Where do you Find Courage in the Face of Trouble?

0 (1s): Well, good morning, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving weekend. Hope you had a wonderful time celebrating. Thanks for joining us here today. 1 (11s): Whether you're here on campus or watching at home so glad to be together and worship, would you stand with me if you're able and we'll take a moment just to pray by it. The Lord's presence to me in our midst, as we worship the Lord, we just bring our hearts of banks this morning. Even as the season, we focus on the things that we're grateful for him. God, when our hearts just bubble over just with thanks and praise for who you are in all the things you've done for us and the blessings that you've given us. So God, I just pray for anyone this morning, maybe who's hurting or lonely or does just concerns weighing upon their hearts. 1 (58s): How would you need us in this place? In this moment, you would your spirit come and fill our hearts with all that we have need of this morning. Would you help us to praise you in good times and bad times? God, you're always worthy of our praise. There's always a reason to praise your name. So do you think you 0 (1m 28s): ? Yes. Well, sitting in my heart is happy. All my digs. Oh yes. 0 (1m 50s): the same guy. Who's never, the same guy. 0 (3m 29s): 1 (11m 20s): Would you help us? Do you receive your love this morning? All that you have for us? God, even at first service, I had this picture of just like us holding our hands, like little kids receiving a gift this morning. If you want to do that, just as a symbol to the Lord to say, I want to receive the love, the mercy, the grace that you have for me today, Lord, I'm just holding my hands open wide outstretched to receive on the heart. 0 (11m 52s): It's a gift for you today. yeah, the single praise. 0 (14m 55s): Your name forever. 0 (14m 58s): where do you praise your name today? 0 (16m 32s): Gather here to adore our King. The Lord. Thank you. That we know that we do get to praise your name forever around your throne for all eternity, with all the angels singing. Holy Holy Holy is the Lord. God almighty, who was in his, in his to come. We stand on Holy ground this morning. Once again, just as the hearts of gratitude. Thanks every eye and heart just focused on you. 0 (17m 17s): Jesus. You're the reason we're here and we love you with all our hearts in your name. Amen. Amen. Church so good. Well, we're just going to share that love of Jesus with each other, for a few moments. Do you want to say hello to someone around you? You just pass on that. Love this morning, pulled back with some announcements soon. 2 (17m 41s): Good morning. Harvest Church welcome. We're awfully glad to have you here. Good to see everybody morning. 3 (17m 51s): Hopefully you are over your trip to fan coma and are bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. Ready to ready to worship the Lord. I could hear you when I was outside and it just sounds fantastic to hear you all lifting up your voices. And that's just super, do you have a few announcements this morning? I'm pastor day, one of the, the pastors on staff here and glad to have you with us and whether you're here in the sanctuary or you're with us in the loft on the patio, we're glad you're here. Or if you're watching online, this is a great way, you know, I'm sorry. I'm not holding the mic in. I'm used to wearing Steve's daily, but the that's the technical term when you're my age, it is. 3 (18m 47s): I just going to say that, you know, Curtis just did our a report on how many views we're getting on our online for our, for those of you who are watching online, we have averaged last month, over 700 devices every week tuning in and watching our service, whether it's on Sunday morning or whether it's right now, if you're watching right now, or if you're watching this delayed either way, we had over 2,800 views last month. So that was really, and that's, I don't know how many people per device, they probably all gathered around their phones, you know, eight or 10 kids. And they've right. 3 (19m 28s): But if you are here with us for the first time, sorry, I'm taking Steve's time here, but if you're here, Where this for the first time this morning, we'd love to have you up at the stop up at the info center. What, what I call the Google of Harvest Church, that's where you find all things out and, and Curtis will help you out up there, but stop up there. They've got a special gift for you. They've got, as, as Ron said, last week, can't tell you what it is, but it looks a lot like a coffee mug and a, and there's some goodies and stuff in it too. And, and information about the Church. And so we'd love to have you stop up there and pick that up. 3 (20m 9s): Let's see. I gotta use, there we go. Okay, man, couple of things starting or on separately, timber on December 12th, we're having a men's breakfast. We realized that it had been quite a while since we'd had one with COVID, everything's been shut down and we really wanted to gather the men together. So two weeks from yesterday, the 12th of December at eight o'clock, we're gonna meet in the loft and enjoy men's breakfast together. And it's a good thing. 