His Life and Ministry is out from Gods Grace and not human...
2 Cor: 1:12-14 · Bob Eckel · Jan 29, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261724263159

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we are going to start to read today verse 8, and the verses before us are 12, 13, and 14. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia. By the way, those who first came in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 8.

That we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. and who delivered us from so great a debt, and does deliver us in whom we trust that he will continue to deliver us. We also help him together in prayer for us that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many. For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and more abundantly toward you.

For we are not writing any of the things to you than what you read or understand. And now I trust you will understand, even to the end, as also you have understood us in part, that we are your boast, as you are also ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. So, let's begin. Verse 12. For our boasting is this. the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and more abundantly toward you.

I think we have to realize that between Paul's writing the first epistle to the Church of Corinth and the second, there is about a year in time that separates these two epistles. And this was a time where there was great trial that Paul experienced. And moreover, there's some question as to whether Paul's really representing the Lord in truth and doctrine. So I mean, there's a little bit of uncertainty here. So Paul's kind of reflecting on what he's just been through.

And now there's a lot of kind of mentioned throughout the second epistle of the Church at Corinth about his trials and tribulations, but moreover I think there's this atmosphere of encouragement and kind of documenting the validity of who he is. So we've got to keep that in mind as we kind of look at this text going forward.

A better translation for boasting is actually rejoicing. So I think if you look at other translations you'll find rejoicing is probably better boasting. You don't think of Paul boasting, do you? I don't think of Paul boasting. Mine says rejoicing. So boasting is kind of a lifely thing, isn't it? Whereas rejoicing is quite a bit different in terms of our interpretation.

So I'm turning here to 1 Thessalonians 2.19, for what is our hope, our joy, our crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ that is coming?

And that verse kind of reflects, I think, on where we're going here, because we're talking about the end. I think the end is in verse 13. And the question is, what's the end? I mean, what's the end for all of us? And that'll be a question I'll revisit here when we get to that verse. But I think that rejoicing is really in our hope. and it's the crown that ultimately will be provided to each and every one of us.

How would you describe the testimony of our conscience? First of all, what's conscience without looking at the handout? Again, I think we ought to hold the handout to the end because I'm going to tell you what it is, at least what people think it is. Tom, what's conscience?

A popular myth, I guess you could say, is that it's this other voice, not necessarily the still small voice that's supposed to tell you what's right and what's wrong. Okay, I like that. Any other comments on conscience? Now what if you grew up in Central Africa two centuries ago and human cannibalism was really appropriate and accepted fully, maybe even more recent than that. Is the conscience telling the African Bushmen that ultimately this is okay?

So the conscience, and remember what Romans says, you know there are three C's of how God witnesses to all of mankind. The first is creation, look around you, does this just happen? The second is conscience, but conscience can lead astray because it can be misled by political, ethnic, and other issues that relate to the worldly system. And the third is Christ himself, and of course Christ is who saves. But Romans goes through that. Creation, conscience, Christ. And ultimately the three C's are worth remembering.

Other thoughts about what the conscience is? Randy, what's a conscience? Conscience is a reflection of God's morality that it was corrupted in the fall. That's a very biblical definition, isn't it? I like it. I think that's what Paul's pointing to too. Gary, what are your thoughts? Conscience? How's your conscience working you day in and day out? I think just what the word says and what is right and wrong. That's determined by the word. Roger, your thoughts?

Well, you know, actually you mentioned Romans chapter 1. verses 18 and 19, it talks about the fact that God has made evident to all man something, basically, that seems like that weighs in on conscience. It talks about they suppress the truth about righteousness, that which is known about them is evident within them. So there seems that God is placed within each man, and that kind of ties into conscience, and I'm not quite sure I can totally dissect it, but also culture. But God says regardless of your culture, there is something innate within all mankind that gives them evidence of God. That's the omniscient and omnipresence of God. His spirit is in the world, is it not? And His spirit will be removed, will it not, during a future time. Does it guide us morally?

