Rachel got a heart two and a half months ago and It really was a miracle and people all over the world were praying for and I know many of you were and I really appreciate it She is a a gift to us and God has taught us so much through her life we recently just adopted Rebecca and Rebecca is, they said she's six, she's closer to about five, but she's a joy and Lori may have to exit any time now because she is a pistol, all right? But I have my daughters Kate and you guys can stand, I want them to see, I didn't bring any slides or anything, just stand up Kate so they can see you, this is, all right, just come here, come here, come here. You guys support us and we really appreciate, come here, come here. Come on, Ellie. And actually yesterday was Ellie's birthday, so I have three 11-year-olds for the next month. Because this is Rebecca. Can you say hi? Hi! This is Kate and Ellie and there's Abby and my wife Lori and that's my son Russ. Some of y'all know Russ. You remember Russ? You can say hi. And so thank y'all for praying for us and supporting us and allowing us to do ministry. We really appreciate y'all a lot. And I'm very blessed to have my family and get to travel with them. I don't always get to take them where I go. But, you know, dealing with Rebecca, like I said, she's only been here for three months. Rebecca has Down syndrome as well as Abby. And dealing with Rachel's heart transplant, Lori and I were going back and forth, back and forth between the hospital, which was two hours away. where Rachel was and we were dealing with the family at home and that and you know people would go to Lori you know when she would go home to get away from the hospital and everything aren't you glad to get a break and she's like are you kidding me I mean I've got two kids with Down syndrome one just got back from China at the house this is a break to be at the hospital okay with with Rachel but You know, the message today is when the going gets tough. And I can honestly say that the last probably two and a half months have been the most intense months of our life dealing with Rachel's heart transplant. and dealing with bringing Rebecca home at the same time and just dealing with the complexities of life with other things going on. It has been very, very intense, notwithstanding all the stuff going on in the world, but just our personal lives. And that counts for me, the Marine Corps. And the FBI going through that, none of that was intense, spiritually, emotionally as the last two and a half months. And so I really feel like this message that God has given me today through His Word, and really it was the encouragement through His Word that I want to share with you. because it was so encouraging to me to work through 2 Corinthians. And when you look at the life of Paul, I mean, none of us in here can hold a candle to the suffering that Paul went through. I dare say there's anybody in here, no matter how severe your suffering is, no matter what circumstances your life has gone through, could hold a candle really to what Paul endured. And, you know, as I was thinking about today, I was just thinking about the world in which we live, the shootings. You know, there was a shooting at a theater in Louisiana a couple of days ago. Two people killed, nine wounded. A shooting in a church in South Carolina. It seems like every day we're hearing about shootings the unrest whether it's in Ferguson, Missouri or Baltimore, Maryland or McKinney, Texas It doesn't matter. There's unrest. There's this this this almost like it's like the enemy is just Loose everywhere and and you know what? He's always been loose here on earth He's been somewhat contained here for a long time I believe in America because we had leaders that honored God that followed God and And I think we've seen really an unleashing of him lately. And it's just, it makes me imagine what the world would be like without any believers in it at all. Because it's just, I mean, whether it's ISIS doing what they're doing, think about all the things. Every day we get bombarded with all this negative stuff. And what do we do as Christians? How do we endure? How do we deal with it? Because I know if you're like me, sometimes you just get tired of, you just get fatigued of seeing all the negative stuff. And this isn't even counting our personal life stuff. The broken relationships and family. The hurt bodies from disease and sickness where the world that we live in is corrupt and corrupting. And it's decaying. Everything around us is decaying. But this shouldn't be new to us. This is what it says in the Word. We have the source of truth right here, but for some reason we get distracted by all the other things in life and we forget that the world in which we live in is really not our home. You know, I go to India and Nepal and I get so excited about coming back to the familiar for me. But really, I remembered that this is not my home. And one of the things that we learned really through Rachel's illness and dealing with her was to look forward to what's on the other side. To look there. And I just wonder today if that's your perspective. If you really think about what's awaiting us in heaven with Christ, to be in His presence. Or if you really want to hold on to this, because if your attitude is to hold on this, it really shapes the way we deal with issues like persecution, suffering, and those things that we are going to experience. In fact, Christ said, you will have trouble in this world. Job said, man was born for trouble, but yet why are we surprised when we encounter difficulties like, okay, Wow, I didn't expect that to happen, but we were told from the Bible that we are going to experience that. So I just wonder, how do you keep from quitting? How do you keep from throwing in the towel and saying, OK, I'm done? Because you know what? I've had people that I've ministered to say that I'm done with Jesus. I'm through with him. It doesn't work. The formula's messed up because he said do this, and I'll do this, and it doesn't work. But you know what? He never promised you a life free from disease here. He never promised you a life free from trouble here. But what he did promise you is that if you trust in him and you have faith in him, that there's something better in which the world we live in right now. He did promise