3 (20m 50s): You've been eating a lot. These past few days, stretch out your stomach because that's the amount of food you will be getting men. So keep stretching. Also, we have a retreat coming up on January 8th and ninth. We're calling it throttling back. It's all about slowing down. Being able to listen for God's voice, to being able to grow and be effective in your walk in Christ to be used of him, to not be tied down with so many of the things of this world that just hold you back. So encourage you to sign up for that. You sign up for that online. You go to either the website, AIG harvest.org or the Harvest app, which is a G Harvest. 3 (21m 32s): You just look that up at, in your app store and you'll be able to connect there, click on the information about the, the men's retreat. And that will take you directly to the camp website because that's where all of the registration is. So please, please do that. We want sign ups by the 15th of the, of next month. We're going to have a Christmas tree lighting ceremony here one week from today at six o'clock out on the front lawn, we're going to have carols out here, setup on the, on the front stoop of the church. And we're going to sing Christmas carols. 3 (22m 13s): We're going to like the Christmas tree. It's just going to be a great night to be together. And I know Steve was going to share more about that here in a little bit, so he can give you more details, but encourage you to come out for that. It's a great, great night. We'll be having Christmas food, basket donations starting anytime. You're ready to bring them in. Now I know we just finished up with Thanksgiving and you did so well bringing stuff in for Thanksgiving. We had so much food, got to bless a lot of people. We want to bless a lot of people for Christmas, where our goal is that we need 50 hams. And as I told them in the first service that doesn't include Steve and I. 3 (22m 57s): And so we just need to have plenty of food for Christmas and sign up up in the, at the info center or we're going to have a wagon out there every week with the food basket that you can fill in. Also one new thing starting this week on Thursday morning at eight o'clock we're resuming our midweek prayer eight o'clock in the loft on Thursday morning, the folks who were involved in that before just came to me and said, we can't not do this anymore. We shut it down for COVID and, but people are wanting to get back to the price. So we're coming in on Thursday mornings at eight o'clock in the loft. 3 (23m 37s): If you are available and would love to pray, come out and pray for an hour. And it's, it's amazing to me, how fast an hour when I'm there and one more and then Steve can come up. You know, he's chomping at the bit over there. He just seemed like in the starting gate, waiting for them to blow that bugle and open the gate. But Mark your calendars too, for Christmas Eve Thursday, December 24th, less than four weeks from now, we will be having three Christmas Eve services this year at three, four, and five, and encourage you to come out. And in the last year was our first year participating on Christmas Eve. 3 (24m 20s): And it's, it's such a sweet service come and sing Christmas carols. We have a Christmas story for the kids and, and Steve will be sharing the word. And it's just a wonderful evening to get centered in and focused on why it is that we celebrate Christmas. And it's not about trees in presence. So encourage you to come out for that. And with that, I will pass this on to Steve. 4 (24m 48s): Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dave. Good morning. Welcome. How many enjoy Thanksgiving? Was it good? Do you have a lots of food? Lots of good stuff. All right. With that, I've got some Thanksgiving jokes, Thanksgiving jokes. What kind of key will not open any door? A Turkey. Very, very good. Very, very good. A Turkey Turk knock, knock. 4 (25m 28s): I'm not sure if I can do this knock, knock. I can't remember. Let me see you. I'm going to get you there though. Here we go. Knock, knock. Arthur. Are there any leftovers? I know, I know. I know my family keeps telling me no more Thanksgiving jokes. I told them I, I just can't quit cold Turkey, and now we're done. The party is over. We're going to pray and be done. Just getting let's go and stand up and pray those. 4 (26m 10s): So you might hear those again next Thanksgiving holiday season, but you will, maybe you forgotten them by then. So we'll see what happens, Lord. We thank you for the opportunity to be studying your word today. Lord, we're going to be in first Thessalonians again, Lord. And so we just pray that you'd speak to us through your word. God, we invite your Holy spirit to fill this place and to fill us Lord. And whoever's got watching. I pray blessing upon them. Lord God, wherever they are on campus or online Lord, we just pray for your blessing upon each person. God encouragement would go out to them. Lord grace and peace and mercy 5 (26m 44s): Would go out to them in Jesus name, God that you would just do wonderful and profound things in this service. The balance of this service, we pray, Lord, it's in your name. We ask these things. Jesus. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. So first Thessalonians chapter two verses one through 16, where do you find courage in the face of trouble? That's the title of the message today? Where do you Find Courage in the face of Trouble. I think if we're going to find out the answer to this, it's good to go to a person who's experienced. Trouble like if nobody's ever experienced Trouble and they tried to help you to Find Courage in the face of trouble that person's got no credibility, but Paul, the apostle Paul, he's got some, the ability why? Because his life was riddled riddled with Trouble years ago, I talked to my father-in-law he's he's getting older. 5 (27m 32s): And I said, Hey Mark, do you have any regrets in life? Anything that you can pass on? And we had a great conversation out of that and to glean something from someone who'd been around a while, Paul Paul is speaking to us from this profound, the experience that he's had with the Lord, this profound experience that he's had as a minister of the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And so from Paul's experience and wealth of knowledge and understanding of God, we're going to answer that question. Where do you Find Courage in the face of Trouble quick, quick story though. I was just a little guy going back many years and I was living down in Southern California and was with a sitter, a babysitter, and my brother and I, and the babysitter. 5 (28m 16s): We were at the beach and we go out to the water and I go deeper and deeper into the water and get kind of pulled out into the ocean and I can't swim. And so I'm out there and I find my pet kind of get my way over to the piling on the pier and I hold on for dear life. And so as you can imagine the waters going up over my head and then down. And when it, when the water goes down, I do everything within me just to yell out, help, right? I mean, I'm dying out there. Literally I'm drowning under the water. And it was, it was a time in my life where I didn't know, God didn't know who he was. And so I was just calling out to whoever would listen, just calling out. 5 (29m 1s): And then I believe that God sent the lifeguard with the life preserver and he saved my life that day. But it was in a time of desperate trouble. When I was calling out to anybody maybe been there, you just, you're in a desperate place. You just calling out to anybody. I, I, I want to share with you a few things today that will help you to find the courage that you need for the circumstance that you face. Let's take a look at first Thessalonians, chapter two verses one through 16, Paul rate's you yourselves know, do your brothers and sisters that are visits. You was not a failure. He's declaring something to this Church and maybe to himself. 5 (29m 44s): Cause I know at times it feels like the ministry that God calls us to is ineffective. Sometimes we feel like what we're doing is not fruitful, not helpful. And I'm sure Paul and his human has wondered at times whether what he was doing was actually fruitful and helpful and had eternal, eternal fruitfulness attached to it. But we know from first Thessalonians chapter one, verse nine, that the Thessaloniki and Church these people in this church had turned away from their idols to serve the living. And only God, they had turned from idolatry and the culture of two or 300,000 people in their town where idolatry was part of the deal. 5 (30m 27s): It was just part of the culture. And so you can imagine how the culture was surprised when this group of people heard the gospel message, the message about this person, Jesus Christ. And they turned away from their idols to serve the living and true God you yourselves know, do your brothers and sisters that are visits you is not a failure. He's establishing that the gospel message went out and effectively produce fruit for the kingdom of God. Verse two, he says, you know how badly we had been treated in Philippi at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Remember we talked about the Philippian jailer last week in acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in prison for their stance on the gospel for preaching the gospel. 