Okay, well, if you want to turn to the Book of Colossians, I have a cluster of verses that I have been meditating on recently. Some of the younger people, someone came up to me several months ago and just was asking how I study the Bible. And I was cautious to answer him for this reason. I said, well, I'll tell you how I do it, but I think everybody has to find out what works for them. you know, and not emulate or copy because somebody does it this way. And I says, I read through the Bible every year to keep myself familiar with it. But then, in my reading, obviously when you read, sometimes you'll see a passage you don't understand, maybe a word that you don't even know the meaning of. And sometimes we get lazy, like when we were back in school, I remember an English, our English teacher always told us that when you're reading something and you don't know what a word means, what are you supposed to do? Look it up in the dictionary, of course, you get lazy and you try to figure it out from the context, and usually you can. But I certainly do that in my reading. And then there are times and seasons where you specifically pick something that you study. But the Bible also tells us to, not just to read it, but to meditate on it. And memorizing is one thing, but to dwell on it, to dwell on something that you're reading, and take maybe a cluster of verses, and for a week or two, or however long the Lord leads you, sometimes to meditate on what these verses are saying. Bob has a great gift to be able to memorize. And Bob, you're getting old. You know, that's not so easy when you're old. I find it harder to memorize when I'm old. But when I get to be your age, Bob is three weeks older than me and I let him, I remind him of that all the time. But memorizing is one thing, but meditating is different than memorizing. and we're to dwell on the word, to see the fullness and the riches of it. And there's been a cluster of verses that lately I've been meditating on, trying to commit to memory for the most part. But as a lesson, I would say this, to me, this is what I would call every person's ministry, all right? Now, God gives us all different gifts. And we have the, God expects us to utilize those gifts, to put them to use. And there are things that everyone can do in here individually that maybe somebody else can't do. I'm certainly not a candidate for the choir. I miss Sunday because I've been battling a sinus infection and I sent a text to Deli to let him know that I wouldn't be here and let my brother-in-law, the choir director, know that I won't be able to participate. It's not my gift. But you know, God has gifted us for all different kinds of things, and a church has ministries, and you can participate in those ministries, but we all also have personal ministries, and things that we're involved in. We all know people as individuals that other people don't know, and they're really in our, what we call our realm or scope of ministry, to be able to minister to them in one way or another. You know, some people have a greater boldness than others. Some people, you know, have an insight, maybe a way, a winsome way, a personality where they can gain the ear of somebody. And we wanna be able to exercise our ministries. But there's something, a ministry, that we all can participate in. And I think this is what Colossians is talking about. It's everybody's ministry. And well, let's turn to Colossians chapter one. And we'll pick it up at verse 7, and it says, as ye also learned of Epaphras, I joke also as far as Bible pronunciations of names. I've heard it called Epaphras, Epaphras, however you want to pronounce it. I say with Bible pronunciations, if you read it confidently, people will think that's how it's pronounced. So you just read it with confidence, and people will say, oh, that's how it's pronounced. So I have no official way of knowing how this name is pronounced, but I call him Epaphras. So that sounds good. And as you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the spirit, And for this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who have delivered us from the power of darkness and have translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Well, first of all, we start off being introduced to Epaphras. Now, he's mentioned also in the Book of Colossians, and we get a little more insight, if you will, what I call everybody's ministry. And if you wanna turn to chapter four, we see his name mentioned again. He also is mentioned in the book of Philemon, and there he's addressed as a fellow prisoner with Paul. So he's an associate with Paul, who seems also maybe to be imprisoned, as Paul was. But in Colossians chapter four, verse 12, it says, an Epaphis, who is one of you, A servant of Christ saluted you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you might stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. You know, we can get recognition for a lot of things and, you know, recognition has, it's a two-edged sword. There's a blessing and it can be a curse at the same time with recognition. And, You know, recognition sometimes can go to an individual's head. Obviously, in a relationship with the Lord, the Lord wants to keep us grounded and to remember who we are and who He is. But in ministry, we can get thanks. And I think we should extend thanks when people minister to us. That's not our reason for ministering. It should never be our motive. You know, the Bible speaks of the Pharisees saying that they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. And