that and he has been faithful. And the Bible was written from Genesis to Revelation to show us that. And I can remember, I think it's back in Joshua, where Joshua was reminding the people that God kept every promise that he said he would do. He fulfilled everything that He said He would do, and He's going to do it again for us. One day we're going to be with Him, and that's the hope that we have, and that hope should inspire us. Well, if you have a Bible, I would like for you to open it up to 2 Corinthians. But before going to our text in 4.16, I'd like you to go to 4.7-10 first. And we're going to read three passages here. As we do, I want to give you a little bit of background as you're opening up to 2 Corinthians 4. Paul wrote the letter of 1 Corinthians to the church in Corinth. Now, the church in Corinth was very similar, really, to kind of where we are today in America. There was sexual immorality in the church. There was divisions of religious diversity all through Corinth. And as these things were going on, there was corruption there, so much corruption. And wouldn't you say those things could pretty much describe the culture in which we live today? Sexual immorality, corruption, religious diversity. all in the name of tolerance, it's all equal, kind of similar stuff. So Paul wrote this first letter to Corinthians to address those issues, and in that, what would happen is there was all kind of issues going on in the church. People, people were wanting to get divorced and saying, well, my husband's not a believer. And so I should leave him and go marry a believer. And so Paul wrote and he addressed that issue. He wrote the issue of immorality. He addressed that issue, addressed diversity. And he was really talking to the Corinthians about being united. They were divided over charismatic issues. And he addressed that. And he really, the whole purpose of first Corinthians was to get the Corinthian church to be united as one. But when he wrote 2 Corinthians, he wrote it to address those issues and kind of touch on those, but even more so, he wrote them to be united, not only as one, but to be united with him. Because what was happening is false teachers came into the church, and they were attacking Paul. And you know what they were saying? They were saying, Paul, you suffer. I mean, you've had all these bad things happen to you, and that's a sign that God's really not on your side. Now, I don't know about you, But sometimes, I feel that way. Do you ever feel that way? When bad things... I mean, you're doing everything right. You're in the Word, you're following Jesus best you can, and things just keep going wrong, and you're praying, and it doesn't seem like your prayers are getting answered. And I feel like the guys in the boat, when they're out on the water in the storm, and Jesus is sleeping, and you're like, wake up! Wake up! Don't you care that we're drowning?" You see, I don't think their issue was that they woke Him up. I think it's what they said to Him. They didn't say, wake up and save us, Jesus. They said, don't you care? And for a lot of us as Christians, I think we forget that, yes, He cares. God cares deeply, so deeply that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us. And Jesus had told the disciples, follow me. I'm going to take care of you. Follow me. I'm not going to leave you. Follow me. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. And they forgot that. When they were out on that boat, they didn't wake him up and say, save us. They woke him up and said, don't you care? That was offensive. And he said, where's your faith? And so as we go into this book, understanding that when Paul wrote this letter, he was addressing this issue to the Corinthians saying, don't believe these false teachers. Just listen, I am an apostle sent by Jesus. I'm sent by God with truth. And just because I'm experiencing these things, don't you understand that experiencing this suffering, what happens, it means that God is strengthening me, the inner man, and He's showing the faith that I have in Him to people. He's showing that really my priority is not this world, but it's Him. My trust is not in how I can handle things, but it's in Him. And that's the whole book of really 2 Corinthians. He's trying to get that across to them. to be unified and that his suffering proved he was an apostle. And that's what he wants us to understand. So let's look at 4, 8 through 10, really 7 through 10. It's got 8 through 10 on here, but I want to read 7 because of what it says. It says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay. Why? To show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." So Paul's telling us right there, one of the reasons we're suffering, and we experience these things, is so that other people can see Jesus in us. They can see a trust that even in the midst of suffering, our bodies are weak, but our spirit is strong. And that's what he's saying. Now, Paul, don't think that Paul just said, OK, I trust Jesus, so everything's OK. He despaired at times. Sometimes even it says he despaired of his life. He was discouraged just like you and I were discouraged. But he kept coming back to this truth that really the job that God had called him to and the job that God calls us to is so great that we cannot quit. What He's done for us and what He's given us is so great that it should strengthen us to carry on even in the midst of incredible suffering. What God did for us, the hope that we have. And one reason Paul was discouraged was he was waiting in Troas for Titus to come to him. He loved Titus. He and Titus were tight, and he loved the encouragement that he got from Titus. And Titus didn't come, and he was really discouraged about that. It says that in the book. He was really discouraged. But you know what? He kept pressing on. And I think about my relationship with Lance. You know, Lance will tell you I call him or I text him quite a bit throughout the year. And one of the things that I keep referring to Lance when I talk to him is I said, Lance, I'm so glad to have a friend and a brother in ministry that holds to the truth in a time when the truth is diminishing and when people aren't preaching the truth. People don't have the conviction to preach the truth. And I can call you. And even though we're separated geographically by phone or by text, we can encourage each other in the Word. That's what Paul got. They didn't have Telephones back then they didn't have the ability to communicate like we do today And so Paul wanted that encouragement of a brother with him and he didn't have it and he was discouraged But then he was reminded of what God did for him and what God's called him to But if you think, you know, well, Paul didn't really have it that bad. Yeah, he had it, you know. He might have been discouraged over that. Let me take you to 2 Corinthians 11. And this is all just background. Because it's really important to understand that when somebody writes to you with this kind of pedigree, this kind of background, it has weight. It has a lot of weight because of what he endured. 