Let's look at what a couple of other people who are smarter than I say. Thayer says the soul as distinguishing what is morally good and what is bad, prompting to do the former and shun the latter, commending the one and condemning the other. Not bad. And Howe's notes, by the way, Roger, thank you. Hausnitz finds definition is that faculty by which we apprehend the will of God, this is consistent with what Randy said, that we apprehend the will of God as that which is designed to govern our lives. You said it kind of in a paraphrase. These are good, I think both.

But the conscience can be misled, can it, by the world system. Just as an example, I mean, you know, we've got a president who's been in office one week and there's, you know, demonstration after demonstration, the conscience tells, I mean, if what's right or wrong, I'm not going to pass judge Bob, but the issue is, you know, the world system influences your conscience to the acceptance of what's right and what's wrong. Here, Vine's definition, I think, is closest to what Randy said, I think, really, God has given us each a conscience that would be responsive to his truth and his will in our lives. Here stated that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity. Define simplicity. Do you think you operate in simplicity?

That's kind of a reductionist view of things, isn't it? Hopefully your life, you know, we all, at least I do, I seek for a less complicated life. So I, somehow it seems like... You're a reductionist? That's your engineering background to some extent, right?

I want to find the easiest solution possible. My wife always accuses me of taking the path of least resistance. If there's something to be done, I'll take that least path. But don't you realize you should have taken this other path that would include that other part of your job that you didn't do?

Margaret, you and Vanya should talk some. I think that's inherent in what God has placed in women. They spot fakes and men don't. Many, many times. Oh really? And that's a revelation, right? Oh yeah. Boy, what a concept. You want to lay down on my couch here?

I feel that a little more deeply here. Well, Strong defines it as the virtue of one who is free from pretense and hypocrisy. It's not quite the way I would define it, but Anyway, we've now looked at Thayer, Strong, and Vine. We've got all these guys who are kind of drilling down to get better definitions. Godly sincerity.

I think purity is a good way to define that, but it's another life, isn't it? Yeah, Gary. How are you doing, by the way, at godly sincerity? Are you working at that? I've got a note. Simplicity is holiness. Okay. Free from pretense, hypocrisy, that's not quite holiness, is it? But it's consistent with that theme. Other thoughts about either simplicity? Yeah, Tom. Well, Paul kind of said in another spot that he determined to know nothing among you but Christ Jesus. And so he was just trying to make sure that it was centered in a person and work of Jesus.

And that's what really matters. Would we all agree that this is another life, this simple life and sincere, godly, sincere life? I mean, how are you doing at that in the old nature? It just doesn't cut it, does it? So really these attributes are those of the Christ who is in each and every one of us in spirit way.

Alright, James 3.17, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. I think James says it pretty well, doesn't he? In terms of a verse that would be complementary to this twelfth verse in 2 Corinthians 1.

Not with fleshly wisdom. Describe the wisdom of the world and is it distinguishable? Now we're going to spend three to five minutes on this conversation. Margaret, wisdom of this world and can we distinguish it from spirit-led Christianity? I hope so. Yeah, we should be able to. Because the wisdom of the world is chaos. It's all about self. It's about raising yourself up above God. is what I think the wisdom of the world is. Can you always perceive that in the behavior of an individual? Well... Let me give you an example. I think many times you can.

There's a very distinguished diabetologist at Harvard. Barbara Kahn has been an old friend of mine for many, many years. She has type 1 diabetes and this last week she had a major bleed in her right eye. She can't see out of her right eye anymore. And so she, just because we bonded through science and medicine, also friendship over many years. She's Jewish, by the way.

She called me, her last parting words on our conversation on Monday, and then I talked to her again on Tuesday, was, how do people of faith deal with things like this? That was her question to me. So I prayed about that, pondered it, and I had a conversation with her the next day. What I told her was this, and you can be critical of what I told her, but this is what I said.

The behavior of a believer may not be able to be distinguished from the believer of the world system. How many times have you been to funerals of people who are unsaved and the pastor typically, they're in heaven, but you just kind of sense that there's no really in-depth understanding or knowledge. You're not really sure they're saved. I went through that with my brother, but the pastor reminded me that Hyde didn't really know whether he was saved or not. He might have got saved the last minute before. I really didn't know.

