Well, it's interesting, this thought hit me as I was looking at our passage this week. You know, Paul is writing to an audience very similar to us. The church at Corinth is part of the only superpower in the world at that time, the empire of Rome. They have enjoyed, like us, a good season of peace. Few years after this, everything breaks open against the church.
Society comes against them. They are enemy number one. The apostle Paul is writing to the church during the calm before the storm. And I love what A.W. Tozer says.
Tozer says what comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What comes to our mind when we think about God, it's the most important thing about us. Romans 15 the apostle Paul gives us four names of God four titles of God only Christians can call him lost people can't call him that because here's what the Bible said whether you know it or not before you got saved do you know the Bible says you were an enemy of God Romans chapter 5 verse 10 says, we were God's enemies. Colossians 121. Once you were alienated from God and you were his enemies.
At one time, our sin, our rebellion separated us from God. We were God's enemies. But the day came when you said that man hanging on a cross, that's the God man. He took my rebellion. He took my sin.
He took my wickedness. He's dying in my place. He was buried. He came back to life. And the moment you turn from your sins and turn to Jesus Christ, you are adopted as a child of God.
You are no longer enemies of God. You are children of God. And because of that, you have titles for God the rest of the world can't have. And so let's look at this. What's one title that we have of God?
Well, verse 5 says, God for us is the God of patience. Look at verse 5.
Now, may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus. May the God of patience.
Now, that's not a good translation. The Greek word, I've told you before, is my favorite Greek word. It's hupomeno. It's a compound Greek word. Hupo means under.
Meno means to remain. You put that word together. Hupomeno means to remain under a heavy load, to remain under a burden. Everybody else is telling you, throw in the towel, give up. You've sinned again.
You messed up again. You told yourself you'd never do that again. And you find yourself doing the same sin over and over. You're fighting, you're struggling. You've been praying for that kid for 15 years.
He's not come home. You've been praying for that mother to get healed. She's not gotten healed. Everybody's telling you just to give up. And who Pomeno says, you don't throw in the towel.
You stay strong and you do not give up. And where does that strength come from? You ever, you ever had anybody ask you, man, how are you still hanging in there? You've been through so much. I can't imagine going what you going through what you've been going through.
Anybody ever asked that before? You know, the answer is the God of Pomeno, the God of patience. I don't have strength in myself, but that God gives me strength to hang in there. I love it. Jot this down.
Read this next week. Read Judges 8 this next week. In Judges 8, I love this story. Gideon is a mighty warrior. He's taken, what, 300 men and coming up against the army of tens of thousands.
And they go to battle and they fight. And through the power of the Spirit, Gideon and his army puts this other army to flight. And they start chasing them through the desert. And as they're chasing and they're tired and they're weary, some of their kinsmen come up and start griping and complaining. They're whining.
You didn't ask us to get in the battle. You didn't do this. You didn't do that. They're criticizing them. You ever been there before?
You feel outnumbered in the battle. You feel outnumbered in the fight. And on top of that, you got family members griping. You got family members complaining. Everybody seems to be griping and complaining.
That's what Gideon was going through. And this army, they're still fighting. They're still pursuing them. And there's a verse in Judges 8. It describes somebody in this place today.
All this mess is coming against them. People are griping. People are complaining. And it says in Judges 8, 4, these men were weary, but still pursuing. That's somebody in this place today.
You're getting tired of the fight. You've been waiting for that kid to come home for decades. She's not come home yet. You're weary, but you ain't going to give up. Why?
You're still pursuing because the God of hupomino, the God of perseverance is on your side. Hey, let me say the next time somebody says to you, man, I don't know how you're still hanging in there. How are you doing it? You say, well, let me give you my secret. My secret is this, But those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary. They will walk and not faint. Because we've got the God of patience on our side.
So what's one title? He's the God of patience. And then Paul gives us a second title. I'm going to say this again. If you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, you can't call God to tell you his title is.
This is for those of us who have been adopted as children of God through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is also the God of comfort. Do you see that in verse five?
Now may the God of patience and comfort.
Now, again, I'm not wild about that term comfort. That's actually a Latin word. Cum forte means to come along with strength. The Greek word for comfort, here it is. Para kaleo.
Para means beside. Kaleo means to call. Para kaleo means God is the God, watch this, who has come to your side. And I don't care what you're going through and I don't care how many times you've messed up and who you've messed up with. If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, God is the God of comfort.