2 Corinthians 11. 24 to 28 listen five times I received at the hands of the Jews 40 lashes less one Three times I was beaten with rods anybody in here ever received 39 lashes Five times he received it. He was beaten with rods three times once I was stoned and he doesn't mean stoned with alcohol either or drugs and They took up stones and they threw at him till they thought he was dead. That's how bad they beat him. Three times I was shipwrecked for a night and a day I was adrift at sea. He was out in the ocean or in the sea for a day and a whole night. on frequent journeys and danger from rivers, danger from robbers, dangers from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, and toil and hardship through many a sleepless night and hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure of me, of my anxiety for all the churches. That's Paul. That was his background. That's what he endured. And that's what I'm saying. This is a man who is well acquainted with suffering and pain more than you or I would ever experience. And yet he writes 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and the first verse there he says, Don't be discouraged. Don't lose heart. Don't give up is what he's saying. And then in the passage that we're going to look at today in 16, he gives us three principles, really. And it's 16, 17, 18, three principles for us not to lose heart, three principles for us to endure. But what I want you to remember is it's not just principles that he's saying, OK, these are good options for you guys. God commands you and I. He commands you and I not to lose heart. to endure. Why? Because it demonstrates faith to the world. When they see these principles applied in our life, it shows the world like a bright spotlight that these people believe in a God, they believe in the one true God, and they must have something that keeps them going on. And that's what Paul wants us to know. So let's look at today's passage 16 to 18. He says first, so we do not lose heart. Why do we not lose heart? Well, because he just laid out all the things. We have this great ministry. We have this salvation that God's given us. He says, so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen is eternal." You see, God calls us, first of all, to remember His priority. And His priority was this, He always focused on the spiritual over the material. Now, that's not the world we live in, is it? How many of you guys wake up every day thinking about the spiritual over the physical? What's the first thing we do when we get up in the morning? We make sure we look good. We go, if our hair is all, you know, sleep hair, you know how it gets all messed up, we go in there and fix that. We, you know, we brush our teeth, we get ourselves physically all ready many times before we even consider anything spiritually. Then we go about our day and we get distracted, and in the world which we live in, it's hard to find time to focus on the spiritual a lot of times, unless you do it early. And I'm a big believer in early in the morning. My wife, not so much. She likes to sleep, alright? That's just Lori. But I tell her all the time, and we talk about this, and you know, she finds time and she devotes herself to spiritual encouragement now. She spends time reading the Word. A lot. We both do. A lot thanks to Russ, my son. He challenged us about six years ago. to start reading 10 chapters a day in the Bible, and we did. And you know what? You start reading that kind of Bible Scripture, and pouring that into your life, and you realize how starved you are for the Word. That we've just been snacking on the Bible. But you know, we wake up and we don't, we put off that spiritual, and what happens? The enemy always brings stuff to steal our time to devote to spiritual growth. But I'm talking about a mindset. What if every day when we got out of bed, the first thing we thought about, you know what? I got to get my spiritual self ready before I get my physical self ready. I knew a guy up in North Carolina. He was one of my mentors one time. He said, you know what? I was challenged a long time ago. I'm challenging you. No Bible, no breakfast. Think about that. No Bible, no breakfast. Wow, really? He said, yeah, I want spiritual food before I get physical food. But that's what I'm talking about. It was a mindset of focusing on the spiritual. Because this outer person is dying. It's corrupting. And listen, you can have all the plastic surgery you want. You can spend all the money on the gym memberships. You can do all the stuff you want to try to keep this good. But guess what? It's decaying. It's decaying. The world in which we live in is decaying. All the buildings, everything. This building, Lance, I tell you, in 20 years, it's going to be decayed. It may still be refurbished some, but it's decaying. You're going to have to keep, what, adding to it. Why? Because all the paint, it decays. All the building stuff, it begins to decay because the world in which we live in decays. This is not anything new. It's in Scripture. It talks about that. It talks about it in Romans. We're going to look at it in a second. But there was a guy in Florida. I do four Bible studies there a week called SWAT, Spiritual Warriors Advancing Truth. Spiritual Warriors Advancing Truth. And what it is, is I just teach the Bible. It's funny because it's on my website and I get some guys calling from other parts of the country. Hey, do you have a SWAT group out here? We'd like to do it. We'd like to start. I said, great, start one. That's awesome. And they