Faith Lesson 18 Week 2

All right, we are on lesson 18. And we're going to go back here. I'm going to go back over. There's a lot of discussion on question one about the hope in Romans 5, 1, and 2. And I'll read Romans 5, 1, and 2, and this out of the New American Standard. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 2, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exult in hope of the glory of God." So, I had a lot of issues about whose hope that is, what that hope is, what the word hope means.

The current vernacular for hope means Gee, I hope it happens. I think it's going to happen. I really want it to happen. I hope my uncle moves down to Parker. That's the hope that we use today. There's uncertainty in it. That it might happen. We hope. We wish. Boy, we want it to happen. All these things.

But that's not what the word is in the Greek or the biblical meaning of it. And so I'm breaking it down. The verse first states that we exalt, at least that's in the New American Standard. In the Greek, it can be translated to boast or glory or to exalt. So. No, exalt. I'm going to break it down. So we're going to go down. We're going to go down.

You know, in the last part of it, and that's where it comes, in the verse 2, Romans 5, 2, it says, We exalt in hope of the glory of God. Again, that's a New American standard. The New King James has translated rejoice, so I'm just going to break it down as we walk through that last part. So, we exalt or rejoice, the Greek word is bos, glory, or exalt for that word.

And the interesting part is Greek has it in the present tense, which means continuous and complete action. It's a middle voice. We participate in that action and it's the indicative mood, which means it's a fact or certainty. So, this is something that is continually going on. We exalt, we rejoice. We're continually doing that. We're involved in it and it's a fact. So, that's just the beginning.

Then, the question is, what are we to exalt in? What are we to rejoice in? What are we to boast in? What are we to rejoice or boast in? So, the end of the verse states, in hope of the glory of God. Okay? At least that's, again, I'm going through it out of the New American Standard.

So, going back into what we did up here in the faith, in the Hebrews 11.1 verse, where we use the essence verb is, and it defines faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. What we did in here, and when you look at that word hope, it is not uncertain. As we broke it down, it's a reality. It's the things hoped for. It's certainty. It's the certainty of the things of God. So hope is not uncertain. We define it today as something that's random, it's chance, it's that. But in the Greek, it's defined as a certainty.

So using that definition, the end of Romans 5.2 can be read, we are to continue, and this is just building kind of what Verne does occasionally, the expanding of the verse, expanded in whatever he calls it. Explained. Explained. Whatever. So building on it, we can read 5.2, the end of 5.2 to be, we are to continually keep exalting, boasting, rejoicing, with certainty or in certainty.

So what is the certainty? What are we boasting with certainty in? In hope. What's the verse say? In the glory of God. Therefore, the verse tells us to rejoice in certainty of the glory of God. So, again, hope is certain. So we're hoping in the certainty or we're certain of the glory of God. So, who is certain or guaranteed? What is guaranteed? Us or God?

God. Okay? So I'm trying to get back to that hope is The certainty of God. That's what this verse is saying. The certainty of God. It's not like we hope for the glory of God. We know the glory of God. We know that God has glory. So we have the certainty and the glory of God. So why don't we just stop using the word hope and use the word certainty?

Well, there are a lot of... I'm serious. Because whenever the word hope comes into my head, it goes back to that old definition. And it makes me struggle with understanding the meaning. So if we just change the word to a more accurate word, why can't we do that? You know, there are a lot of, it's in the translation.

No, but I mean, can we do that? Yeah, I mean, for us, for us, yes. Can we do that? Yeah, I mean, when you see it in scripture, like I said, that's what I'm trying to say. The current vernacular is hope for which is uncertainty. The biblical meaning for it is certainty. And so it's a certain thing. It's not like you wish, you hope, like we do. So you can translate that in there as a certainty.

And again, there are a lot of translations. The worst one is the one about the vine and the cutting off. That's the lifting up. That's, I think, the worst of translation errors or misconceptions to what we we know it to be. We lived in an area where there were vineyards everywhere.