But anyway, the point is, I think the world system can deal with trials and tribulations equally as well as believers who are maybe not so mature. I mean, milk it versus meat. I mean, the point is, even someone who's well-grown in the Scripture has human grief. So the ability to perceive how people respond around us to say that ultimately this isn't the wisdom of the world in terms of how to deal with loss and grief and trials and tribulations, that may look like, in fact, believers may perform more poorly in this circumstance at times.

Other thoughts about this? Randy? Historically, I think the word philosophy would be used to describe dealing with this, the idea that you have a philosophy on how you're going to deal with the trials and tribulations that you're dealing with. The idea of secular, we talked a little bit last week, the idea of secular thinking through those things, is that we have kind of a, just deal with it, Or, there's some value here but I don't know what it is, or any of those things that we kind of use to deal with it psychologically or philosophically, but what we come down to is the believer has an eternal perspective.

There you go. That's what I told Barbara. I said, look, you know, we have a hope that goes beyond here. Eternity has no timeline. So the believer who in fact is well founded in the word of God just has a hope that ultimately we're with the Lord when we're out of here and ultimately our citizenship's not here. And of course she listened for a bit and I went into a little bit more detail but then there were no further questions. I mean she's really not a woman who's seeking any answers other than that simple question, how do people of faith deal with this?

I'm doing poorly. And by the way, you know, she's an internationally recognized scientist, and she travels all over the world, and she's had to cancel a recent trip, and she doesn't have a husband. There's somebody who lives with her. She has type 1 diabetes, and so the fact that there are issues related to that on a day-to-day basis, trust me, is something she has to deal with.

But nevertheless, what I try to point out to her is the believer has a hope and a trust and a view of our earthly existence and how it differs from our eternal existence. And that believer may or may not, quote, perform better with trials and tribulations. I mean, you just can't observe human behavior and say, gee, that person's saved. Now you can get a hint of that. And particularly if there's a verbal communication, you get a sense of where they're coming from.

But the world system, look at all the self-righteousness that Christ saw in the Pharisees. I mean, these people were living a holy life, so they thought. But they really weren't, were they? Because it was all self. It's all world system kind of stuff. Bob, you know, last time when Randy was teaching, Paul actually kind of describes that the believer doesn't perform too well.

Use your words. Back in verse 8, he talks about the fact that He was burdened in a trial. even of our life. So I thought that was pretty significant. I kind of, Brandon, we talked about it last week, but I think that kind of falls into what you're saying.

He's saying Paul, the eminent apostle, despaired of his life. He thought his life, you know, my life isn't worth living. This trial is so difficult, my life isn't worth living. And that's a pretty astounding statement from a man who had as much understanding.

So it says that the fallen nature in every human being, including believers, is so powerful we can be sucked away from the Lord. Even though we know the Lord, we can be drawn away. We know the truth, but we may not abide in the truth and lead our lives in the truth. We may go off some different direction. Other thoughts here? Yes, please. Hi. Hi, I'm Mackenzie. Hi, Mackenzie. How are you? Good. Good to have you with us this morning. Yeah, thanks. You're a little away from me.

I guess dealing with this idea of eternity, our hope is not in our identity or our success or righteousness. Our identity, if it's wrapped up in who God has proclaimed us to be as his children, then our hope is in God's glory, God's eventual glory. So it's not about our how we perform in our life or like if we get to the end of life and we have good things that we've done or bad things that we've done like our identity is in like the person of Jesus alone so it's like that's our hope our hope is not in ourselves so like that's a beautiful hope to have because when we get to the end of our lives what we have done or we have not done like That doesn't matter because whatever God has proclaimed us to be is true.

Well spoken, I can't disagree with that. You say, but we live in a world system and there's a metric the world system puts on our performance. But to God be the glory. Right? I mean, that's the issue. Everything we do is to God's glory and we fall short at times. But nevertheless, that's how we operate at our business address. I always say heaven's our home. This is our business address.

Other thoughts here before we go ahead? Good conversation, good. So just, I think, to take home message is the wisdom of the world often pervades in the life of the believer. And Paul is saying, don't go there. This is, you know, to grow in grace, and we're going to get to that in a second, is really Christ's life in us, which really substantiates who we are and what we do, that's evidence of who we are. And we kind of discuss this, how does the world system operate? It operates entirely with self as the primary focus, right? And even acts of self-righteousness, a lot of people would want to take credit for what they've done for somebody else.