He is walking right alongside of you.
Now, look, I'm not as smart as a lot of y'all, so I have to kind of think, you know, with illustrations here.
So as I was thinking about this this past week, this illustration popped in my head. I can't remember if I saw this on YouTube. Yeah, I'm a big YouTube addict. I don't know if I saw it on YouTube or America's Funniest Videos or something. But I saw this video one time of this little teeny tiny boy with a little baseball uniform on and he's playing t-ball.
Y'all know what t-ball is where they have that little stand and whatever. And his dad is trying to teach him how to hit the ball.
So they got this t-ball game.
Now again, I'm trying to illustrate Paracaleo, called to your side. And the kid swings, misses, swings, misses. and he finally connects with that ball and the ball just hits the ground. The dagger's crazy. And the kid's just standing there and says, run, kid, run.
And so the kid starts running and he still has the baseball bat. And the dad says, put the bat down. The kid puts the bat down. And the kid is running toward first base and then all of a sudden he turns and starts running toward the dugout. And the father's still running alongside him.
Let me tell you something. Father did not go, hey, moron, go back. He didn't do that. He said, kid, Lodo, go back that way, that way. And the kid runs this way and he over-cracks and starts going toward the pitcher's mound.
And the dad gets on the other side and he says, no, no, no, no, no, get back on track. And so as this kid is running to first base, the dad is running right alongside of him. You doing it you doing it And when that kid hit first base you have thought he won the gold medal in the summer Olympics Dad just started jumping up and down. You did it. You did it.
You did it. And that's what came to my mind when I hear that God is a God who is called alongside of us. God loves you. He cares for you. And when you get off track, the father is still with you.
And he says, no, no, no, we got to get back on track again. And you start going this way and the father comes alongside of you and says, no, no, this is not healthy and this is not biblical. Let's get back on track. And you run and the day is going to come when you close your eyes in this world and open your eyes in the next world, standing on base with your father jumping up and down beside you because you made it and he was with you and he never left you. That's the God of comfort of perikaleo.
So who is this God? He's the God of patience. He gives me strength just to hang in there. He's the God of comfort. He's beside me, cheering me on.
And then Paul says he's also the God of hope. Do you see that in verse 13?
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.
Now what does it mean, hope? Doesn't mean fingers across, I hope this works out. That's not what it means. Here's what hope means. Hope means the knowledge That he's in charge He's got a plan He knows what's going on And in the end This is all going to work out That's what hope means Y'all believe that?
Do you know how depressed I would be If I did not have If I didn't know that there was a God In control And everything that happened this week Is according to his plan It would drive me crazy Did God cause the assassination last week? No. Could God have stopped the assassination? Yes. Did God know it was coming?
Yes. Does God have a plan? Yes. He is going to take what the devil meant for evil, and he's going to put that in his tapestry and bring something good out of it because he's the God of hope. And when all this mess is over, when the day is over, when Jesus comes back and takes over the world, we're going to be like Hannibal on the A-team.
Remember what he used to say? I love it when a plan comes together. One day this plan is gonna come together.
Now listen, if you don't have that, I'm just telling you, life is gonna be hard for you. Bill Bright said this, with God, life is an endless hope. Without God, life is a hopeless end. You know, when we were in college, Darlene and I got engaged and her roommate, you know what cross-stitching is?
okay her roommate cross-stitched her this thing now if while she was cross-stitching if her roommate was cross-stitching this thing and you and I were laying on the ground looking up from the underside at her cross-stitching here's all you would see that don't make any sense I can't read it there's knots everywhere I mean she put a lot of hard work in it but it's kind of ugly isn't it if we're laying on the ground looking up from that vantage point say this makes no sense and it's ugly.
However, if we were to sit beside her on the couch while she was sewing and we looked at it from above, from her vantage point, here's what we'd see. Two are stronger than one for if one falls, the other will lift him up again. Darla and Chad were united in marriage on December 18th, 1993. Here's what's going on. You and I are looking at all the stuff going on on earth and we're looking up from this perspective.
And can I be honest with you? It don't make a lot of sense all the time to me. Am I the only one that sometimes says, God, I know you're God, but it doesn't make any sense. Hey, the reason it doesn't make sense is we're on our back looking up and it won't make sense until the day when faith becomes sight and we're seated next to Jesus Christ in heaven. And we look at this thing from his vantage point.