But that's one of those ones where we should change that translation but you know we're not going to do the New American Standard version 2 I guess. Right, and we'll do that. It's like when we say if, it's since a lot of times. It's the same thing. When we say, in the scripture it says if, many times it's since. It's not if, like it's going to maybe happen. It's since. Since this is true.

According to my Bible dictionary here, the archaic translation of hope is the definition is that it is a feeling of trust. Yeah. So the archaic definition. Archaic meaning the biblical definition. The way it's used in the Bible is that it is a feeling of trust. That's not certain. Well, trust. Certainty is a good word.

So the other is, when you look at, from Zodiates, where's Wanda? She's not here. I love when they quote Zodiates. Zodiates is the Greek scholar who gives all the definitions. So Zodiatis for this verse, it means the God of hope means the author and source of hope, not the one who needs hope.

I kind of like that too. That he's the author of hope, which is certain. We know the things of God are certain. So he's the author of hope, which is, is there any uncertainty in God? No. So I think the problem with that translation It says it's a feeling, right? That's what I was going to say. The feeling part of it is not, but the trust is really the one. It's trust.

It's the certainty of God. I also went in Colossians 1, 25 through 27, just for context. I started at 25. Of this church I was made a minister, according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but now has been manifested to his saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles, which is, Christ in you, the hope of glory. So, Christ is the hope, certainty of the glory. He is... He is... Yes? It changes it, okay? It changes it from hoping that your uncle wants lives in Parker versus looking forward to knowing that their uncle lives in Parker. I know it will happen in that sense. I guess the whole thing is getting to this word, and as I said, he is the hope of glory.

The part is that it is linked to God, and is there any uncertainty in God? That's the key that I really want to get to, is that hope is in, Christ is the hope of glory, It's all related to God, not anything in us. So if it's related to us, there's uncertainty. And so that's why, you know, when we talk about hope in the biblical sense, it is a certain thing, because God is certain. God is faithful. God is all these things that are the promises. So, you know, again, I just hope after all this. Sorry. You know, I just think that Whenever you see that word, hope, just look at it in the biblical sense.

And if it's referencing anything with God, it is a certainty. It will not fail. It is a guarantee. And isn't this the same thing as faith? Yeah, well, the essence of faith is true. That's where I was getting back to the certainty. It's the things of God, the certainty. For the essence of faith, Is the things hoped for, things not seen? We did the same thing there where it took us a long time to figure out that faith, the essence of faith, and again the is word, is is an essence, that's what it is, is not based on us. It's solely on the things of God.

His certainty. You gave us a lot today I think. I like what you said there, and I think faith, if you look at the diagram of faith, included, faith is based always on facts, things that are already true, but included in that is God's hope, which from God's perspective is already a fact. So hope is a fact. Yeah, it's a certainty. And you have faith in the fact. Right.

And faith, the essence of faith, is based on God, not us. The certainty of His things, He's already... Again, if the essence is anything different, we're in trouble. Because, you know, we always jump to the personal faith side, which we'll touch a lot on, and that's important. But you've got to get to the essence part, which is that it's the certainty of God. That faith is based on God and the truth of his word, the veracity of what he has told us in his word.

It's true. Could you say the faithfulness of God and that have the same meaning? Certainty is the faith. I like the certainty of it. Going back to what the essence is, it is the things of God. The certainty, faith is the certainty in the things of God. That's our definition. When you break the Hebrews 11-1 down, it gets to the certainty of the things of God. And that's the essence. So faith is based on all the truths, the facts of God. So, you know, and again, we break it down to hope doesn't mean an uncertainty. It's certainty in God.

And if you don't have that, what do you have? Uncertainty. And, you know, from my perspective too, you know, I think this is a key for us believers. Because if you're in the world and you don't have this certainty, You look around at the world today, I mean, I don't know, that's a tough road if you don't have certainty.

When you look at the trials, you can look at all the things. We talk about great disasters and things, but if you're in the world and you don't know that God is in control of all things, man, that's terrible. You don't understand. We may not understand, but we know God is in control of all things. And he's using it for his purposes. If you don't have Christ, I think that's just a horrible position to be in. We may not understand what's going on. Hey, there's a ton of things in my life I don't understand.