5 (31m 15s): And they were beaten with rods and they were imprisoned. And about midnight, the Bible says they were praying and singing to the Lord. And about that time, a big earthquake hit the prison, hit the jail and the doors were opened and the chains fell off of them. And they all stayed the jailer awakens from his stupor and realized that the doors are open. And he's just assumes that the prisoners are gone. So he goes to kill himself. And Paul says, stop. Don't kill yourself. We're all still here. God had a plan for that Philippian jailer. So we know that Paul had experienced difficulty before going to this place. He had been beaten with a rod and in prison, he said, you know how badly we've been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there yet. 5 (32m 0s): God yet our God gave us the Courage in our God gave us the courage to declare his good news to you boldly in spite of great opposition, the temptation would be, Hey, we got into trouble. The last city we were in, let's kind of settle down this time, right? Let's just kind of fly below the radar. Let's not draw attention to ourselves. It's not fun to get beat with rods and thrown in jail. So let's just kind of fly below the radar. But Dodd God had called them. He had equipped them. He had given them purpose. Yes. And therefore God gave them Courage to do what they were called to do to proclaim the yet our God gave us the courage to declare his good news to you boldly in spite of great opposition. 5 (32m 47s): Where do you find courage in the face of Trouble number one in your notes, God will give you Courage. 6 (32m 54s): Yeah, that's great news. I think that's incredible news that if we just call out to the Lord, I mean, I think about myself bobbing up and down, clinging onto that piling with no buddy to call out to except for the open air. Like Al I'm dying here. I'm struggling here. But the reality is, now that I know God, I've got someone to cry out to. Maybe you're here today and you don't know God, you can call out to the same God, you can call out to the true and living God. And he will respond to you. He will listen to you. He will, he will come to your aid. God will give you Courage. He and Paul and Silas were beaten and 5 (33m 31s): In prison at some point, no matter how brave 6 (33m 33s): You are, Courage begins to evaporate, right? I mean, you go up against difficulty at every turn in your Courage begins to 4 (33m 42s): Great, but God, but 6 (33m 46s): God, God is faithful. And we will simply even in a faint whisper call out to him, Lord. 4 (33m 53s): Well, he responds, you were saying 5 (33m 56s): Child after all you've been created in his image, 6 (33m 59s): She's adopted you into his family. He's died for you. He loves you. He cares about you. You read resurrect from the dead. So they might know you and have a relationship with you. So by God's grace, he in his goodness. And because he loves you, he responds. If you will just simply by faith, 4 (34m 17s): Whisper, cry 6 (34m 18s): It out, yell it out, whatever it is, Lord help me. I need your grace in this moment. 5 (34m 25s): God will give you the Courage. What do you do when you're up against a difficult troubling situation, I would just challenge you to go to God and ask for what you need 4 (34m 38s): And he will give it to you. Right? 5 (34m 41s): I was reading this this morning. It's a book called on this day in Christian history. It's a great book by Robert J. Morgan. And it just takes you through the year and tells you what happened in Christian history on that particular day, in a particular year. So I read for this last week, I'm going to read from it again this week because it's a great, there's a great story. Dated November 29th. So we're going to today's November 29th. So we're going to read this story. It says when James Gilmore sailed for China in 1870, he was young, strong and in need of a wife, for sure. Right? He 6 (35m 17s): Plunged into reopening the London missionary 5 (35m 19s): Societies work in Mongolia, but with no one to lean on quote companions, I can scarcely hope to meet. He wrote and the feeling of being alone comes over me as laborers increased. So did loneliness. He continues today. I felt a good deal like Elijah in the wilderness. He told his journal. He, he prayed that he might die. I felt drawn towards suicide. Two missionaries should always go together. Oh, the intense loneliness, the pain deep in when his proposal to a Scottish girl was rejected. 5 (36m 1s): I then put myself and the direction of this affair. I mean the finding of it, the wife into God's hands asking him to look me out. Good one too. He said in 1873, Gilmore visited friends in peaking and mr. And mrs. Meech seeing a picture of mrs. Mitch's sister, Emily pranks heard James asked about her as his hostess described. Emily James found himself falling in love. He gazed at her picture, saw some of her letters and asked more and more or questions early. The next year, James wrote to Emily proposing marriage in his first letter buy the same mail. 5 (36m 47s): He informed his parents in Scotland. I have written in a proposed to a girl in England. It is true. I've never seen her. And I know very little about her, but I have put the whole matter into the hands of him. God asking him if it'd be best to bring her, if it be not best to keep her away and he can manage the whole thing. Well, what a great perspective receiving Gilmore's letter. Emily took it at once to the throne of grace later, Gilmore re recall the first letter I wrote her was to propose. And the first letter she wrote to me was to accept by autumn. Emily was in China, arriving on this day, November 29th, 1874 a week later, they were married. 