And suddenly we're going to be like, now it makes sense. That's the God of hope. If you're a born again believer, to you, God is a God of patience. He's a God of comfort. He's a God of hope.
And finally, he is the God of peace. Look at verse 33.
Now the God of peace be with you all. The God of what? peace. I'm going to tell you what I've told y'all a million times here. Y'all aren't doing the world any good when, no, us, I'll put myself in this category.
We're not doing the world any good when we're as stressed out as they are, as upset as they are, as angry as they are, biting our fingernails to the quick, popping antacids left and right, as stressed out, you ain't doing anybody any good. But when all this mess happens and you throw your shoulders back and you put your eyes toward heaven and you have this smile on your face and you have what the Bible calls the peace that doesn't even make any sense, that starts to draw people to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, have you noticed this about Jesus? Jesus said some pretty tough stuff. Have you noticed that? John Piper said one time I went through the gospels and beside every tough statement of Jesus, I put T-O for tough. Beside every tender statement of Jesus, I put T-E for tender.
He said, when I got through going through the New Testament, there were a lot more T-O's than there were T-E's. Jesus says some tough stuff. He's not this nice white guy carrying lambs all over the place telling everybody to just get along and be nice to each other. He says some pretty tough stuff.
So some of y'all today who are followers of Jesus, are coming to Jesus saying, Lord, after this week, I need peace. Lord, give me some peace. I'm so stressed out and anxious. I need peace. And I think the Lord would lovingly just kind of, well, not slap us, he's not a spousal abusive, but he would not shake us, not slap us, but he would talk very sternly to us.
I think Jesus would say to us, you're asking for something i've already given you because 2 000 years ago jesus christ said in john 14 27 peace i leave with you my peace i give unto you not as the world giveth give i unto you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid here's what he said you're asking me something i gave you 2 000 years ago i've given you your peace i just said it right there i've giving you peace.
Now, let not your heart be troubled. That's your responsibility. And I'm going to tell you something, as morbid as this sounds, and I don't mean for it to sound morbid, but I can tell you a big source of peace for me, and it ought to be for you, is knowing that this world is not my home. The moment my throat gets blown out on national TV, the moment people mourn my death, the moment people say he is dead, I will be more alive than I've ever been before because I'll be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so some of you Christians, some of you Christians have been, I wish I had that confidence.
Hey, here's what the Bible says. These things were written that you may know that you have eternal life. If you're a born again believer, you have that confidence. Does it make sense? and it gives us peace.
Now let me ask you something. Do y'all really believe, let's go back through this, God is a God of patience, he gives you strength to hang in there? You believe that? You believe he's a God of comfort, he's running alongside of you, cheering you on, you believe that? You believe he's a God of hope, there a plan he in control Y believe he a God of peace Y believe that Okay then what is our response We been given all this great stuff Apostle Paul, what do we do with that?
Paul answers it in verse 20. And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation. Do you see what he's saying right here? Your response to God being a God of peace and comfort and strength, and he's with you and he's loving you. Your response?
Your response is this. You don't keep it to yourself. We want the whole world to know the same Jesus that has given us that kind of relationship with God. You don't keep it to yourself. And he says this.
I want to go to places that have never heard about Jesus. That's where I want to proclaim this good news.
Now, I can imagine people in Corinth, This is where he wrote from Corinth saying, Paul, why are you going around the world with the gospel when there's lost people in Corinth right here? You ever heard of that before? I wonder if the Romans said, Paul, why are we going around the world with the gospel when there's lost people right here in Rome? Answer, because Jesus told us to. Go into all the world.
Here's my point. if you and i have experienced that kind of god who gives us peace in the midst of a storm strength when we feel like giving up hope when everything seems chaotic if that's the kind of god that we serve through jesus christ we would be immoral people just to keep that to ourselves in fact i want you to see this picture this young man's name is martin Martin Shkreli, Martin Shkreli. He was a millionaire. Brilliant guy, brilliant guy. And made a lot of money in the pharmaceutical industry.
And I don't know if y'all remember this years ago, but Shkreli acquired a drug called Daraprim. Daraprim was used to treat AIDS patients, particularly in poverty-stricken nations. There were a lot of women, like in sub-Saharan Africa, still alive because of that drug, Darapin. And he acquired the rights to that drug. The drug had been $13 for one pill.
