Romans 12_9-13 ~ Part 3 - Thirty Marks of a True Christian
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Summary
The 30 Marks of a Faithful Christian are a series on the 30 Characteristics of a True Christian. They are: Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer. In this episode, we will cover these 30 Character Standards and how they relate to facing life's trials.
Transcript
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By God's grace, we are here today in Romans 12.12.
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So welcome back to this beautiful multiple part series on the faithful or the 30 marks of a true Christian.
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I almost wish that I labeled it the 30 marks of a faithful Christian, but I think you can understand the distinction there.
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Today, we are, so we've covered verses 9 through 12 so far,
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Today, we are going to get into Marks 8, 9, and 10.
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And they are rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer.
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I'd like you to just, I'm going to take you back into some context, just briefly go over where
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we've been to remind you about Romans 12. Romans 12 is the beginning of a shift from orthodoxy
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in the chapters 1 through 11 to orthopraxy in chapters 12 through 15. It's the shift that
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went from what we believe to how we behave because of that particular belief. Now the apostle
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opened up chapter 12 stating that because of the gospel, because of the gospel he just presented
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in the previous chapters, our duty as Christians is to sacrifice and surrender. To sacrifice and
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and it is our reasonable service. In other words, these 30 marks,
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they're not untethered commands of moralism. It's just not random virtues that you could find
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in a book. They are responses to the mercy and grace of the gospel.
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this isn't just something you do it's something you do because of what has been done
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it is a shift in the way we think they are to be carried out from a heart of gratitude
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and love not from a heart of performance or a heart to earn standing before god
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I often remind people, obedience does not earn you standing before God.
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But your obedience and your disobedience does not change your standing before God.
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It is only the obedience of Christ by which you stand.
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Now, these 30 marks are presented as a series of interconnected exhortations.
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They each stand independently, yet collectively they reflect this beautiful character of a faithful Christian.
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Now, today, we're not only focusing on one verse, we're focusing on three processes within one verse.
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And I say that because rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
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One, you could write a book on each one of those statements, by the way.
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But they are each one process or one dimension of this greater process of how the Christian faces life's trials.
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Now, if you're old enough, you know that life is filled with extremely difficult trials.
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Scripture aims to prepare Christians for trials.
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The greatest temptation out of hell is to live without trials.
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Faith grows stronger when it faces the sharp winter storm.
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You cannot quietly slip into heaven without a cross.
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Crosses shape us into his image, cutting away the pieces of our corruption.
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Do anything to perfect your image in us and make us fit for glory, end quote.
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That is a different perspective than the world has around facing trials.
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And when those crosses bite you as they bit Christ, verse 12 is your counselor.
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rejoice in hope, persevere in tribulation, and be constant in prayer.
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We're going to begin with what I would say is Mark number eight.
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It's in verse 12, point number one, rejoice in hope.
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Now, this short command calls for two actions, the actions of rejoicing and a possession of hope.
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We know we have a baby in this congregation named Cairo.
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Now, the word here is in the present tense, and it's really calling us to a state of constant, ongoing rejoicing.
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over 200 times the scripture calls god's people to rejoice it is a constant and ongoing ethic
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of the christian life the more widely known passages philippians 4 4 which says rejoice
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in the lord always again i will say rejoice psalm 118 24 says this is the day that the lord has
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made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. And Romans 12, 15, which we're going to touch on next week,
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says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
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But rejoicing isn't something that you do. It's the natural result of what has already been done.
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It's important to make this distinction. Rejoice isn't just something you do.
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it's actually the result or the effect of something that has been done
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as christians we rejoice because why because of our forgiveness of sin
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because of our righteousness before god in christ because of our possession of eternal life
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that's why we rejoice we rejoice because something happened to us
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now some of you might be thinking i know those truths and yet i still struggle to rejoice
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i know that life is tough it's busy it's difficult
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and it's sometimes difficult to be in a constant state of rejoicing
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now here's the reason why we struggle to rejoice
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what we are saved to let's just say eternal life what we are saved to eternal life finds its
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potency when it's viewed against the backdrop of what we have been saved from which is eternal
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death stay with me here in other words the good news of the gospel the good news of the gospel
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the joy of the Christian life. It shines brightest when it's contrasted with the darkness of our
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former condition. It's a remembrance of who we once were. I think of Ephesians 2. And you were
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dead in your trespasses and sins in what you once walked, following the prince and power of the air,
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walking in the ways of wickedness in the flesh, loving it like the rest of mankind. It's a
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spiritual biography of who we were, and Paul saw that it was right to remind us of who we were.