I think, well, the praise of men is, it's immediate usually. It's something that we're audible, that we hear it. And it kind of satisfies our flesh. Where the praise of God often is silent. We don't hear it. We maybe can sense it with his spirit bearing witness to our spirit. Often the praise of God will be future also. One day maybe we will hear those words, well done thou good and faithful servant. We don't often hear it. We want to complete and do the will of God. So everybody's ministry in a sense here is the ministry that we can all do is the ministry of prayer. It is the one thing that we can all do, and yet I find it probably one of the, if you will, to really pray, one of the harder Christian disciplines because of the focus factor, the distractions that occur. And we have a prayer chain here, and God bless Margie. She gets inundated with prayer requests, but she sends it out. And we know what the needs are sometimes in the church and the extended. It goes beyond our church. We're aware of that. And usually, I mentioned this in a Sunday school class a week ago, usually when we pray, if we have a, I don't know if we have a mental prayer list or if we have a written prayer list, I have an app on my phone that I find interesting. My wife had, maybe some of you have it. It's a prayer called an app. I sound like I'm really technical with a smartphone here. But there's an app called Ceaseless and it's based on pray without ceasing. And what it does, it takes your contact list and there's different features to the app, but it takes your contact list. The one I use is it gives you three people a day from your contact list, and it's random. It's not alphabetical. It could be random. But it's three people to pray for, not just when my app goes off at eight in the morning to remind me that day, but I think it's something that you're to take throughout the day, to have these people on your heart, not just at eight o'clock in the morning, I'm gonna remember these three names, say these three names, bring them before the throne, and then I'm done with that prayer. But try to carry the burden of them throughout the day. I don't edit my prayer list, so sometimes the app comes up, you know, pray for Dan Gray, Home Depot, and you know, you kind of filter out those ones. But it's an interesting concept to prayer where you carry the burden for somebody throughout the day. Because that person you're praying for meets all different kinds of situations throughout the day also. And the encounters that they may have and to let them know, hey, you're praying for them. Well, Epiphas didn't have ceaseless and did not have a smartphone, but he had a ministry that he took very seriously. And that is, it seems that he was imprisoned, probably for his faith. And so he was limited in what he could do in a physical ministry. And you know, our ministries will change throughout the, in our Christian walk. I used to, in my early days of ministry, when we would have our bus ministry and we would try to recruit kids to come on our buses, I used to like to go past playgrounds where I'd see kids playing basketball. And I used to play a lot of basketball, so I'd challenge kids to a game of horse or a game of one-on-one. And I'd say, you know, I don't believe in betting, but I would say, listen, if I beat you, we're going to make a bet. And if I win, you have to come to church. And, you know, it was something that I could do. I wouldn't even think of doing that today. You know, I ride past the basketball court and I see those kids and I think, I used to be able to do that. But the one thing we can always do, the one ministry that we can always do is to pray, is to pray. And it's our greatest resource to pray. Now, when we have a prayer list, often when we pray, we think of people, especially the greatest need is that people come to know the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that they might have eternal life. And so we pray for the lost, and we should. That should be foremost in our thoughts. But Ephraim wasn't really praying here, it's mentioned, not necessarily praying for the lost. No, he was praying for his fellow believers, his fellow believers. And it was his ministry, that was his ministry. He ministered to them by how he prayed. And it's interesting, now he gets some recognition here. You know, It seems like Paul brings the delight so they know this, but prayer is the one ministry, really, for the most part, you don't get recognition from men. You know, you don't even have to let people know that you're praying for them. Now, some people request prayer, and that's good. You know, I never turn down prayers, and someone wants to pray for me, please, I never turn that down. But often there's a lot of praying that goes on that you never know about, and sometimes it's meant to be that way. Of course, you know, the great teaching about prayer in Matthew chapter six, Jesus said, when you pray, what do you do? Don't be as the hypocrite, they like to stand on the street and they like to be seen of men, but what did he say to do? Go into your closet, go into that private place where no one sees you, no one hears you, and you pray in secret. But this discipline teaches us, you know, I'm asked the question, Often you probably have to, God knows everything, right? Yeah, sure. So if God knows everything, why does God tell us to pray? He already knows what we need. But God knows that prayer is good for us. It's how we develop the communication with him. How do you get to know anybody? You