There's a lot of good works going on around the world people aren't seeing. So you can't look at the outcome, you've got to look at the motive. And sometimes we don't know the heart, we don't know the person. So we have to be careful, not to be judgmental, but yet.

Paul is saying there are two lives here and there are two things that motivate people, their own selfish interest, world system kind of rewards versus those that bring glory to God. Alright, John 12, 43, 44, they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. Talking about the Pharisees who he in fact hung out with.

Philippians 3.3, For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. How you doing there? And by the way, I think, I remember Dan saying this many years ago, we're not there to micro-analyze every thought and every deed. The life in Christ doesn't need to be analyzed.

It shows up. At the minute Paul found out who he really needed to be on the ride to Damascus, there was no question. He just said, who are you? Lord! That's what really mattered to him. His heart might have been in the right place trying to do things, but he was missing the mark entirely still. And God simply had to give him what this is about, and it is about the Lord.

And for each and every one of us, we grow by grace, by faith. Ultimately, that life shows up naturally. It's not something you work at. And the flesh shows its ugly head all the time, but we confess that and we move on. We don't analyze everything. The Spirit will lead us in the right path. And when we fall short, the Spirit convicts us, we move on. Was that thought really of the flesh or did that come from the law? If we're doing that all the time, we're failing. We really are. It's that walk in the Spirit and the new nature that God gets glory and deserves glory for. But by the grace of God and more abundantly towards you. How does the grace of God so abundantly operate within us? I think I just kind of articulated that in maybe a more lengthy way. Grace is probably the most misunderstood world, not only in the world system, but also for the believer, right? So define grace, right? What's grace?

Well, God's riches at Christ's expense. It's totally based upon the work of Christ. It's God's gracious interaction with us based on the totally adequate price. And by the way, when that grace of God so abundantly operates, think of that, so abundantly operates, you know, the cup will overflow it. Abundantly. It's, again, it's almost miraculous in terms of the way our lives can be transformed to God's glory by His grace operating so abundantly. We've got to respond to it. Remember, we have to live by faith. We have to believe this. Tom. One added thing.

God basically put a running block on Paul, getting him off his high horse to get him down to understanding who the Lord really is. So we're in leftover phases of football until the Super Bowl finally comes and goes. And it just struck me, and that's an understatement, that Paul definitely was challenged from the get-go, almost like a fist in the face, but not quite that extreme, but off his high horse. I think what Randy taught last week in his Racha reminded us of in verse 8 is really evidence of that, isn't it?

Romans 12.3 For I say through the grace that is given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

So is God just spooning out faith? Is that the way we interpret that? No, I mean, God, you know, we don't live a passive life as a robot. I mean, God's not zapping us with a lightning bolt. His grace is all sufficient for our life to be walked by the power of the Spirit, but we need to believe God for what He revealed. Our faith, really, a measure of faith is an endless, infinite measure of faith that we're all responsive to.

2 Corinthians, we're moving on. Any other thoughts about verse 12? Well, it's a verse that reminds me of how I'm 220 preaching it for two years or whatever it was. This is a verse you could probably just drill down on for week after week and month after month. Okay, good. Verse 13.

For we are not writing any other things to you than what you read or understand, and now I trust that you'll understand even to the end. This relates, I think, to the uniqueness of Paul and the task that the Lord has placed before him. Paul's an incredibly important guy in terms of doctrine and ultimately he's writing to them not so that they'll believe Paul but they'll believe Paul for who he is and what God's task is for him. Paul's an incredibly relevant individual to have been so important in writing the text that we're reading today and many other epistles. And we believe today that God's working through Paul to put the scriptures in place, but to them it was just a letter, right? I mean, the doctrine is being portrayed and revealed in the letter, but yet the Bible isn't complete yet. So do they believe Paul? And is Paul credible? And I think that's what he's saying. I'm writing to you. And you know, what I'm giving you, you need to read it and understand it. And by the way, I trust that you're going to be able to do that to the very end.

To whom's Paul, who's he writing? Well, the question is, will the letter be read by the entire body? Is he writing to individuals or is he writing to the whole church here? First Thessalonians 3, 5, 17. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren. Now that's a different church.