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People don't rejoice in the value of circumstances they don't fully understand.
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They don't rejoice in the value of a circumstance they fully don't understand.
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It's the ethic of being entitled. You can maybe
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well, I'll give you a fun example because we have a lot of homeschool parents here.
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Homeschool kids can get away with a lot more than public school kids. Waking up at eight,
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getting started at 9 30, not having a lot of things to get done. You have two hours of school.
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They don't even appreciate how easy it is in comparison to the rigor that happened in public
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school because they don't understand. They can't contrast it to what other children or what we as
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parents may have gone through. And so people don't rejoice in the value of circumstances they don't
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fully understand. Let me explain this, how this affects us. The church has so severely downplayed
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what we have been saved from, that we do not rightly rejoice in what we are saved to,
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And what I mean is that if we don't grasp the weight, if we don't grasp the weight of our sin
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or the cost of redemption, we will never express the proper weight of joy.
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Why do you not rejoice? Because you don't understand sin. Because you don't understand
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the gospel. John Owen once said, he that has low thoughts of his sin will never have great thoughts
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of his salvation. He who has low thoughts of his sin will never have great thoughts of his
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salvation. He goes on to say, the heart that is little affected by the condemnation of sin
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will have little joy in the forgiveness of it. We live in a church that has completely downplayed
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sin. I drove by this morning on a billboard. It said, Jesus loves you so much that he came to die
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for you. John 3.16. It's one half of the gospel, but it's the second half first.
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The good news is only good because the bad news is bad. And if you have the good news without the
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bad news, you lose all the potency of the circumstances or the value of those circumstances
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because you don't understand what you have been saved from.
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When you read the great Puritans and you look back at Thomas Watson or Samuel Rutherford or John Owen.
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You know, John Owen wrote the book, The Mortification of Sin.
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If you just could imagine the perspective that these men had around the grievousness of sin.
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It's the reason why their praise and worship is so high.
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They understand what they have been saved from and they boast in it.
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Do not ever forget what you have been saved from.
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in Christ we have received the forgiveness of sin.
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If we don't see this as remarkable, if we don't grasp the gravity of the gospel,
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you will never appreciate the salvation that you have been given as you ought.
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Colossians 2, 13 through 14 reminds us of the grandeur of redemption.
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It says, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made
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alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt
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that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
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you could spend your whole life meditating on that passage of scripture
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the greatness of it and I say this often if you can't get to a place where the gospel makes you
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weep you need to sit and ponder the gospel more I'm not saying that hey go home and cry every day
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about the gospel. I'm just saying is that if you can't get to a place where you grasp the absolute
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scandal of the gospel, that sinners have been reconciled through the righteousness of Christ,
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you will never rejoice as you ought. See, part of rejoicing is remembering.
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And it's memorializing. It's meditating. It's praising. It's exactly why we come to church.
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It puts before you the reality of sin and the greatness of the cross.
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If you forget about the cost of your redemption, you will not rejoice.
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Now, life is significantly difficult for many people that lack hope.
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I don't know if you've met people without hope. I have.
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Hopelessness is continuing to grow in a world without Christ.
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Hopelessness makes the human heart a grave before its time.
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i often remind people that atheism atheism doesn't just remove all morals you know atheism does
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it removes all hope it is an absolute disaster for hope the word hope is defined as the expectation
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of obtaining or experiencing something good. That's what hope is. Now, I truly believe
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that Christians are the only people who have genuine, imperishable, and unconditional hope.
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People in the world have hope, but it's not unconditional and it's not imperishable.
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so the reality is is that we have unconditional joy we have unconditional hope despite our
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conditions whether it's cancer whether it's the death of a child whether it's the loss of a job
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you have hope that is not influenced by conditions it doesn't perish when those things go away
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we have unconditional joy we have unconditional hope again the atheist can find superficial
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hope. They can find temporary hope in health, in friends, in future plans, in finances or
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material realities. But again, these are perishable. These are brittle forms of hope.
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And it's so sad to watch somebody have all of their hope in something that falls apart.