say, well, what kind of curriculum do you use? I said, the Bible. And they go, no, no, I know that, but what, what, I mean, do you have like outlines or anything? I said, no, I just teach the Bible. And I've been teaching through Romans and I've been teaching through, and I literally just go there Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, Wednesday lunch, and Friday morning. And I teach them the Bible verse by verse. And I teach them what it says. And, and men, what I'm finding are starved for the word. They all go to church, but the churches they go to don't teach them the word. So they come to this Bible study, and so they invite guys to come in, and so they've been inviting this one guy named Tommy. And Tommy just kept blowing them off, and I played golf with Tommy one time, and went out there, and he seemed nice enough, but he just kept blowing off. Well, he finally came. And then we had this outreach we were going to, where a guy named Joe Gibbs, who used to coach the Washington Redskins, and he does the racing thing, was speaking. And Joe Gibbs shared the gospel, and Tommy, that day, recognized that he had been walking away from God his whole life, and he didn't want to do that anymore, and he trusted Christ at that Joe Gibbs outreach. And he started coming to SWAT faithfully. And he came, and two and a half months after that, he began having health issues. He fell at the YMCA, and he began noticing some things in his body, and he came down with ALS, or he had ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. It's a painful, debilitating disease. And he still came. He had guys bring him. Even though he couldn't drive, he had guys go get him and bring him to SWAT. He wanted to be there at 6.30 in the morning to hear the Word of God taught every Wednesday. And he came until he couldn't come anymore. And within a year, Tommy was dead. His body deteriorated so quick. But I want to tell you something. As his body was deteriorating, you know what was happening to his spirit? He was maturing. It was incredible. People that knew him for years came to see him as he was dying. They couldn't believe he was the same man. They said, how can he deal with this like this? He was encouraging other people, people that were struggling more than him. He was encouraging. And his brother was a Catholic priest who came to visit and came up to me and told me, thank you for teaching my brother the Bible. He was a changed man. This is what his brother said. And I look at Tommy as a great example of what Paul's talking about here. He said the outer man, what does he say? Listen, our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed. We don't lose heart. Don't give up. Why? Because as our earthly life declines, our heavenly life advances. Have you ever thought about that? How many of you guys long for heaven when things are just going awesome here? You have big bank accounts, 401Ks doing great, no financial struggles, no health struggles. Most of us don't think about heaven. But the one thing that pain does and the one thing that suffering does is it makes us long, if we're believers. Now, this doesn't apply to you if you're not a follower of Jesus Christ. If you're not a follower of Jesus, you don't have anything good to look forward to. This, like some people say, is your best life now. Okay? If you don't know Jesus. But if you know Jesus, this is not your best life. Our best life is with Him. And as our earthly life declines, our heavenly life advances. Let me just read from Romans real quick. Romans 8. Paul says this to the Roman church, for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that's to be revealed. For the creation awaits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subject to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be what? Set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit. We groan inwardly as we what? We wait for the adoptions as sons. If you're a believer, you're God's kid. You're His child. And you know what? It's going to blow the best experience you've ever experienced on earth that's going to blow it away when you are with Him. You're going to be so wowed. And that's hard for us to imagine, isn't it, really? Because we're so physical in the way we think. The spiritual reality of being in the presence of the Creator of the universe, we don't go there. But this same Creator that we're going to see is sovereign over everything. And you know what it says later in Romans 8? We all like this verse, but let me point out something. It says in verse 28, And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. You see those two qualifiers there? For those who love God, those are called according to his purpose. It doesn't mean that everything's just going to work out. This isn't some fatalistic view. Well, it's just going to be what it's going to be. God is in control. Paul knew that. He knew that because Paul met Jesus walking on a road to Damascus. He had an encounter. And I think a big problem for a lot of people is they live vicariously their spiritual life through the experiences of other people. See, they've never really met Jesus. They don't really know who He is. They know about Him the same way that we know about a lot of historical figures. But until you connect with Him like Paul connected with Him in a real way, then you tend to live through other people's experience and hope that maybe it's just true. And that's why when suffering comes, we, we lose heart because we don't really believe it. But I can tell you, I believe it. I've seen it in my life. I've seen it. I know Jesus. And there's no way. Listen, this, this, this isn't all there is. I believe this every word of it. And there's nothing, I don't care what discovery they tell me they find, I don't care what, this has been proved true. I'm 54 in September, and I have never yet seen anything this proven here in this Word. But I believe they're going to try to discredit. I think the enemy is going to try to continue to discredit it. And he's going about it slowly and methodically so that now, do you know that like 50, 60% of the kids in this country under 30, and I say kids, but I mean, you're adults, but under 30 believe that homosexuality is okay. Let, let people get married because they don't know the word. They don't know the view of