He jacked the price to over $700 per pill. And the money started coming in. And everybody was angry at this young guy because you took life-saving drugs, $13 a pill, and now you're jacking it up to $700 a pill, those ladies with age in Africa, they can't afford that. And you've got a mansion, you've got the cars, he bought some kind of rap album, you've got all that. People were livid.
You can be mad all you want, but that's the face of the American church. I've got my gospel, I'm born again, I'm going to heaven, I have all the benefits, I'm going to keep something that is meant to bless the rest of the world and I'm just going to keep it myself and enjoy it myself. and the apostle pauses no no no if you've experienced that kind of god you don't keep the benefits to yourself there's a lost dying war going to hell out there you share that with the rest of the world is what the apostle paul is saying and incidentally since i have a few minutes how did paul do it how did paul share the gospel with the entire world what was his method well if you look in the book of acts he obviously he proclaimed the gospel he preached the gospel I hear people all the time saying Have you heard this? Preach the gospel constantly Use words if necessary Well of course you got to use words You got to say something When somebody says that Say this Preach the gospel constantly If necessary Rebuke those who say Use words if necessary So Paul would proclaim the gospel But he said I also did something with this As I was proclaiming Verse 19 I proclaim the gospel Do you see this? In mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God.
Now, that and the denomination I grew up with, that was not emphasized. Because that's not for today. No, no, no, no, no. Miracles, signs, that's for 2,000 years ago. Maybe the reason we're not getting the Apostle Paul kinds of results is we're not doing it the Apostle Paul kind of way.
We preach the Word of God, but we also pray for miracles and signs and wonders to validate this thing. Why don't we do both? You see, you proclaim the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ramsey McMullen was a professor emeritus at Yale University.
So McMullen is not, he's not a Pentecostal scholar. He's from Yale University. But Ramsey McMullen wrote a landmark book years ago called The Christianizing of the Roman Empire, AD 100 to 400. And Ramsey McMullen says people are all the time wondering, how did the Roman Empire go from so wickedly pagan to Christian in one generation? And Ramsey McMullen said, like it or not, we have historical record that you would have blue collar Christians lay their hands on sick people, regular Christians laying hands on the sick and the sick will get healed and the gospel message will go forward.
Regular, normal Christians like you and me casting demons out, and this world says, I may not believe that message, but I can't deny what I've just seen here. And McMullen said, in one generation, the Roman Empire was Christianized because the gospel was proclaimed through the power of the Holy Spirit. Are y'all with me on that? Am I making you uncomfortable? Because I want to make you uncomfortable.
Because maybe we ought to get back to doing it God's way. That's right. Several years ago, Fuller Theological Seminary Again, it was a landmark study You've heard me talk about this before They went into Closed Islamic countries And interviewed Christians Who'd gotten saved in these closed countries You know what I mean by closed country? Closed to the gospel? Illegal to preach the gospel?
Which incidentally, there's no such thing as a closed country Jesus would go to whatever country he wants to go into But anyway, so they asked him They said to these Muslims who'd gotten saved what led you to believe the gospel? And there was like 10 reasons. I think the number one, if I remember correctly, was the lifestyle of Christians. They would say, man, what I talked about a few minutes ago, we'd look at ourselves and we looked at these Christians and they had this joy about them, this peace about them. And we said, I want what they've got.
And that's what led me to the gospel. That was one of them. Do you know the number two reason these Muslims got saved in closed country? It was the power of God in answered prayer and healing. These Muslims would say, my granddaddy was sick and a Christian came and laid hands on him and he got healed.
And I said, I still don't quite understand all the gospel message, but this thing must be real. Or, you know, they believe in demon possession as well. We had this cousin, she was demonized and some Christians came over and prayed and cast out the demons. And we said, we still have some challenges with this message, but there has to be something to Christianity because we've just seen this miracle. That's how the apostle Paul said he did it.
I proclaim the word of God, verse 19, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Years ago, Billy Graham, when he was a young firecracker evangelist, went to a city to set up a crusade, had the crusade tent, he was gonna do a crusade. And the media asked a liberal, urbane, polished Christian pastor in the area. Said what do you think about this young upstart named Billy Graham that coming to do a crusade Well that polished dignified Christian pastor said I don like it I afraid Billy Graham is going to set evangelism back 100 years Well, they asked Billy Graham, I said, what do you think about that? This dignified, brilliant, educated pastor just said, you're going to set evangelism back 100 years.