But I rest in the fact, and we'll get into this in the trials part, that he's in control. And that he's the one bringing it to me. And I have peace, and he's promised me peace in that. So, I mean, I just go through this. It's the certainty that we have in Christ, or in God, that is our rest, our peace. And He's promised us that. We will not get rest out of the world. Guaranteed, we will not get rest out of the world. So isn't that peace? I'm getting, I don't, sorry I'm getting all picky uni and all this stuff. But isn't, peace is not a promise, peace is another fact. Peace is here.

It's a promise of fact. It's a fact, it's a promise that he has promised, which is a fact. It's a thing of God. He has promised us rest and peace. I think a promise isn't something to come, but it's We have it, as soon as we believe. Yeah, it's true right now. Could you say that in the Old Testament they had promises and after Pentecost we have certainty? Could you say that? Does that make sense? I think it has certainty in the Old Testament because it was God who promised. Yeah, the promises, yeah, were right and they would, you know, be fulfilled. I don't know, it just seems like we have it a little better than... We have it infinitely better. But I mean, in terms of promises... No, no, we have... And this is a lot on the position and condition, too. I mean, what we have in Christ now, when you believe, You know, we have that Schaeffer that kind of outlines 33 things that are true of you right now, and that's positional, that'll never change.

The Old Testament didn't have that. I think the reason I ask that question is because I keep hearing Christians talk about the promises, the promises, the promises, and I just think that they're looking for the kind of hope that we're used to thinking about. And they're not really thinking about the certainty, and I think that's why that question came up in my mind. Yeah, I think it's more kind of what you're saying, the promises, like it's to come. We do have things, we're going to step into eternity, we're going to have all those, but there are facts right now, positional facts. When you believe, when you come to know the Lord, there are positional facts about you right away. the instant you believe, there are truths that will never change. Well, and right now though, I feel like I'm more into the certainty than I am to the promises, and I think that's kind of, is that kind of what you're thinking?

Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to add, certainty is a person. Yeah, it's a life. It's a person. If you keep thinking about it as something that we are possessing, outside of the person of Christ, I'm doing John 3.16 with this, little ones down the stairs a little bit and that have everlasting life. have is certainty, and everlasting life is in the person of Christ. So, we just need to be careful that we don't get caught up, I think, and thinking about certainty is something that we conjure up, and we have a degree of it in the person. Yeah, it's like Mike says, you know, we go and we either, you know, spiritual push-ups or go and get a certain amount of gallons of grace and, you know, no, no, it's in a person. it's in a person. Yeah, I guess I just I'm struggling that I don't I was taught and I believe that and this is where I struggle personally like I believe that faith is meant to be shaken and it's meant to be tested and it's it's meant to be questioned and it's meant and the thing about having faith is that you realize how much faith you have when you have those moments of being tested so I guess I don't understand I don't see how you could directly correlate certainty with faith Because if we knew the answers, we wouldn't have to have faith, right? You're hitting our lesson today, actually.

But the basis which we have, though, it's Hebrews 11.1, which is the essence, where it says faith is. So, you know, anything with an is verb is an essence verb. That's what it is.

And when you look at Hebrews 11.1, there's nothing about us in there.

So, faith in its essence is the certainty of God, all the things of God. So, when you have that as the basis for it, then we march down to some of these others that, oh, we have it off. You erased them! And, oh, we break it down into the essence, which is we spend a whole lot of time at the beginning of this class, and we're eight months, ten months into this, about the essence, what it is, and that's nothing of us.

And that's a certainty of things in faith. Because if you don't have that grounding, that all these truths and everything, that it's from God and it's rock solid, then when the personal faith comes, then what are you basing it on? Myself? Oh, not anywhere I want to be. So it has to be that the faith is always based on the truth or the certainty of God, the things of God, and those never change.

So, we're going to get into just what you said, and that's the trials and the sufferings, and why does that happen. And that is to draw you to Him, and to understand, are you depending on yourself, or are you depending on Him? And that's what the trials are meant to do, and we'll see that.