But you've got to have the idea that who's ever receiving this letter, it's going to be broadly projected to the entire body. Don't you think? Yeah, and apparently even beyond that local body. Other bodies that are in the neighborhood, so to speak. Right. Well, the neighborhood was Asia and that's going to be the whole region, right?

And this is for us too, are we, this whole imperative, are we reading the Word? So for each and every one of us, are we in the Word, meaning reading the Word, and do we believe Him for what He's revealed, or understand and acknowledge the Word for what it's worth? I think it's a challenge for each and every one of us. Paul is writing truth that God's given. And now we have that same truth today.

And you know, we're not going to have how many minutes have you been in the Word today? Nobody's taking notes here. That's where you meet the Lord. You meet him in the Word. And so we each go about that a little differently. And we have Sunday school, we have the message upstairs, and we have Bible study groups that meet in the evening periodically here. It's all good, but the Word is the source of truth. Isn't it amazing?

I was talking to Mike a couple of weeks ago. He's in Romans now, I think, with his small group. Gary, is he on Tuesday doing Romans now again? Or maybe it's one of the nightly groups. He's doing Hebrews. No, he's doing 1 John. He said he's doing Brahmas for the 100th time or whatever. I'm not sure. It could be the 84th time, I don't know.

But anyway, every time we're in the Word, we learn something new, don't we? God's in the business of revealing new truth to us each and every time we go. I think it's daily reading just to be reading. McCauley, by the way, let's listen to him on this section. He didn't give too much detail on these three verses. Sometimes he doesn't do that. But you know, he just talked about that too, you know, being in the Word really is... Often he said he'll just sit down and open the Bible and just read and some new thoughts and new truths will come to him just by opening it up.

So anyway, got to be in the Word. First we read and then we understand or acknowledge. And that's Spirit led. Think of many mainline churches where there's a lot of tradition and ceremony and all that kind of stuff. And some people know the Bible really well, but are they really appropriately understanding and acknowledging who they are in Christ? Only the Lord knows all that.

1 Thessalonians 2.13, for this reason We also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe." Wow. The word is used three times in that verse, and doesn't give any exceptions, does it?

And there's nothing left to be added to this. I think it's really pretty complete. You know, just reflecting on the word as being complete, you know, you go to Revelation and it says, For I have testified to everyone, if he hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. I mean, that's Revelation as one text that John wrote. And John says, I think, in his epistle too, there's nothing further to be added. It's a done deal. There's no more revelation that God's going to give, despite certain people believing that they've had new revelations about the end times and all this kind of stuff. And Paul says, now I trust you'll understand.

Present, active, indicative, factual. It's indicative, it's a fact. He believes this strongly, and I think it gives us an idea that this is a note of encouragement. I know you're going to understand. Now maybe he's being cocky. Do you think he's being cocky here? No, he's stating a fact. You're going to understand whether that was something the Lord had revealed to him or he just felt that he was in a position to be so doctrinally sound and encouraging that they have no choice.

They're going to understand it. Even to the end, what end? The Lord comes and we finish the work. Well, is that is. So this is rapture truth. And you think that he's talking about. So I think it's damn sure. You think so here? Yeah. Could be either one. Tom Rapture or end times or just. It would be entirely up to God, the father almighty to make that move. But it's. entirely possible that we could be beheaded for a home sooner than we think through other causes. Sure, like death, right? Or going to sleep, so it's a better translation.

1 Corinthians 4-5 Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes. Okay, rapture. who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts, that each one's praise will come from God. So that's kind of a rough edge around the end.

I think as a body of Christ, and Randy, your dad talks all the time about it, he prays it's today, right? We should all be praying that it's today, but you know, to be absent from the body is to what? I think the end for each of us individually is our earthly existence, but the rapture could end it all for many of us at the same time. But you know the end in scripture sometimes is used for the new heaven and the new earth too, but I don't think in interpreting this, does anybody see that we're talking about new heaven and new earth here?