What do you think about that. And Billy Graham said, I don't want to set evangelism back a hundred years. I want to set it back 2000 years. Church, I want to set evangelism back in this church 2000 years to the times where we proclaim the gospel with boldness, with signs and wonders and miracles, and we're not ashamed and we don't cower in a corner. I want us to set this back a thousand years.
He's been good to us. He's been kind to us. He's a God of perseverance, of peace, of hope. He runs alongside of you. He loves you.
You can't keep it to yourself. We got to go share this God with the rest of the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Well, gang, let's close. In light of this past week, stand up with me. As soon as this thing happened on Wednesday, I was just praying. I said, Lord, we got to pray. how do we pray as a church and um the lord reminded me of the power of praying scripture how many of y'all believe this book has power this book is powerful prayer is powerful when you bring the two together it's like nitro and glycerin things just blow up okay and so i said lord what um what scripture would be a good scripture for us to pray you know my wife a few years ago, she's the one that really got me on this thing.
I don't know if she read a book or what it was, but she started this discipline of praying scripture. And she said, Chad, I'm just telling you, the Bible has come alive. My prayer life has come alive. I'm seeing answers to prayer. I'm seeing miracles.
She said, there's something powerful about praying scripture.
So with all this mess going on, I said, spirit of God, give us a scripture to pray today. and the Holy Spirit took me back to Acts chapter four. In Acts chapter four, the church is gathered together just like we are today. A couple of their pastors had just gotten arrested by the government. Government said, do this.
And they said, no, we got to obey God rather than man. One of their pastors is about to get executed. They're bound to hit some cultural turbulence. And when the church got together to pray, let me tell you what they did not pray. They didn't pray, oh, God, make the bad people go away.
God, let the rapture occur today because we've got to get out of this place. They didn't do any of that stuff. When the church gathered together after being threatened and shot at and condemned and laughed at and scorned and ridiculed by their culture, the church gathered together and Acts 4.29, they said, Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. That's my prayer for this church. God, listen to their threats.
Look at what's going on. But don't just get us out of this place. Don't just protect us. Don't let us kind of crawl into our corner and suck our thumbs. and wait for the rapture to occur.
No. May the Holy Spirit of boldness come upon my brothers and sisters and make this church an army of the living God who brings down strongholds through the nuclear bomb of prayer and fasting and the gospel. May we be a church that stands strongly and boldly for Jesus. Are y'all ready to pray for that right now? Father, in the name of Jesus, we say the same thing in this culture today oh lord consider their threats oh lord watch what they did to our brother last week oh god look at their laughing online god look at it and then give us a baptism of boldness We will not back down.
We will not compromise. We will not cower in a corner. If anything, Father God, we are going to engage even stronger in this culture. We're going to stand even stronger for the gospel. Father, your word says the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Give me a church filled with lions in the name of Jesus and for the glory of Jesus. And the people of God said, amen and amen. Raise your hands, raise your voices, and let's praise the Lord of hosts right now. I'm feeling I'm witnessing. And you say that I'm witnessing.
And I'm confident. I'll see it again. Oh, you're so good. You're good and I'm witnessing. I know you're so good.
You're strong and I'm witnessing. Oh, yeah. You're constant, I'm witnessing. And I'm confident. I'll see it again.
Cause you love and I'm witnessing. You heal and I'm witnessing. You say that I'm witnessing. And I'm coming. I'll see it again and again.
I'll witness your faithfulness. I'll see you breathe, I'll win.
So I'll pour out my praise again. You're worthy. God, you're worthy of all of it. Your promise is heaven. No more than one will be found here to death.
So I pour out my praise. You're worthy. God, you're worthy of all of it. Hey, our marching orders did not change at all this past week. You did the same marching orders.
I'm going to tell you again about an old man named Joshua. He's 80-something years old. He ought to be retired and in the nursing home. And instead, he's leading a mighty army to come against demons and other armies and other forces of darkness. And I can imagine as he's trying to change his culture, he may have been a little bit nervous and a little bit anxious.
And God said to him, what he's saying to you right now, Chazak, Joshua. which is Hebrew for cross assembly be bold be strong man y'all be afraid and you don't be intimidated by anything why? because the Lord of hosts is going to be with you everywhere you go this week in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we pray Amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Go change that world for Jesus Christ.