I was just going to say that what you forgot I could repeat. I can go to the absence, the principle, the personal faith. I was just addressing her question. It's written on the poem. I have it tattooed on the inside. I think I was reading Hungry Heart or Green Letters or something and it says rather than increasing your faith, like you're getting more, that you're expanding into what's already there. This goes back to mine. Again, it's a life, it's a person, it's a relationship.

And it's the 2 Peter 3.18. grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what all the trials, the tribulations, as we do that, as we grow in the grace and knowledge, we are being conformed to His image, which He says He's doing. We'll have the mind of Christ, which He said. All these things, the trials are meant to manifest.

Right. So, yeah. I think last week, because I was listening to it this morning, if that wasn't your last week, you said something about, let's see if I can get it, Oh, the trials that come in, this is how I find it in my life anyway, too. The trials come into our life and they, I don't know if they necessarily increase our, what did you say? I think I wrote it down here because it came into my mind. Because, well, I have this brain that kind of goes like this and then things go away.

Okay, if rightly, faith proves, Okay, first of all, what you say, what you guys teach is that we look in the Bible, we see what Jesus said. He said this is the truth, believe it, take it, go with it, right? So, identification truth and all that. Grab it, believe it, and go with it.

But in order for us to do that, if we don't have the trials, we don't have the opportunity to, what's the word I want? Work it in, maybe? Appropriate. Appropriate it, to work it in so that we really understand who he is and what he's doing. It isn't just about, oh, let's have more faith.

It's about, I get more understanding about who he is when he, and last week he said something like, he shows us that it's true. I don't know how he said it. We have these trials and then we see that what he says about himself is true. That was what it was. We see that what he said about himself is true.

That is so exciting. That's the growth. That's the growth in the grace and knowledge. That's really what it is. All these trials and everything are meant to grow us in the grace and knowledge. I'm going to get later when we get to the lesson about what that means. And I'm putting together a whole bunch of verses that, you know, do you believe this? This whole class, you know, we lose sometimes, you know, the forest or the trees and all that kind of stuff, but it still goes back to faith. And do you believe this? And a lot of mine will be on the personal faith side. We hope we've gotten to where we've given it that the essence is about God, it's certainty. And our personal faith is just trusting, believing in those things of God, the things He's told us. And then you have rest. And if you don't do it, you don't have rest. And He's promised us that. He's promised us that. So, let's just move on. Promise? No. Alright. Moving on, I want to go back. We were at the end, kind of blew through question six.

What are three good reasons for a believer to rejoice in a trial? 1 Thessalonians 3. I just want to go back a little bit and review the reasons, give a little more perspective on the topic. So, what are the three good reasons for a believer to rejoice in a trial? Again, that's rejoice, exult, end trial. Is that what the world says? No. But the three reasons I think Mike got through it was because God allows it, because we're appointed to trials and we represent Him in our heavenly home, and because God's eternal purpose is to share His glory through trial.

So, I want to go back, and the verse was 1 Thessalonians 3. I want to go back from verse 1 and through 5, just to get a little more context of that verse 3. So, 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 1. Therefore, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone.

And we sent Timothy, our brother, and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ. key to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith so that no one would be disturbed by the afflictions for you yourselves know remember we looked in this were about knowing that we have been destined for this for indeed when we were with you we kept telling you in advance that we're going to suffer affliction and so it came to pass as you know For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain."

So, keys from this verse, why were the trials there? What did it say? To strengthen and encourage their faith, their personal faith. So again, they knew, and then it also says, they knew that the trials would come. That's also for us too. And that they were destined for trials. And from verse 5, Paul is not saying how to get out of the trial or how to avoid it. He doesn't say, get out of it, here's the exit strategy. He never says that.

So we go through it a lot of times when we pray, get us out of this miserable mess. If you'll notice in my prayers, in the circumstances, And it may be that they're there and they should be there. And he's using it for his purposes. That's awfully hard for us to understand sometimes that somebody's in a trial. I pray for strength and wisdom and all that, but not always to get them out of the trial. Yeah, Carol.