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Christ is the only thing that you can have hope in that does not fall apart. It's not dependent
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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you have an unending supply of eternal hope and this might not be a big deal to you right now
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but I promise you when you're sick or when someone dies or when something significant
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occurs in your life you will want to remember that truth you have an unending supply of eternal
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hope. It's the only thing that'll carry you. That's it. Don't think that you're going to
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turn to anything else that will carry you through the death of your spouse
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or the diagnosis that takes you or the betrayal of a friend.
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We have hope in prayer. We have hope in life. We have hope in death. We have hope in death.
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What an amazing reality that is. And I promise you that passages like Romans 15, 13, which says,
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now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you will abound
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in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I know that there will be a day that you latch on to
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that verse. There will be a day that you hope a pastor comes and
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reads that verse to you. These are not small passages of
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scripture. These are mountain peaks. These are truths. These
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are worthy of memorizing, writing down. I often tell people we
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want to be prepared for suffering before suffering. You
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don't want to be figuring out your theology of suffering in the midst of suffering. You don't
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want to try to figure out, what do I think about the sovereignty of God? Am I placing the blame
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on the devil? Is it natural law? Is it God himself? Is this evil that God's doing this to me?
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What's happening here? What kind of theology and framework do you have when something shatters
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your life. It's important to study a theology of suffering before suffering.
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So the conclusion of the first mark is to find your joy in the hope of your salvation.
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mark number nine i have to keep saying number nine because otherwise everybody's gonna be
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turning to mark nine but no mark number nine be patient in tribulation now before we examine
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the meaning of what it means to be patient in tribulation i just want to look at the words
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for a second because i think the words the etymology uh the the definitions of these words
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will be helpful and useful. Now, depending on your translation, you could see the word endure.
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You could see steadfast, patient in tribulation, persevering in trials, it might translate.
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I actually believe that persevere is probably and very likely Paul's intended meaning for that word,
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and here's why. Paul always links hope and perseverance together. He just does. Romans 5,
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2 through 4, Romans 8, 24 through 25, 1 Corinthians 13, 7, 1 Thessalonians 1, 3. Again, this is just
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as an interpreter that's trying to be faithful with the text, the hope of salvation is the means
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to endure trials and suffering. That is a theme across Paul's writings. Now in the Greek, the word
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for persevere means to remain under, to not flee. When trials come and difficult suffering
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is in front of you, to persevere is to remain under it.
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now the word tribulation means literally it means to crush it means to press
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and so this could actually be rendered by hope remain under the crushing weight
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by hope persevere remain under what is crushing
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and we do that by rejoicing in that hope but it's remain under it now i don't know about you
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But I can relate with that definition because the last five years of my life have been shaped by the crushing and pressing weight of chronic illness.
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Just a couple days ago, I tried adding something new into my eight foods that I eat for the last several years and found myself struggling to breathe with an EpiPen in my hand.
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The Lord has given me enough strength to operate almost like a normal person
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And I have been shaped, I have been shaped by the crushing and pressing weight of that illness.
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I know many of you have had longstanding trials,
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bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
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I remember early on when I began having chronic illness or suffering,
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today I weigh about 155 pounds when I moved to Arizona I weighed 128 pounds
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it's 30 pounds lighter than I am right now I remember family members and friends telling me
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that they thought maybe I had cancer and the verse of bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the
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law of Christ many people continue to bear that burden but they bore it with me for a week or a
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month. And when I would tell them six months later that it was still there, they couldn't grasp the
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reality of bearing until it's gone. They can't grasp the reality of bearing burdens with people
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in a form of long-suffering. I don't know if you ever walked anybody through
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debilitating illness or a disease like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, years-long suffering.
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That's the kind of pressing that shapes you. It literally changes who you are.
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and like many of you who have endured those types of trials it taught me that there are certain
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types of sanctification that can only be accomplished by God through long-standing
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suffering there are parts of me that I don't believe could have changed any other way
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I remember in 2019, it was about the start of my health trials,
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It was new to me and it was shocking that I couldn't breathe the way that I wanted to breathe
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or that I used to breathe or I couldn't eat or do the things that I wanted to do that I used to do.
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And I was asking for prayer, and I finished immediately, and I opened up the Bible app on my phone,
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and the verse of the day, that day, was 2 Corinthians 12, 9 through 10.
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And it caused me to weep, because it's probably the best verse for the particular prayer that I prayed.