I think he's talking temporally about the end, meaning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is our great hope, is it not? What's our hope? Our hope is to be with the Lord. Lots of other hopes too, I hope it doesn't snow today. The great hope for all of us as believers is being with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know that hope is kind of a loosey-goosey word for a lot of people, but I've heard it said, and this may be another Chester McCulley, that it's the assured expectation that what God said He's going to do. You know Bob actually I have a reference if you go back to the first epistle in verse 8 1 Corinthians 1 verse 8 it says who shall confirm to the end blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he uses the word the end and then he kind of connects it with the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So you know it could be he used a shortened version here just said the end when he was and he defines it better in the first epistle. Okay good thanks Dr. that's great.

And I listed 1 Thessalonians 2.19, for what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming? Again, rapture kind of truth. And of course, the epistle, the first epistle of the Church of Thessalonica deals with a rapture in great detail in chapter 4, doesn't it? So, setting the stage for... Yeah, Randy. things that we've seen in Paul's writings to the Corinthians, and this kind of highlights it for him, at least to me, is that Paul is concerned about their faithfulness to the truth.

And his trusting that they will continue to understand until the end is partially like, you guys need to continue to be faithful and continue to hold on to these things. And the Greek on this sentence is all present active, like you guys need doing this, I'm trusting right now, present active, that you're going to continue doing these things.

And it's a weighty thing that the Corinthian church, after so much writing and back and forth and visiting, was pretty wishy-washy still. It was still not as reliable as we'd hoped for. Yeah, I think you contained in the writer to the Hebrews But there's five warnings that they've totally gone to sleep and lost interest. And he's had to wake them up and get them back on track.

And that's true. I mean, that's the thing we deal with in reality in our Christian life, is being in tune with what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives. Right. It's hard at times, isn't it? We get distracted by so many things here. Any other thoughts here? Okay, let's go on to verse 14 then.

As also you have understood, meaning the end, in part, that we are your boast as you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. Kind of a funny verse a little bit, it's kind of complementary to verse 13 and you have to kind of connect the two. Perhaps not a complete understanding, but at least enough to rejoice together. And the question is, and this rejoicing must reflect the end, the hope for each and every one of us.

And what do you think they understood in part of the case? And why just in part? Do you think this is just some of the believers who understand quite well and others don't understand much at all? Or does this reflect the entire body where almost everyone only has a partial understanding? principle.

We know in part, but we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the completion of God's Word, then the imperfect can be set aside. Okay, I like that. That's really a good answer. So there's the question. And Paul, do we at times understand this in part?

Yeah, I mean, does anybody here have just a complete understanding of everything that's revealed in the Word of God? I mean, let's just exclude the prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled. Yeah, we're going to accept God's just and due to his promises being fulfilled and his prophecy being fulfilled. Just think out loud a little bit, what do you think you individually just both understand in part?

Asking for people to think themselves and volunteer, what examples of this? Well, you could, you know, big things, the Trinity, do we really understand the Trinity? That's the fact that there's three persons but one God. We don't try to make one part of the Trinity above the other.

They say they're equal. What amazed me when I was preparing for the message on Christmas Day was that both the Son and the Spirit always reflect back to the Father. The Son says, I never do anything I don't see the Father doing. He's basically saying, I am so I am so in union with the Godhead that all my actions are in concert with the entire Godhead. So that kind of helps you to find the Trinity. Then the Spirit says, my only job in life is to show to spotlight Christ. So you say, wow, they're all together in perfect unity. That concept with their three persons.

That's just one of many things we understand in part. I'll build on that just a little bit. Have you ever tried to explain the Holy Spirit to an unbeliever? I mean, we understand the Holy Spirit as part of trying to... I mean, the issue of... that's maybe just a little bit too tangential. Other thoughts? Yeah, Gary, what do you understand in part?

How Christ, how God could become man. There you go, that's another one. Humanity can relate to us and go back in a form to say on the right hand of God. of God and represent us. You understand why, right? Yeah, I understand why. Do you not understand the physical aspects of that? The whole ramification of how God could become man. Is that different than any of the other miracles that he has portrayed to Christ Christian? We just understand that it is a hypothetic. Well, right. Is that different than parting the Red Sea?

What I always claim about the immaculate conception is that God's DNA is dominant. Mary's didn't fly anywhere, her sin nature didn't get inherited. Other thoughts? Some of the attributes of God, how he can be everywhere, how he understands, I guess he's personal to me and he's personal to everybody.