But he did, for years in a row, probably, ask for the thorn to be removed from his side. And that was before he finally got to the point where he realized there's a reason. It was an instant. He didn't automatically know. And that's a whole other topic you can get into. It's like, how many times did you ask God for something? Three times? Because Paul asked three times to remove the thorn? Is that the standard? You can only ask three times?

No. No. I go back to all supplication and prayers and anything, anytime. I think what he does is work it out. I can tell the third time he realized, hey, this is for my weakness. I show God's strength. He got it. There could be I confess, I've talked to Michael, there's some things I've had on my heart for years. The Lord hasn't removed that yet. And I keep praying for these things, and until He removes that or changes, I ask. And so, I ask all the time. So it's not just three times. You can ask, but I think the Lord will remove that either, that burden, change it, direct it, whatever, or make it come. I look at Noah. How many years was he building the old boat there? How many days did he go, phew, what am I doing? You sure I'm on the right path here? I'm building the boat and we haven't seen rain. And we're in a desert.

But he was faithful and he trusted him and the burden was still there. I think in those long-term sort of requests, in the middle of that you become aware of the fact that it is God who has brought whatever the circumstances are and you begin to settle down with He's going to do what He's going to do and I trust Him. And that may be the only purpose that He hasn't fixed it.

Exactly. And the peace and the rest are in there. I understand, you know, some of these things, I rest in it. horrible word we don't like to pray for, patience. Patience. It may be, but he'll work it in or out. And it is. I rely on him. And the more I do that, I rely on him. And I rest in it. I keep asking and doing these things, but I'm fine with it. If he doesn't answer it, I'm good. Because I trust him.

I guess I was going to ask a question the opposite way then, although I'm not really that interested in the answer. What if you're in a trial and you say, you know what, I give up. I don't believe. I made a mistake in believing that there was a God and God is looking out for me. I mean, I guess it just makes for a horrible life here, huh? You lose the fellowship, you lose all the peace. Then you're relying upon who? Yourself. And is that going to be a profitable path? No. And guess what? He'll keep working on you. The Holy Spirit will not stop working. And your position never changes. And your position never changes, so it doesn't matter.

You just lose the fellowship, and the peace, and the rest. And I'm going to get to that, because this is... about the trials and what we do about them. So we'll move on. One of the first things I learned from Miles when I started reading his stuff was process. That everything is a process. And when you're talking about the trials and how long they go on and stuff, how many times was he praying about something? It's all part of the process that he's doing to get us to know him more and to know him more intimate. Growing the grace and knowledge. That's the idea of process.

When I feel like I'm floundering, not to the point, I did get to the point one time where I said, I give up, I can't do this, the Christian life. And then when I realized that he talks about time, I think it's the first chapter in the Green Letters, I think, or maybe the second one, whatever. And he talks about process. I think that changed the way that I started to perceive the Christian life.

I go to growth. You start out as a baby and you grow too. And it's a process of growth. You don't start out day one. Even though the position is locked in, done, the conditional part of it is growth. And that spiritual maturity, Paul talks about the milk to meat. And the three times that Paul prayed and he talked about that, to me that's part of his process. Where he came to understand. Yeah, it's the growth. So let's move on.

So, you know, we talked about, you know, trials about strength in our faith. You know, I go back to my James, again, the testing of your faiths, very similar to this passage. But also we talked about temptation and the trials of Baradzo and that. A verse I always go back to on that one is about God tempting us. He doesn't tempt us to sin. And the paraza in the word.

James 1.13 says it very succinctly. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. Done. Okay? So if you think it's God tempting you to sin, he may allow you to sin, But he's not the one putting the carrot out there. Because he's in control of all things, so he may allow you to sin, but he's not the one tempting you.

And this is really what I want to get at, too, about the trials. And this is something I wish Wanda was here, because I think this just grates her, and I wanted to try and explain. I wanted to explain it more. I don't want to come across as, I know it all, I'm pious and all that, but when you read these verses about, in James, or this Romans verse, where it says exalt in the tribulations, joy, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Is that insanity? It may be at first. And I agree. But think about the insanity of the burden of not considering it joy. I think we have to consider that joy does not mean happiness.