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and it says it's this paul when he is asking for the removal
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of a pain or a thorn in his flesh and god responds to him by saying
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but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you
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Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses
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with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions
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without the Holy Spirit, by the way. You can't respond that way without the grace of the Holy
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Spirit. That is supernatural response right there. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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That makes no sense to the flesh, none whatsoever. Now, the word weakness,
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which was used four times, if you noticed, in that two-verse section.
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That word is athesnea, and according to Strong's lexicon, this word is a state of weakness
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definition. But the secondary and tertiary definitions, it says
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in the lexicon, in the New Testament, it is used both in a physical sense referring to bodily
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ailments or sickness. It's almost always translated as infirmities.
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Your New King James, I think, and maybe your King James will translate it as infirmities.
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it says in a metaphorical sense indicating moral or spiritual weakness
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it often highlights human frailty and the need for divine strength
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to remain under something that is absolutely crushing you
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we have to be like paul who sees god's grace as sufficient that's number one
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the hardest part about trials is that your flesh will tell you that you don't deserve this
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but the reality is is that you deserve much worse this is the hardest part of suffering
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i don't deserve to be sick i deserve to be well like that man or that woman
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the reality is is no you deserve hell you deserve suffering and so if you can get to the place where
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you deserve nothing then all becomes grace all of it becomes grace and it's how God can say my grace
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is sufficient for you even though you have a difficult suffering circumstance before you
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It is sufficient. It is enough. In fact, it is too much.
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And so we have to be like Paul, who sees that our pressing, one, is not eternal.
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These people that suffer and they think that suicide is going to solve their problem but deny Christ.
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No, you are killing yourself to a place that is much worse.
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Suffering for the pagan is a foretaste of hell.
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But suffering for the Christian, and I've said this many times before,
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you might feel like your circumstances and your life is crumbling,
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but your life is crumbling in the hands of God it is crumbling in a way that will sanctify you
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and that will shape you into Christ James 1 2 through 4 says count it all joy my brothers
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when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith
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produces steadfastness or perseverance the same word and let steadfastness have its full effect
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as shaping you and sanctifying you and preparing you for glory.
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persevering when you are experiencing crushing circumstances is not a call for you to just, quote, man up,
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as they said, and to grit your teeth and to bear it.
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That is the world's way of dealing with difficult situations.
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God has given his children a better way to navigate the roaring waters of adversity
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And in context, it is by having one's mind and heart strengthened by the hope of salvation in which they are rejoicing.
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In short, since hope is fixed on our glorious future, it is independent of our present crushing circumstances.
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Therefore, a man can meet anything when he meets it with Christ.
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it seems so foreign until you're there until you need it until you need to actually take
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this passage of scripture and apply it the last mark is mark number 10 and it's be constant
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in prayer according to scripture prayer is the act of calling upon god
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In fact, the very first prayer exists in Genesis chapter 4.
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It is one chapter after God has promised Eve that there will be a serpent crusher that restores them essentially to Eden.
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And you better believe that they thought that Abel or Cain maybe was going to be this serpent crusher.
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And then Seth was born, and they thought, oh, maybe he will be this promised serpent crusher.
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And it says in chapter 4, verse 26, at that time, people began calling upon the name of the Lord.
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They were waiting. Oh, Lord, I'm calling on you to fulfill your promise.
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As I mentioned earlier, these three commands are interconnected.
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They're pieces of one process for facing life's trials.
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If I produced a literal translation from the Greek of this passage,
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it would say, in hope, rejoicing. In tribulation, enduring. In prayer, persevering.
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It's worthy to write on your walls in your house. It's worthy to memorize. It's actually
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cyclical in its logic. If you look at it just for a second with me, hope fuels our endurance.
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Endurance drives us to prayer. Prayer patiently restores our hope. It's this process over and
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over and over again. But without prayer, you break your own cycle. Without prayer,
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you break your own cycle. Now, prayer may be the most neglected spiritual discipline in the church,
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unfortunately. I once read that any experienced Christian can reflect that 100 will attend on
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Sunday, 50 will attend midweek Bible study, and five will attend the prayer gathering.
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We know that to be true from experience. Prayer is the least popular spiritual discipline in the
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church. It's a sad truth. I'm going to give you an example from my own life. Strangely,
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suffering has drawn me to prayer more than anything else.
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It's a strange truth to think about. Suffering drives you to the cross.
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What's even more strange is that wellness seems to drive me away from it.
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that is, I often tell a story of a metaphor that I was thinking of when I was extremely unwell.