have to spend time with them. You have to spend time with them. That's how you get to know somebody. How do we spend time with the Lord? We spend it in his word. That's his revealed will to us. But then we spend time, that quiet time, alone in his presence. And as Psalm 46 says, if we be still, we can know that he is God. He's God. And we can sense his presence. And It's there where we can do our greatest ministry, where we have recognition of the one that it really matters. We have the recognition of God. I do volunteer chaplain work every week at UPMC East, but I'm also on the call list when they have an emergency, a situation where somebody needs a chaplain or something. I'm number one on the list. I even get most of the Catholic calls. Because at night, no priest is going to come. And so I get a phone call from what's called the HUC, the health unit coordinator on the floor. And for whatever reason, they have this list and my name will be on the list and they'll call and they'll say, Father. And I said, well, I am one, yes, but I'm not a Catholic priest. You know, it's a great opportunity. I said, I'd be more than willing to come in. And often, even with the Catholics, what they really want is some, they want prayer. They want to hear about God. They don't necessarily really want to do the ritual. They want something, because the hour is great. But the director said to me, you don't mind getting calls all the time and at all hours? And I said, I spend most of my time trying to talk to people who don't want to hear it. Here's somebody that's asking. Yeah, I'll do it in three in the morning. They're asking for help. They're asking for something from God and now here's your opportunity. And often you get thanks for that. But you know, prayer is that great work where No one knows you do it. And that's fine. Because I think that's how God wants us to pray. We're in his presence. And so what do we pray for? Well, Epiphras' ministry was for his fellow believers. We need each other's prayers. And so he prayed for them. So let's go back to Colossians 1. And so Epiphras is recognized here as a fellow servant and a faithful minister. faithful, he sticks with it. And I have to admit, sometimes with all the names to pray for, often when somebody says, hey, pray for me, I wanna do it right then and there, because you'll forget if you don't do it right then and there. And sometimes you have to learn to pray on your feet. But here, Ephesus was a prisoner, and restricted in what he was able to do physically, but he did not forget the fellowship at Kolos, the fellow believers. So what did he pray for? Well, verse nine says, for this cause, since we also heard of it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. You know, often our prayers for fellow believers is usually You know, someone would say, hey, I have a job interview, please pray for me. And that's good, we should. Or someone says, you know, students like to say, I have a big test. And I usually joke with students and say, you know, before I knew the Lord, when I was in school, I didn't know God back then. And I knew who he was, but I didn't know him. But I says, I prayed. I prayed usually because I went and studied for a test. And test day came and I would, God, if you're out there, help me, you know. We pray for things like that. Usually pray for sickness. And that's, we should. We should do that. But here's something that goes beyond all that. This is what Epaphus was praying for. It says, he desired that the believers would be filled with the knowledge of his will. Now what is God's will? Well, God's will can be known, but it's also an element of mystery to God's will. But God's known will is, if you have it right now, is sitting in your lap. It's this. His word is his will. And this is what we know about God and what he wants for us. And so Ephraim was praying for the believers that they would know the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that spiritual understanding goes beyond our natural inclination to know things, but to know the depth of something and what God is really saying. You know, how many of you have experienced, I'm sure we all have, where maybe there's a verse that you have memorized, a familiar verse, a common verse, and it's not until you go through a certain circumstance that brings that verse into a whole new light. You see the depths of it. And God reveals himself through our circumstances that we go through in life. And the desire was that the believers know the depth of God's will. And it's something, it's a lifelong journey. We keep pursuing it. And may we be like, where it says, I delight to do thy will, Psalm 40. I delight to do thy will. That's our joy and our delight, to do what God wants us to do. We know that this is what he, I had a situation the other day where sometimes you debate, what does God want me to do today? And I got a phone call, there's an inmate that I ministered to for the past 17 years or so. I met him at the Allegheny County Jail. Had a very notorious crime. In fact, he had to bring the jury in from Erie County because there was so much publicity in Pittsburgh, felt that he would not get a fair trial. And he faithfully came to my Bible study every single week at the county jail. prolific notes and questions. He was a brilliant guy. He was not some street thug. He was an honor student at Duquesne University at the time. And ended up getting a life sentence. And the day that he got, I went to his sentencing, and it was a hard thing to watch. So off