God. Does God love people? Yes. But He hates sin. He hates sin. And yes, there are other sins that are just as bad. But the issue is not the sin in that case. The issue is people don't know what Romans said in Romans 1. When Romans 1 talks about the whole issue of homosexuality, it is a judgment. It's a judgment against people. When you reach that point, and then the next stage in the judgment is to turn people over to a reprobate mind to say that they even approve of it. And that's where we are as a country. Where people are saying, well, it's okay, it's not a big deal. It is a big deal. It would be a big deal. Can you imagine? Hey, you know what? Adultery is okay. Let's just make that a protected class too. Murder. Murder is a protected class. Anybody who commits murder is really okay. We wouldn't do that with anything else. But if you go back and you read Romans 1, you see that God has a very different view, but people don't know the Word. They're so concerned with the physical, they don't think about the spiritual implications of what's going on. And that's what concerns me about our country. It's not that somebody is doing a homosexual act. It's the reprobate mind judgment of God that He's turned us over to. And it should make us sad as Christians. It should make us weep. Weep that we have come to the place that the church has become so ineffective in telling people about Jesus and sharing His gospel, that as a country, we think this stuff is okay. That's what should make us weep. But we don't care about the spiritual. Tommy did, though. He focused on the spiritual, even though his body was dying, he was encouraging. And you can too. You can endure if you remember God always cares about the spiritual over the physical. Well, in the next verse, he goes on to say, for this light momentary affliction, and I have to laugh, really, because you know who wrote this, right? Paul. The guy who was stoned, the guy who was beaten three times with rods, the guy who was whipped 39 times. Now, okay, I dare say anybody in this room would think that Paul was in the middle of getting whipped and he's going, well, this is light, this doesn't hurt. Right? I mean, we know that. And God is not asking us to have some superficial trust where we just go, you know what, I'm supposed to do this. No. He understands the hurt. I'm sure Paul was not enjoying getting whipped when he was put against the pole or beaten with the rods or stoned. I'm sure he was praying. But what Paul reminds us is, in light of eternity, in light of what's on the other side, in light of what God's done for us, in light of what He's called us to do, these things are light. If Jesus suffered, why do we think that we won't? In fact, Jesus told His disciples what they do to the Master, they're going to do to the servants. Why do we get so surprised? I remember a guy at work one time and I was meeting with this guy in Florida. He said, I get so tired of being the only Christian at work. They all, people always just give me such a hard time and I think I'm going to quit. I said, so you're going to take the only missionary out of this company where you work from. You're God's representative there. Don't, you know, how long, how long have you been there? Three years. Three years in light of eternity. Think about that. Think about all the people at your company that are perishing because they don't know Jesus. And you're the representative of Jesus there and you're ready to quit. I said, where's your faith? You've got to lean on Him. Because this is light and momentary. The word there, For light, I mean for momentary, the light word means easy to bear. And it's only used one other time in Scripture, twice in Scripture. The other time, you know where it is? It's in Matthew, when Jesus said, My yoke is easy, my burden is light. The only other time. See, the burden becomes heavy when we try to bear it without Him. when we don't lean on him, when we don't call out to him, but he's able to do immeasurably more in our life, more than we could even think if we lean on him. And you go, that's just easy for you to say, is it? You think it's easy for me to say? I'll tell you about two, two months ago, it wasn't easy for me to say when my daughter was in the hospital, the verge of dying. I'm at home with other kids. I've got these other responsibilities going on. I've got two kids sick. One's puking. The other one's having diarrhea everywhere and she doesn't care because she's just because of her special needs. We didn't realize she'd never had diarrhea before in her life. She comes over here from China and she has it and she doesn't know what to do. And I'm sitting there trying to clean it all up and keep my house sterile, because hopefully Rachel's going to get better and come home. And I wasn't thinking, man, this is light. I wasn't thinking it was easy. In fact, those were not words at all, even in my vocabulary at that moment. But you know what? When I got it all cleaned up and I stepped back, I did think, you know what? Nobody's ever loved these girls like this. And God has brought me into their life to love them even when they're sick, even when they're doing things they don't know. Yes, is it hard? Is it difficult? Yes. And you're going to meet difficult and hard situations in your life, but God has you there for His light to shine through you to those people around you. I remember one time when I was cleaning up the mess, my daughter just took my hand. She didn't speak much, but she just kissed it. Because she knew I was serving her. And I was showing her I love her. She was abused when she was a little child. She never had anybody love her like that. God brings you in the life of a lot of people who have been hurt and they don't know how to treat people and so they hurt you and our typical response a lot of times is to look inward and As we look inward to wonder why I have to deal with this instead of God giving me this opportunity To minister in his name the way Jesus did to people light and momentary he says it's preparing for us a weight of eternal glory and I think of John Monger. I know I've shared about John with you guys. John Monger was a missionary. He was from Bhutan. He trusted Christ as a 17 year old. And pretty soon after that, he got thrown in jail for preaching and baptizing people. He was kicked