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I felt like I was a dog chained to a post and I couldn't do anything.
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I felt like I was stuck. I wanted to participate. I wanted to go out. I remember watching my kids
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swimming in the summer, and they were being tossed around by some stranger who happened to be in the
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swimming pool, at this public swimming pool, and he was 70 years old, and he had way more strength
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than I had. And I remember feeling like just tied to this post, and then I wanted to go, and I
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couldn't. And then I started to get well, and I recognized that that post was Christ.
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I recognize that when you're sick, you'll find yourself in prayer way more than you find it
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when you're well. It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. Paul commands us to be constant
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or devoted to prayer. It's an ongoing reliance upon God. I'm not just talking about prayers
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in the morning or prayers in the evening. That's step one. If you're not praying in the morning
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and the evening, you have work to do. This is something that you should ought to do because
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you're saved. If you don't pray, I'm literally concerned for your salvation. People that don't
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pray, concern me. John Calvin once said, prayer is the chief exercise of faith. It's the chief
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exercise of faith. Robert Haldane said, unceasing continuance in prayer is the best remedy against
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spiritual fatigue? Are you tired and weak? Are you worn down by the trials of life?
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Do you pray? Do you pray enough? I'm not saying that you need to be praying every second of the
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day. I don't think that prayer without seizing means that you're literally praying every single
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I think it's at the front of mind. You're constantly turning and calling upon God for
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everything, small things, big things. You must not think of prayer as something that takes from you.
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And this is the problem. The reason you don't pray is because you think that it takes from you.
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But something, but prayer is something that gives to you. It's actually a very efficient
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fueling station for the Christian life. We have to think like Martin Luther. Remember this quote.
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Martin Luther says, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.
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Prayer is calling upon God to help you be effective for the day.
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It's, for many more reasons, a way to conform your will to God's will.
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Now, I believe the neglect of prayer revolves around three quick, brief points that I'll make.
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number one is the unwillingness of your flesh. Our flesh cries out for comfort and prayer is work.
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Prayer is work. It takes time and it's difficult. Every time I get down to pray, it's hard.
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It's never easy. It always takes my flesh to care. And you know what's hard? It's caring.
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caring is hard it means you actually concern yourself with other people and other needs
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that aren't natural to your flesh number two the pride of our own hearts our hearts
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resist the regular acknowledgement of our need for god and deceive us into thinking that we
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can manage without him. That's why you don't pray. Prayer is a regular acknowledgement of God.
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And your flesh and your heart says, honestly, I don't really need it. Not right now.
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I don't need you right now, God. I got this. And number three is the ignorance of its power.
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E.M. Bounds who wrote more on prayer than any other theologian I can think of
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his book The Pastor in Prayer which is available in the Relearn app
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is maybe the most impactful book I've ever read it is absolutely astounding
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on the topic of prayer and he once said quote the greatest tragedy of life
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is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.
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prayer is the nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.
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Prayer is the means by which God blesses your life.
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now i know as christians who believe in the sovereignty of god it's easy to just say you
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know i'm going to resign myself to god's plan you know god's sovereign it's going to just happen
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anyway i don't need to pray i don't need to intervene god doesn't need my prayers to make
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his plan come to pass but as we see here and in many other places prayer is a command
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It's something that you do out of the mercy of the gospel.
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If you've ever been attacked, this is my favorite scripture.
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It says, when the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
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it's an amazing promise prayer is calling on god to fulfill his promises
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when the righteous cry for help the lord hears and delivers them out of their troubles
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and philippians 4 6 and we'll close here in a second that says do not be anxious about anything
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but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known
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to God and so the combination this combination in verse 12 of rejoicing in hope
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enduring in tribulations and being constant in prayer
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is perhaps the most concise and practical guide
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Turn to Romans 12, 12 and ask yourself, how am I living out these three commands?
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Father, we thank you, Lord, for the blessing of the gospel.
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Lord, that we can rejoice and that we can rejoice in hope.
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And Father, that that hope allows us to persevere in suffering and tribulations and trials.
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and lord we know that that rejoicing and that hope is restored in prayer
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father we ask that you would teach us these things that we might be a strong congregation
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that you might use us as a means to bring weaker brothers and sisters into the flock that we might
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disciple them of the truth of this particular passage of scripture lord that we are a suffering
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people that we suffer according to your word father we ask for your help in this and we thank