he went to the penitentiary, and when he went into the penitentiary, he asked if I would be, when you become an inmate in the state correctional institution, you're allowed to have a spiritual advisor, they call it. You know, they won't call it, you know, it's just, could be anything. You could be a shaman, you know, and minister. But anyway, and what all that does is it gives you a status where your visit does not account for his monthly allotment of visits. And inmates allowed 30 visits per month. And your visit as a religious advisor does not count against those visits. So you can visit him as much or whatever. But the other day, and I've been following his, and he's been appealing his decision, the decision concerning life in prison. Two of the other fellows that were sentenced with him have recently got out. And not that you're putting a criminal back out onto the streets, but during his trial, there was a fourth individual who was granted immunity because he could help break the case. But in the course of the trial, it came out that the one that was granted immunity was probably the one that did the actual killing. All four of them were accountable, but one, regardless, three of the three that were arrested, two recently got out after serving about 12 years, 14 years, but the fellow I ministered to is still in and he's been appealing and appeals denied. You go to a higher court and get denied. And the other day, uh, got a phone call from him and, uh, you can call out from the penitentiary. You can't call there. And he said that his final appeal was denied and he's 39 years old and he's looking for the rest of his life being in prison. And when he told me that, I said, okay. And I said to my wife, I usually visit him every other month because it takes pretty much the day. It takes an hour and a half to get there. You spend, you know, three hours with them or whatever. And then another hour and a half to get back. And I was just there about three weeks ago. But when I got this message, I said, I got to go see him. And so I went to see him last week. And when I got back, I said to my wife, I know I was where, exactly where I needed to be today. And you know that sometimes. You know that. There's other times where you're not 100% sure. The knowledge of God's will, knowing what he wants us to do and to fulfill, and that's something we should be praying for each other constantly. And this is what the emperors of Paul were praying, that they did not cease this to desire And what does that lead to? Well, verse 10 tells us that you might walk, how we conduct ourselves worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. You know, our Christian faith is meant to be not put into compartments, it is one open book, in a sense, it's what our life is. It's our conversation, if you will, our manner of life, our lifestyle. And it should be part of our being in everything that we do, not just at this place here, at this location. I always tell people, you know, if you go and expect to meet God at church, and that's the only place you go to meet God, you deprive yourself of the greatest privilege. in the world, and that is knowing the reality of God every single moment of your life, in every situation that you're in, whether it be going to Home Depot or going, the opportunities that you have. and the situations that you, how many of you have ever prayed for some stranger? Not necessarily even the sinner's prayer, but you're in a store aisle, and you're praying for somebody. I did that once at Home Depot. I met a man that I know from the past, and we met each other again, and we were talking a little bit, and he told me that his wife was going in for cancer treatments, and he got all teary-eyed, and he says, please pray for me. And I said, well, let's pray here. I often wondered what people were thinking as you You know, walk past looking for plumbing parts while you're praying in the aisle. But that's what we're to do. That's what we're to do. And to pray for one another. And to walk worthy of God unto all pleasing. And wherever we go, whatever we do, to please him by how we conduct ourselves. And in every aspect of our life, if we have a sterling reputation here, And yet we don't carry that with how we conduct ourselves in our business or our leisure or whatever we do in our own home. You know, there's where we relax sometimes. And yet it's still a ministry within our home, within our families. We tend to relax, and they always say if you, You really wanna know somebody, travel with them. And spend time with them traveling. But how we, in the ups and downs of life, how we conduct ourselves. The spirit of God goes with us in every single thing that we do, and to be aware of the presence of God in our life. That you might walk worthy of the Lord and all pleasing, and then being fruitful in every good work. Fruitfulness is, I always joke, in Baptist circles, fruitfulness means numbers. You gotta have numbers. That's proof of fruit of your ministry. If we have more people. But you know, we gotta see the inner depths of what goes on. I know there were times years ago, we had a ministry called Time Release. Someone found out in our church that there was a state law, that enabled 36 hours a year of religious education for public school students. It was a state law. He found out about it and thought, well, here's an opportunity to minister. So we had a large bus ministry back then. And so he started with, he had a bus route in Penn Hills. And so he started inviting some kids and got