out of two countries. He was beaten every day. Every day he was beaten. He was in jail. And they said, all you have to do is deny Jesus and you can walk out. You can go out the door. And he wouldn't do it. He would not do it. And a friend of mine in Florida said, why don't you ask? I mean, he said, why wouldn't he just lie? Why wouldn't he lie and just say, okay, I deny Jesus, go out and then start telling people about Jesus again. He said, that's what I would do just so I get out of jail. And so I said, I'm going to ask John. So I asked John, John, why didn't you do that just to get out of jail and then go back to preaching? And he said this, and it was really instructive for me. He said, you know what? How could I deny the one who died for me? He said, I may be the only witness that that jailer ever sees. And if my faith is so weak that I can't take the beatings for Jesus, then I don't really believe who He is. I said, Wow, OK, I get that. He had a faith in Jesus that he knew that even though he was getting beaten every day, he said, I know what waits on the other side and I know who saved me, who redeemed me. And it wasn't Buddha. And it wasn't some Hindu God, it was Jesus Christ. And he said, I will never deny him. What about you in your life? You may not deny him verbally. Do we deny him with our actions? Do we deny him with the way we live? Because you know what? The disciples, when they said, Jesus, don't you care? That's why he rebuked them. He said, where's your faith? And this is not something common to us. The disciples struggle with it. People in the Bible struggle with it. But that's why Paul's writing this, guys, to us, so that we understand that we need to call out to God to strengthen us in this way, to say, God, help us, help us to apply these principles in our life, to value the spiritual, to understand that what waits far is greater than what I'm experiencing right now, these temporary things. I think about Joseph and the Bible. When Joseph was in jail for doing the right thing because he turned away from a woman that wanted him to commit adultery with her, he got thrown in prison. And he was there for years, not knowing what was in the future. But he suffered in prison. Why? Because God was preparing him for a position of authority, and He was building in him humility. And you know what John Monger told me? John Monger was relocated to the United States in Austin, Texas, four and a half years ago. When he came here, he had no money. They gave him $400 and an apartment as a refugee, a religious refugee, and they said, here, Austin, Texas. John Monger takes that he calls me we try to help get him some stuff to get started and Immediately, you know what he does. He starts a church in his home for refugees Sudanese refugees Iraqi refugees people from all different places Now four years later, he's got over 200 people meeting in a church That's crazy He he He started this church here not knowing anything about church planting, never really had any courses on how to go start a church, but he started a church. He's got over 200 people, all refugees, that he's ministering to. And you know what he said? God used that time in jail, where he suffered, to prepare him for what he's doing now. And you know what I told him? I said, John, God brought you to America to help prepare us for what's about to take place in our country, I think. Because you have the right perspective. You understand that what is on the other side far outweighs what's here. John Monger. Jesus' greatest suffering was on the cross and his greatest glory was on the cross. So often God will use these things. I think even about Rachel. Do you know? Living with a terminally ill child, God used that to really teach Lori and I about the perspective of life on the other side. We've been believers for a long time. I've been in ministry 21 years. And yet, having that reality every day is a reality that we all should live with. Because the truth is, none of us know when we're going to be called home. We don't. But we act like it's forever. And it's because I think it goes back to that spiritual, material thing and also the thinking about the other side versus here. Remember His promises. The long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term pain and discomfort. God wants us to know that and to apply that in our life. We have to ask Him to help us with it. Finally, He says in verse 18, As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, the things that are unseen are eternal. We remember his priority, the spiritual over the physical. We remember his promises, the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term pain, and we remember finally his plan. He's in charge. Nothing happens to you his child that doesn't go through his hand. Not one thing. You don't stub your toe walking out here without God knowing about it. He oversees it. He can alter anything if he chooses to. Everything that happened goes through his hands. He's sovereign. And He wants us to value the eternal over the temporal. You know why? Because the eternal is forever. It's forever. It's forever. I think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You remember those guys back in Daniel 3? These three men were told that they had to bow down and worship an idol. And I think about that because you know what? People, we are being told things today that we're going to have to do that doesn't jibe with God's Word. We're being told that we have to be certain things, and we can't say certain things because it's not culturally right. And I think about those guys. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are the Hebrew names. And those three guys back in Daniel 3 were told, you worship this idol, or you're going to be thrown into a fiery pit. You're going to be burned alive. One of the most painful ways to die, to be burned alive. And they said, classic, somebody with faith. You know what they said? Oh, Nebuchadnezzar. You don't, first of all, he didn't call a king by his name like that, but it was almost taunting. They said, listen, our God will deliver us. And we like that part, don't we? We like that. Our God, He's great. If God's for us, who can be against us, Paul said. They said, our God's for us. He'll deliver us. And then they said this, and this is the great part. But even if He doesn't, even if He doesn't, we will never bow down and worship your idol. I love that. You know why? Because that shows that they trust in the sovereignty of God, that whatever God wants, They trust His love. And the problem for a lot of us is, we want life to be the way we want it to be. And we get confused because when it doesn't work out, we think, well, I thought God loved me. He does love you. Just because your plan doesn't work out doesn't mean that He doesn't love you. It's just that His plan is always better. I never planned to adopt a child that was dying, ever. That was not in my list of things to do when I was a kid growing up. But you know what? It was through that that God taught me so much. And one of the biggest things He taught me is just because doctors say you're going to die, doesn't mean you are going to die. Because He's sovereign. He's sovereign. That child, Rachel, was told from the time she could understand language that she was going to die. Every day, there's nothing we can do for you. You're going to die. Can you imagine being told that every day? And I know she's here. She understands this. This is not like a surprise to her. Oh, I was really... I mean, we talk about this. And as a family, we begin to talk about it. You know, we even got a call from the school one day because a girl went home crying. last year when Rachel almost died, and the parent called the school complaining, I have to talk to my kid about dying because, you know, you have a student in the school who's dying and I shouldn't have to do that at this age. I'm like, really? My daughter's the one dying? The principal's calling us. Upset because she's got to explain. I said, this is a world we live in. We want to protect our kids from all this stuff and not be real and honest with them. But God used it to teach us. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, listen, even if He doesn't, I trust it in the sovereignty of God. Does it mean you always know what to do? No. You know what God has been teaching me for the last few years? Is that whether He takes me up or down. It's not my job to provide income. Did you know that? I work. It's my job to work. He provides the income. I have a lot of guys that I counsel now and I spend time with who lost jobs. And one guy, we were talking last week, and he's like, Doug, man, I've done everything. I've gotten out a thousand resumes. I've called everywhere. And I just don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what to do. And I said, you just keep living. I mean, you provide, you do what it takes, you work and you trust God. You keep looking, you keep asking. And I said, and if it's so bad that you can't provide, then you go to your church and you say, hey, church, you know what? I'm doing everything I can. Will somebody help me try to find a job? Will somebody point me in the right direction? Maybe I'm doing something wrong. You go to brothers. And if you need help with your family, the church should help. I mean, that's what we're a body for. I said, but don't panic and act like God doesn't love you. I said, look back. Are these consequences too? Some guys want the church to deliver them from consequences of really bad choices. And they get mad at God because God never wanted them to do this, but He gave them the freedom to fail so that they would realize that they need to listen to Him more and themselves less. But you know, sometimes we just have to look to Him. I think about Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat was a king back in the Old Testament, back in 2 Chronicles. And the Moabite people and the Ammonite people were coming in to surround him and the people of Israel, and they were going to... They do what's called a siege. They keep food and water and stuff from going into the city. And Jehoshaphat didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do, but he knew who to look to. And I love this verse. It's 2 Chronicles 20. 2 Chronicles 20, 12. And I want to read it to you. It's one worth writing down. Because I'm sure there's going to be times in life, if you haven't already experienced it, where you don't know what to do. It's a great prayer. It's a great prayer. 2 Chronicles 20, 12. 2 Chronicles 20 12, Jehoshaphat says, Oh, our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming around us. And here it is. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. I love that. I love that. Because there have been times in my life I haven't known what to do, but my eyes were on him. My eyes were on Him. And over in verse 15, He says, Listen all Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the Lord to you, Do not be afraid, do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours, but God's. Folks, listen. We don't have to fear what's going on in our culture. We should be sad about it, but we don't have to fear it. The battle isn't ours, it's God's. And you know what this says? He wins. He wins. Lance, that's my prophecy theology. He wins. He wins. He's already won. When Jesus died on that cross, He secured for us an eternal home, adopted into the family of God, that we can never be snatched out. We don't know what to do, but our eyes on you. That's the way it was with Rachel. You know, I just want to share this because it's really amazing. So many of you prayed for Rachel. We almost lost her last year. She, she, uh, she got really sick a couple of times and I shared with that y'all last summer, but you know, I'm over in India. We took, we took a bunch of aid to Nepal for the earthquake victims over there. And I was in northern India when Lori got the call on May 5th that a heart had come in. She got the call. She called me. It was nighttime over there. I woke up kind of groggy and she told me and I'm like, oh my gosh, here I am 8,000 miles away. She gets a call. Rebecca's just home from China. I'm thinking about all this stuff. And she says, would you like to tell Rachel? I said, yes. So through the technology of FaceTime, I got to tell Rachel she was going to get a heart. And Lori got everything dressed, made the two-hour drive down to Gainesville. Neighbors watch the kids. Rachel goes into the surgery. One o'clock, twelve o'clock, one o'clock, early May 6th. And I'm praying over in India, just praying for her. It was hard. It was hard being away. It