It's the peace, the rest, the things he's promised us. And they're tough things, but I guess in my own personal life, I try much more now, and this is just my own personal, that when trials come, I'm not as devastated by them as much anymore. Because I understand that He's in control. And I can understand that no matter what torpedo hits me, whatever, that God allowed it. If you understand that, then you can exult. Because you know He's in control. And what are the results? Perseverance. Endurance. All the things He's promised us.

When we decide to make it a burden and make it a suffering, are we circumventing that process? We're preventing our growth. Are we preventing growth? I know he's going to jump me on this, but I think it's insanity for us not to understand in a trial that it's from him and that we can derive the peace that he's promised us and the rest through the trial because we know the process that he's going through.

And number one, it's because he loves us. Exactly. That's why I always couple. In the Colossians class, in Him all things hold together. He's the one who's in control of all things. God is love, and He first loved us. If you link those two together, He's in control, and He has an eternal love for us. In the Romans, it talks about how we can't be separated from His love. There's nothing that can separate us from His love.

If you understand those things through a trial, I understand that. And that gives me the peace that He's promised me. A couple of things. One is that in the verse we're studying in Romans, it says that tribulation has a work, and the work is leading us to understanding or knowledge about what's going on, as you've just described, which leads to patience. But what you find out in the middle of all of that, Just like the word hope, it isn't my patience, it's Him. The thing that I exalt in, according to the verse, is the trial, because I know it's going to produce in me the characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't look at God and say, look how patient I am. No! Because Jesus is the one who's patient.

He's the one. But when you circumvent that process, that is the tried character. So I don't go around functioning like I have peace and I have tried character. No, it's him. And so that is where the confidence is in who he is as he begins to manifest his life through me and his life is patient.

The old man is not going to rest in that. The old man is going to try and figure out every way to get out of it and how to work and do anything. It is solely on the new man. I think it goes back to what J.D. said, it's a life. As you understand that life manifest in you, you can go through it. And that's, like I said, it's key though to understand, because this concept is really foreign. The old man just does not understand this. The only one is the new man can understand this and exalt it and rejoice in. consider it all joy.

And again, the thing that always these verses link back to, and that's why I read the beginning of Thessalonians 2, and the same with James, it's based on faith. It's the testing of our faith. Do we trust? Do we believe? Do we understand who we are in Christ?

All these trials are meant to I think, I listened to this last week, I think I understand what you were going about in the weird bowl and whatever. I think what Vern probably was saying is like when you refine a metal, that you heat it up and the slag comes to the top. The impurities come out of it. And I think that's what you were trying to get at in your trials, an analogy with a bowl and something, was that the trials are meant to get rid of the slag, the things that are hindering, the old man.

If I rely upon myself, I have stress, I don't have rest, I don't have peace. And those are the things that, you know, if I'm doing that, I'm relying on myself. So I rely on Christ in me, the new man in me. I have peace, joy, rest. You have Christ. I have Christ. I have a life and he's the one who's living it out in me.

So then the slag is the old man. The old man, yeah. The slag is the old man. And the dependency, you know, are we depending on ourselves or are we depending on Christ? The slag is, yeah, I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to punch my way out of this. I'm a type A slay the world. Or I'm going to ask God to give me patience. He's not going to do that. He's going to give me Christ who is patient.

For those of you who can honestly say that you're 100% believe the three tribulations, Jesus is there. Does that come back to your human level and help with the emotional, like how you process tribulations emotionally? Because I think that's where it's really hard to get lost in the faith versus what's right in front of you, what's the tangible. And it's that whole emotional thing that causes you to break down as a person. And I'm asking honestly, do those of you with that amount of faith feel like It helps with that emotional response on a human level. It does. And that's what I'm saying.

For me, once I started to understand that he's in control, I have a lot more peace through this from a day-to-day operational sense. I have much more peace through these because I'm relying on him, not me. And when I understand that, like I said, I'd hate to be out in the world without. Because when the trial comes, who do you have? myself. Oh, there's a bucket of mud. That's not good.