permission slips. And the first time we had time release, You had these kids for six hours. They got off school on a Friday, six times a year, and they came here for religious instruction. So we had a little program. We would teach and do different things. We had activities. We fed them lunch. But the first group we had, we had about, oh, six or seven kids. And, well, that was good. Maybe there can be more, and sure enough, told them to invite their friends. And once word got out you could get out of school. OK. Then it went from six kids to it went to some other of our bus routes and eventually we filled up this auditorium. OK. With high school kids most of them there because they just wanted to get out of school. And it was only a few of us that were here monitoring. And then you had rivalry schools, and it was chaos at times. At one time, we were gonna show a video. As soon as the lights were done, hymnals got thrown at one another. And I had to laugh. At that time, we had a couple that were coming to the church. They were candidates for being missionaries, and they heard about this ministry, and they came to help one time. They were from the country, rural area, and they were a little overwhelmed by this. I don't know if they ever went to the mission field. I know they didn't come to church long after that, but I'm not even sure they made it to the mission field. But I sometimes think about it, and that is, yeah, we got more numbers. And what does that do? Does that satisfy our flesh? Get the gospel out, no doubt about it. But sometimes there's a lot transacted in, you know, I know if I wanna convey the gospel, I like one-on-one. I really like one-on-one. You know, I can talk to a group of individuals, but at least with one-on-one, you know the person's listening to you for the most part. In a group, you're never really sure. So what is fruitfulness? Fruitfulness goes beyond just numbers. You know, someone has asked, how many souls have you won? And I have no idea. I have no idea. God knows. God knows. But you want to be fruitful in what you do and everything that you do, whether it's a purposeful ministry or even if it's in your work. You want to be fruitful. What I mean by that is fruitful in the sense of your witness. spoken and living witness, your neighbors, or whatever activity you do to carry Christ. Second Corinthians says, now thanks be unto God, which always maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us, by Jesus Christ, by us in every place, wherever we go, whatever we do. And it's a total ministry. We conduct ourselves, where we go, what we do, what we say. Well, Paul's prayer and Epaphras' prayer that they might be fruitful and increasing in the knowledge of God. I marvel at God's patience, you know, and that is that I remember when I first got saved and when our church, in the early days of our church started, we had a dear saint down in the old church. Her name was Bea Taylor, Beatrice Taylor. We all marveled at her because when our church first got started, we were just teenagers or just a little bit out of being teenagers. And here she was probably in her 40s at that point, and she was a seasoned saint. And I remember her saying she had already been saved like 25 years. And that was like, for me, I just found the Lord, that was like incomprehensible, you know, wow. Imagine 25 years of walking with God, all the things that you can learn and know. And here I am now, like 46 years knowing the Lord, and I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of what we can know about God. God is deep, and so we should always be increasing in the knowledge of God. Learning from every circumstance that we're in, everything that we go through, obviously learning more from his word, because he reveals himself from his word. But, you know, the Bible says, grow in grace, in the last verse of 2 Peter, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's interesting, because it throws it on us. It's telling us to grow. So we play a part in our growth. God gives us what we need. When you read 2 Peter chapter one, he's given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. He's given them to us, but now we have to appropriate them, apply them into our life. And the opportunity to grow really is on us now. God's given us what we need, but as it says in 2 Peter, I think verse 19, 319, but growing grace, So we play a part in it. And here the prayer was that you grow in the understanding of his will, you walk worthy of him, fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. You know, God is deep, right? And I'm glad he's bigger than what we can explain. I find myself saying this all the time anymore. You know, as a young Christian, I used to try to defend God a lot. And I had to answer every single situation I felt. You know, you're presented with perplexing things sometimes, and you gotta give a reasonable answer, and we should. But I'm also way more comfortable saying today, God knows. There's a depth to God that none of us are gonna really ever understand. I'm glad he's bigger than what I can explain. If I could explain God, He wouldn't be much of a God. He's way deeper, but we can grow in his understanding of him. You know, how unsearchable are his riches? They're unsearchable, but we still search for them. We still want to know them. We want to dig into them. Yea, if thou cryest after knowledge and lifteth up thy voice for understanding, if thou seek it as silver and search for it as hidden treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. I