Isn't that unbelievable? I mean here we're going to a part of the world where Christianity is not known, at least not much. And we're going to see all these people, you know, just Hanoi alone is 3 million people. And Ho Chi Minh City is much bigger than Hanoi, like 5 or 6 million people are going to be hanging out with all these people. God knows every thought and every mind and heart of everybody globally. How about creation? How are you doing with that one? And he spoke it. He didn't get out, OK, he's got the axe and the shovel. And six days? How are you doing with that one?

Think about astronomy these days in terms of how many stars have been identified, how many solar systems have been identified. And we think of the time difference between where we're at and some distant planet, billions of miles away. God in one day did this? We understand in part don't we?

How about having the mind of Christ? How are you doing with that one? What's heaven going to be like? What are we going to be doing when we get there? What are we going to look like? Am I going to recognize people? I mean, have that ability or do we even care when we get there?

No, maybe we don't even care. Maybe in terms with Christ, not who else is there. Amen to glory. This is the thing about wiping away every tear. If we won't spend heaven regretting our life here, all the mistakes we made, otherwise it wouldn't be heaven. It's like he's a white boy every year, every but he's not apparently, you know, but we're going to remember things to us.

I don't know. How's that going to work? You know, I mean, it's it's. Really weird, I mean, just be personal, I buried a wife too young with the mother of my five children, and I love Margaret to death. What's my relationship to the two of you? You're going to be in heavenly places, right? You're both going to be married to Christ, so what's the problem?

He gives us so little detail about our heavenly existence, doesn't he? He doesn't tell us a whole lot. But there's a lot more detail about hell than there is about heaven in terms of what our future existence is going to be. I'll be very transparent. I get thinking about just hanging out with Christ all the time. I'm looking for it, but yet, really? Of course, time has no bearing there. That's another thing. How do we understand eternity with no timeline? Put that one on for a while.

I guess we've drilled down deeply enough. We understand in part, don't we? And topics is global, so that reflects that we all understand in part, we don't have the complete answer to every biblical question that we might have. On the flip side of that Bob, we do have enough, we have to be careful here, God has provided enough information for every person to come to a knowledge of Him and to believe Him. So it's not like, well, I didn't get the part that told me, you're a Jewish lady from there, I didn't get the part to believe in Christ. No, God's Word says that every person has been supplied with enough information to accept Him as Savior.

And we don't know how that happens. You're going to Southeast, out in the world, to these three million people, how are they ever going to know about Christ? It seems like not much of a chance in some cultures. That's another important question we have to understand in part.

Back to Romans 1, creation, you look around you, how did this happen? Every man who has a brain has got to ask how did all this come to be? Of course the evolutionist says it's billions of years of development. Number two is the conscience, and we talked about conscience earlier today.

Every man has the consciousness of God with some moral correctness and incorrectness tied to it. But everybody gets saved by Christ, they don't get saved by their conscience. But their joint rejoicing reflects their hope, and we talked today about the hope. And the hope is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, or absent from the body, present with the Lord. It's the hope for all of us, and we have very little detail about our First of all, we're in eternity now, in terms of position, but we don't understand the condition of eternity once we're there. So we do understand, only in part. So that hope relates to that.

Tommy, look profoundly ready to say something. No. No, okay. Well, let the influence 16 that you're rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again. the lesson for today or the fellowship, the conversation we had today. I always like to think that the job of Randy and Roger and I is to really open up the word to discuss it. That's what Sunday School is all about. It's not a sermon. It's just to encourage one another in the faith.

Thoughts anyone about the passages today? Who's up next week? Randy. So Randy, we're going to be missing being with you in the class for the next three weeks, so we'll look forward to getting back after that. Alright, let's close in prayer. Randy, would you close us please?

Heavenly Father, we come before you. We're grateful for the texts that we get to study. We thank you for your Holy Spirit to open our eyes and teach us about it. And Lord, we thank you for the hope that we have in you. We just ask that as we go about our week and weeks ahead of us, Lord, if you tarry, we would be chewing on these things and your Spirit would continue to teach us through them. In Jesus' name, Amen.