives me.
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To give me the grace to endure.
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If you're a follower of Christ, I know what you want more than anything is to draw near to God.
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You have to know that as much as you want to draw near to God, even more so God wants you to draw near to Him.
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God's more fired up about your walk with Him than you are.
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So can you be content with whatever God uses in your life to accomplish this?
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Can you be content with that?
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You know, Paul could point to that thorn in the flesh, and he could say, "You know this, this thing, this thorn?
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I hate this!
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I hate this!
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But at the same time, I've learned that this thing is beautiful.
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This thing puts me on my face.
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This thing makes me cry out to God in a way that I wouldn't cry out to God if this thing wasn't afflicting me.
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So church, today, like Paul, celebrate your weakness.
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So that you can celebrate the strength of God in you.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank You.
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We thank You for the truth of Your Word.
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The subjective truth that takes us outside of ourselves.
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The subjective truth that teaches us, God, that Your strength is made perfect in our weakness.
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Your Word that tells us that Your grace is sufficient.
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And Father, I pray for myself, I pray for my household, I pray for every household represented here.
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Every individual, every family, every young person, every not-so-young person.
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I pray for every one of us here, Father, that whatever stuff we are going through, we would find Your grace to be sufficient.
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That like Paul, we'd be able to boast in our weaknesses, knowing that that's the very thing that gives the opportunity for the power of Christ to reside in us.
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Father, I pray that You would teach us to think biblically.
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We'd reexamine what it means to pray, what it means when prayer is answered.
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We'd reexamine what it means to be strong.
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We'd reexamine what Your Word teaches about how to live in Your grace and in Your strength.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
What was the worse piece of advice / lamest attempt at being comforted that you have ever experienced / heard?
"Satan wants to tear you down and God wants to build you up - and they are both using the same thing to do it." React to this statement in light of Biblical and personal testimony.
What's the difference between "saying your prayers" and "praying"?
How do you know, truly know, that you are living in God’s strength? (See 2 Cor 12:10)
What was your one big "take-away" from this passage / message?
Breakout Questions:
When was the last time you truly prayed, on your face, crying out before the Lord? How can you be more consistent in doing so? Challenge one another on this and pray for one another.