often use as an illustration down in the jail about that. I said, you know, before I came in here, and while you guys were locked up, if the correctional officer let me hide a $100 bill on this pod, and now you're all released and said, there's a $100 bill here for anyone who can find it. You have five minutes. How would they look? It would be chaos. They would turn the place upside down looking for that. We got something way better than a $100 bill. There's something way more than that. And yet Proverbs tells us, yea, if thou cryest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seek it as silver, and search for it as hid treasure. You know, my prayer is that I never lose the wonder of this, this word. You know, we get familiar with it. I'm familiar with it. I've read it through many, many, many times. But I never want to lose the wonder of it. Because if you lose the wonder of it, you're going to lose the depth of what it's all about. You know, God wants us to know this and to know him and the knowledge of him. And then we get that confidence in situations when we know His way. It's His way, not our way, and we're not know-it-alls. We just know the one who knows it all. We know Him, and to know the knowledge of His will, and to keep growing. So when we pray for one another, that's what we ought to be praying. I pray that so-and-so knows the knowledge of His will and that they'll be fruitful today. This will be a fruitful day for them. Even though their day may be filled with monotony, God is vibrant and alive in every single circumstance. Whether you work on an assembly line or whatever you do, the monotony of doing your house chores that you do all the time. God is vibrant, he's alive and he's there and there's lessons where his spirit speaks to our spirit and we're aware in conjunction especially with usually when you read in the morning. That's why when that person asked me about my study habits, I said I tend to be a morning person. So don't think that you have to be, that's just the way I'm wired. I don't function well late at night. The worst thing I can do when I go home is sit down. because then the motor doesn't get started again. And you just, but I tend to, I don't pop out of bed, but I tend to wake up early, you know, it's summertime and gets lighter earlier and the birds start chirping around five in the morning and it's time to get up. But I'm more focused in the morning, that's how I do it. But the blessing of the morning is, if you read, usually throughout the course of the day, You'll often see the verses or things that you've studied and read will kind of interact with your day somehow, some way. How many times have you heard someone do a devotional and the devotional that they read that day, later on throughout the day, something happened that reminded them of the information in that devotional? It's how God works, it's how the spirit works. And so we certainly want that when we pray for people, that they would increase in the knowledge of God. Pray for their sickness, pray for their well-being, that they overcome that sickness. Yes, pray for them, we should do that. But pray that they grow in their understanding. Even though they might have been saved for 50 years, they can still grow. We're still growing, we're still learning and moving on. Verse 11, strengthened with all might Now I like this, if you look at this complete verse, because yeah, we all want to be strong in the Lord. But notice this, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering, with joyfulness. Okay, here's the hard part. Okay, God will test us, and often our maturity is tested in the circumstances of life. We're all gonna have trials and how we meet those trials. But to meet them with joyfulness, that's another, what did Paul and Silas do in prison? Sang praises. You know, I marvel at that, that they could sing praises in a prison cell and pretty much looking at a death sentence. but they knew that living hope that they had. Now that hope is what really sustains us through the troubles of life. Jesus, in comforting his followers, his closest followers, when he knew he was about to depart from him, what did he give them? Well, he gave them eternal hope. Everyone's familiar with John 14. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. What was he doing? He was instilling in them the eternal hope is what will help us through the circumstances that we go through in life because you know I was just talking with Brother John and So one of the verses I'm using a lot now is in Ecclesiastes, it says, remember thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil years come not. You know, the body starts to break down, and you know, we're not what we once were. Oh, eight years ago, I think it was, I had a hernia operation, and someone, after I recovered, someone came up to me and said, you're 100%. I haven't been 100% since I was 30. The 100% days are gone for some of us, right? The 100% is relative to what our age is at the moment. But the evil years come. They come in all different forms and fashions. And we have trials of different sorts in life. And look at the prayer here. Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, and to all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. You know, James says it, let patience have her perfect work. You know, none of us like trials. If we could chart the course of our own life, not one of us would design trouble into our life. We wouldn't do it. Not one of us. But there's an all-knowing, infinite God that designs it into our trouble. He's all-loving. But he designs it in our life at times. And what do we need to meet those circumstances is that inner strength that only comes from God. Knowing him. Be stronger than the Lord and in the power of his might. It's borrowed power. It's borrowed strength. None of us have those resources in and of ourselves. It comes from God and learning to tap those resources, learning to recognize where they come from and actually to utilize them in our life. And then when trials come and to be able to meet them, I'm not saying I'm there, but this was what Ephraphus' prayer was for those at Kolos, that they would do it with joyfulness. That's a difficult thing. What can enable somebody to have joy in the midst of trials and tribulations? Nothing but the presence of God in their life. The presence of God in their life. We must have that. And that was his prayer. Because look, you look through this body, body of believers, every one of us are gonna have this happen to us in life. We're gonna have these trials, and we experience them maybe even right now, this very moment. They could be physical, they could be emotional, they could be all kinds of things. What were they looking at in the first century? They were looking at serious trials. Your faith was confronted with, often, maybe imprisonment. Maybe your faith was on the line of, do you believe this? If you believe this, this is what you might have to go through. Kind of filled it out, maybe, false believers. Or today, maybe the cost is not as great. But even in our society that we benefit from, from our predecessors to produce a more peaceful circumstance in which we live in, God still designs in our life ways for us to have trials and tribulations. He allows it. It's not heaven here. I find myself, I say it sarcastically in ministry, it ain't heaven here. We're going through things and it's certainly not. And so through all of this, our prayer for one another should be that we should be strengthened according to his might and to all patience and long-suffering with it. Being able to endure, you know, I marvel at some of the circumstances that you see, the lessons that you learn from other people. And, you know, everyone has a story to tell and everyone has a lesson to teach each other. And you know, you look at the circumstances sometimes and you see what people faithfully endure without complaining. My wife had an uncle on her father's side, my father-in-law's side, who was this guy. He always looked like he was a drill sergeant from Parris Island in the Marines. You look at him, it's like, when I first met my wife's side of the family, I said, this is one guy I would not want to cross. He was the greatest guy. He'd do anything for you. And I marveled. He taught me one of the greatest lessons. When my wife's aunt was getting sick, this was my father-in-law's older sister, She got dementia, a very bad case of dementia where she was just really hard to take care of. And my wife's family said that it's just too much for my wife's uncle, the one who looked like a drill sergeant. And they put her in a home for a little bit because she was prone to wander. She would get up and, you know, You almost had to like put her in a straitjacket. She was combative. She would punch. There was like this little sweet little old lady and she's throwing roundhouses at you. And while she was in the nursing home, he was there all day long. And he says, what am I doing? He says, I'm here all day long. I might as well do this back at home. And he took her back to the house. and faithfully every day. If you looked at this guy's exterior, you would never expect it from him. You know, he just had this tough look. And he would sleep on an eggshell foam mattress on the floor beside her bed. Now, they're up in their 80s at this point because she was prone to wander. And he had to put locks on the door so she could not escape. And he would lay on this foam mattress beside her bed so he would wake in in case she got up to wander away. And faithfully did that to the day she passed. And that guy taught me an immeasurable lesson of commitment and faithfulness and sticking with a very long trial, sticking with it. And all of us are gonna have circumstances in our life. But again, the prayer is that you be strengthened with all might. And then verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. You know, thankfulness is, well, we know it, and everything give thanks for what? This is the will of God in Christ Jesus. You know, in conjunction with verse 11 about being strengthened with all patience and that, you find a lot of verses, they're easy to understand those verses when times are good, but when times are hard, it's a little, For instance, all things work together for good. Well, pleasant things, we can quote that verse all the time. All things work together for good. I was joking one time, my wife called me up. There was something we had been waiting for in the mail, and it was some kind of refund check, and we could really use it. And it came, and then something else happened. Like two things in one day. were really, like, amazing to happen. I told my wife, hey, on the way home, since things were going so well, buy a lottery ticket, you know? Think it may be, but I was joking. But anyway, how about when things aren't so pleasant and they happen? It's still true that all things work together for good to them that love God. It's the unpleasant things that brings to light the bearing of the strength of what that