But when I have Christ, I do, and it really does. I have peace. I have more peace than I ever had. My life was, you know, I could draw a graph of it. And it was, you know, accolades, awards, this, that, and the other, highs, and then, vroom, you know, all sorts of things that just blew my socks off. It was this, you know, and in the Christian life, lots of blessings, blessings, trial, you know, and when you understand the blessings and the trial come from the same God.

The peace and rest are there because I'm relying upon Him, not me. And that, from a functional side, I know, it's personal and feelings, but from a functional day-to-day, I have much more peace and rest because I trust in Him. Well, that's great though, because it's so hard to reconcile that emotional, you know, like, and it's hard to put something bigger than you.

Yeah, I think the verses are teaching us that God allows and puts us and ordains us to a trial. We go through it and we come out the other side with greater faith and greater rest and greater confidence in God. And then the process goes again, starts again, and we begin to realize that one, this is God who is doing it for my growth, and I really can afford not to trust me. And I can afford to trust Him because over these trials that He puts me through, He has proven faithful that His Word has come out the way he said it was going to come out.

And so I don't have to trust me anymore, and that's where the emotions get sideways, where if I trust the Lord, I can settle, because it's somebody outside of me, or in me, who is the God of the universe, who says, look, I've got this under control, and I can rest in that fact.

And my emotions will come in line because of that. Just one thing? 30 seconds, because I want to read one verse. And I think in all practicality, it's like what we choose to think about. Do I choose to think about how I'm going to get out of my situation, how I feel about this situation, you know, is there anything I can do, you know, that spinning, versus I'm going to think about who Christ is. It's like what Helen said last week. You're in a burning building. Get out of the burning building. You have a brain. I mean, you don't just sit there.

Okay, I'm going to trust God. Right. Right. In all practicality, it's like going to the Word and trying to get yourself out of whatever mess you're thinking about. Right. I mean, you have a brain, you can do, but in the trial, even if you can't get out, you have cancer, you have something, you have, you know, there's things we might not be able to get out of that we don't see, but he's using that. Right. But I mean, don't forget about it. Trials, the way I handle it is trials, but I see it anyway, exercise the new man. Do you see what I'm saying? We have an opportunity to exercise the new man.

So, to speak to what you're saying, I mean, I'm not an emotional person, you can probably tell, but when I get into that thing, like Holly's talking about that thing where something's happening and I'm starting to get sucked into the emotional stuff, yeah, it's just like that, goes on, and then I have to stop, I just stop and I say, Jesus, be yourself in me. And it stops me, because I know that I'm in Christ, He's in me, and it's His life. And it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but for me, it stops me, and it says, I'm letting Him be Himself in me. And it cuts it off, and then I go, and I move with Him in it. That's how I short-circuit that stuff, because I get caught in that a lot. So, anyway, I thought that might be helpful. Yeah, exactly. Let me just, one verse that I didn't get right here.

I was reading this morning, my reading, and this would, you know, another reason for the trials, besides the manifestation, besides all these things, I just happened to be, I read a chapter in the morning, and this was it, in 2 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort. who comforts us in all afflictions, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any afflictions with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ, a person. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. Or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same suffering which we also suffer. And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also are you sharers of our comfort. Lord works in amazing ways this morning as I was reading that. How many times have you been through something and then you come up to somebody who's going through that same thing? You can offer the comfort because you've been comforted.

Alright, we need to go. We need to close. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for just all your truths which you have and we just rest in all that you have, all that we have in Christ. We just thank you for the peace, the rest that we have in Christ.

It is a person. It's a relationship that we have, an intimate relationship with the God of the universe. That just is so comforting to know that as we have come to know your son, the Lord Jesus, who died on the cross to pay for our sins and did all the work It is just in simple faith that we trust in Him. We thank you again for just this time to open up your word. We pray for Mike as he brings the word in the next meeting. Just prepare our hearts to receive it. We thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.