was really hard. And, you know, she went into that surgery. And for that little girl to go in, she's always been a fighter. She's always been a tough little girl. But when she got ready to go in, she was a little scared. It's a little scary going in there because there were really two alternatives that were going to happen. It wasn't going to be she was going to come out with a broken heart again. She was coming out with a healed heart or she was going to be with Jesus. And she knew that. And she went in there and they took her into surgery. And, uh, I guess about six, seven hours in, when they got the heart in, they got all the vessels taken care of and everything. The cardiologist who was a believer came out and told Rachel or told Lori, I mean, told Lori, Lori, you need to pray. He had this very somber look on his face and he, he said, the heart's not responding. Well, it's sluggish. The new heart. Now what Lori didn't know then and Lori called me and told me to pray that it wasn't and we didn't know we found out a week and a half later was that was really doctor code talk. It wasn't sluggish. It wasn't working. And there's a condition called Stoneheart that you can take a heart from a donor and put in a person and it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. Time doesn't make it work. You can let it stay there all day and it ain't going to work. because they wean you off of a machine. You know, you're on a bypass machine and what they do is they wean you off of that and let the heart start trying to beat and pump the blood through slowly. And the first time they did it, the heart did nothing. And the surgeon was so frustrated. The surgeon was not a believer, but the surgeon walked out of the operating room after they decided they were going to wait 20 minutes and then try it again. He walked out and he put his hands in his head. He said, why? Why, after three years, does this little girl get a bad heart? Why? Why, after waiting so long, do we get a bad heart? I don't understand sometimes. The cardiologist who was a believer had a cross in his hand that I gave him. It was an olive tree cross that I brought back from Bethlehem from our trip to Israel last year, and I'd given it to him. He held it in his hand the whole time of surgery, and he walked out and told Lori to pray. I prayed. We prayed. Twenty minutes later, they weaned her off that bypass, and the heart started beating. Never missed a beat. The cardiologist and the surgeon both said what they saw was a miracle. And I'm convinced that God did not want any man to get credit for that little girl's life. That he had sustained her. See, two years ago they said she had about a two week life expectancy. Two years ago. And God had sustained her all this time and he didn't want any doctor getting credit for what he did. He had a plan for Rachel's life. And I told Rachel when I talked to her, what God did in her is physically what He wants to do spiritually in all of us. He wants us to have a new heart and that new heart doesn't care near as much about this stuff here on earth as it does about what's on the other side. That's what Paul's saying, because God has given you guys and me a new flesh. For those of you who are believers, he's given us a new heart and a new spirit that this stuff on earth is nothing. No amount of money. I wouldn't trade my salvation for it. You could give me 20, 200. You could give me all the money Donald Trump has, and I wouldn't trade it for it. I love Jesus. I love what he's done. I love the privilege of opening up this book and sharing that with you. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you or your eyes on him today. Are your eyes on Him? Do you trust His sovereignty? He wins. And we're with Him. Would you pray with me for a second? Father, thank You so much for Your Word. Your Word is life. It's truth. It points us to You. I thank you, Lord, for the fact that all your promises are yes in Jesus and that through him we have eternal life through what he did on the cross. Nothing we do, none of our efforts, no amount of suffering makes us worthy for you. You've done it all for us, but you do strengthen us as we go through. And Lord, I know there may be hurting people in this audience today, people who are here, People who may not know you, people who may never bowed their knee to you, people who may never have really trusted you. And I ask you, Father, right now to open up their heart to you. Give them the peace that only a saving faith relationship with you can give. And if that's you and you're here right where you are, you can just tell him, Lord, I want to follow you today. I just want to trust you and I want to follow you. I want that peace. I want that faith. I don't even know how to get it, but I'm willing to give you my life and let you take control. I want to follow you today. I want to place my trust in Jesus. For those of you who are here struggling with difficult issues. Father, I pray for them. I pray that these principles would be applied in their life and I ask you to give them wisdom. To remind them of the hope that we have in Jesus. And it may be this passage. Would be true in their lives of. Living out these principles of focusing on the spiritual. Knowing that what waits on the other side is far more than anything we would experience here. And Lord, your plan is the best plan and your sovereign and we trust you. Trust your love. Thank you for Lance. Continue to give him wisdom and leadership. I pray your peace on them and your favor on them. Thank you for your word. Thank you for Paul. Thank you for how you used him to write this and to encourage us. And I know there's a guy, Lord, who recently got a heart transplant here. I pray for his healing as well. Continue to heal his body. We love you. We thank you so much. Amen. Visit with Doug and his family, meet Rachel and his other daughters who are equally as beautiful, and gifts from God. Thank you, Doug. I was blessed by that. Thank you. The rest of you, God is good. Take those times that you're griping about and the tough times and remember, it's all temporary. We're going to die. That's a good thing. When you're in Christ, dying is a sweet release from this and we get to go be with Him. Go forth and praise God for that wonderful truth. Come greet Doug before you do that.