verse is all about. To his glory, he will work all things out, and they work together for good. Sometimes we might not see the good immediately. That good sometimes will kind of surface maybe later on. And so we hold on to that. But giving thanks unto the Father in everything, giving thanks to him, to be appreciative. Psalm 92, it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. When I pick up Mr. Bench, Mr. Bench has changed his saying, because I used to say, how you doing today? And his answer was, for a good while, was reigning in life. But now it's extremely thankful. He's extremely thankful at 92 years of age. Extremely thankful. Not just thankful, but extremely thankful. Well, Paul and Ephesus were reminding the believers, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet, to be partakers of this inheritance of the saints and light. And reminding them in the next verse, What's he done? He's delivered us from the power of darkness. And listen, we need to be reminded of verses like this when times are bad and difficult. Listen, God has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. The greatest hope we have, it's the thing that sustains us. We're born for a reason when we're born. And as much as we don't like the way the world is today, and there's a lot of it I don't like, and where we're going, it's crazy, but I know this. We're born, when we're born, for a reason. There's no accidents of when we were born. You hear people say, boy, I wish I lived in another era or something, but we're here for now. And we're here to reach and to minister to people now. This is our scope of ministry. And But what helps me is to be reminded of, I've been delivered from the power of darkness. And I've been translated into the kingdom of his dear son. And the brotherhood that we have is amazing. You know, I was driving home a while ago and a song came on that really spoke to me and that was whatever I was going through. And I had just finished trying to minister and witness to a person that doesn't know the Lord. And when I felt what this song did for me, and I said, they don't know this. They don't know this feeling. They don't have this knowledge. They don't have this hope. They can't express this opportunity to praise Our God, the God who made them. They don't know this. But God has translated us into the kingdom and this fellowship of his dear son. And of course, it concludes with verse 14. It reminds us of something. In whom we have redemption through his blood. Never forget the price. Never forget the price of our, you know. It says in Isaiah about looking to the hole of the pit. from whence we were dug. I'm glad to put the old life in the rear view mirror and drive us, as you put something in the rear view mirror and the further you drive away from it, the smaller and smaller it gets, the object that you're looking at in the mirror. And we have to do that. But we never wanna forget what we're saved from and what it cost. What did God institute in the ordinances of the church. One was baptism, which was to be done once, to picture what Christ had done. But the other was communion, which we were not to forget. This do in remembrance of me, because we can forget the power and the significance of something. People do that at weddings all the time, right? They say a vow, and they mean it at that point. Until death do us part, until a couple years later, death's ready to do them apart. They mean it at that point, but we lose our focus, and we lose the significance of it, and we have to be reminded of it. We're forgetful people. That's why we need this word every day. It is daily bread. We need it every day. We can't coast. If you take your car on a totally level road and kick it up to 100 miles an hour and kick it neutral, it's going to coast to a stop eventually. It's just going to coast to a stop. And the same thing, I think, happens if we get away from feeding ourselves or fueling the engine. and going forward and moving forward, if we just start coasting in what was a past blessing or the knowledge that we already have, we're gonna coast and we're gonna coast to a stop. We have to be reminded and reminded of the price that was paid for our sins in whom we have redemption to be redeemed, to be purchased. Purchased from the bondage of Satan to the freedom of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the token of that payment was his blood and the amazing forgiveness of sins. My sins, not yours, mine. We personalize it. And the price that was paid for it, to be reminded of that. And this was their prayer. This was their prayer for their fellow believers. And I think it's, That's what we ought to be praying for each other. We do that. It should strengthen us and our walk with the Lord. So let's pray. Lord, please teach us this. And Lord, help us to dwell on the truth of your word, the riches of it, all that you have for us, Lord. Verses that are familiar. Let us never lose the significance of them, Lord, and allow them to abide deep within our souls and in our hearts. Even this night, Lord, thank you for the reminder of a ministry of a man and his prayers. Lord, he entered into that place where he could help by coming before you and praying for his brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, help us to do that and fulfill that with each other, Lord, and help us to strive to live in that place where we enter into that private place in private, Lord, where we meet with you and meet in secret, and yet you will reward us openly. In Jesus' name, amen.