5 (37m 33s): Gilmore acquired both wife and colleague and they labored faithfully side-by-side for years reaching Northern China for Christ. This guy was in a dark place. You ever been there? You know, through this whole COVID experience, I read a medical journal yesterday. A statistic says that one in four young people are suicidal as a result of the lockdown, the shutdown, the, the, the reality that we can't be together. Like we watch you work together. It's a, it's a devastating impact of COVID on our culture around the world. What, what do you do? Where do you go? You find the Courage in the face of Trouble. 5 (38m 14s): I would just encourage you to Courage out to the Lord and watch what he will do. What do you need to Courage to overcome? Is it loneliness? Is it anxiety? Is it fear and uncertain future ask God for Courage and watch what he will do when we walk, when we with God and honor him, he gives us what we need every time. Every time first three says, so you can see, we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives 7 (38m 47s): Trickery. There 5 (38m 52s): from a pure motivation. Those outside of the church may have been questioning their motivation because they were drawing people away from idolatry into to serve this new living and true God as many turned from idols to serve the one and living true God, there may have been some jealousy, some confusion, or even anger from the townspeople. I remember I grew up in this town, so people know me. They know, they know what I was like before I knew Christ, and now they know what I'm like now. And so I, in junior high school, I gave my life to the Lord, but I didn't know what to do with my faith until I was about 17 years old, a junior in high school. And so about 17 years old as a junior in high school, I decided to give my whole life to the Lord, meaning that my life would reflect my decision to serve Jesus. 5 (39m 43s): I had made the decision to serve Jesus as a junior higher, but my life didn't reflect that decision. It took a few years. And so when I changed, people were perplexed about it because they would say is isn't that Steve, the guy that we used to smoke pot with, isn't that Steve, the guy that we used to ditch school with and go surfing with isn't that the same guy that we used to get into trouble with. Right? And now what happened to him? There's been, there's been a change. There's been, he's not the same guy that he used to be. Thank God for that. But there needs to be a change right? In our lives, in our beef before Christ days in our, after Christ days, there needs to be a transformation. And when that transformation happens, people question it they'll question the sincerity of it. 5 (40m 26s): They will question whether it's real and then they will stick around and wait to see if it lasts. So Paul, with the preaching of the gospel was upsetting the norm. He was causing people to be transformed by the message of the gospel. 7 (40m 43s): Okay. 5 (40m 44s): You know, people were probably perplexed when Paul was converted, CA was converted as well. And he, because one day he's persecuting the church and the next day he's a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. One day, he's killing people for following Jesus. The next day he's following Jesus in. And the church were, they were perplexed by the people in his circle. They were perplexed by it. So Paul's not unfamiliar with the reality that the gospel is going to upset the Apple card. It's going to change people and change and change people for the good. So he's, he's waiting for this to happen. And he's seeing this happen in cultures, as he's preaching the gospel, wherever he goes, people are questioning his motivation, questioning the method. 5 (41m 27s): The message are questioning everything, but Paul's motivation was pure. Verse four says for, we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the good news. Our purpose is to please God, 6 (41m 43s): Not people. He 5 (41m 44s): Alone examines the motives of our hearts. Where do you go? What do you find? Courage on the face of Trouble number one, 6 (41m 53s): God will give you Courage. But also number two, clear purpose produces Courage clear purpose produces. Courage do you have a clear purpose for your life? The purpose of our church is that we're going to impact our community and our world. What the life changing message of Jesus Christ. This is what we're here to do. Our, our visions. We want to impact our community and our world with the life changing message of Jesus Christ. That's what we're measuring everything against. And so when we hear the analytics that we've got, not only people from our church coming to church, but people outside of the community and around the world tuning in hundreds of week, hundreds of people a week tuning in where we were grateful that we're fulfilling what we feel called to fulfill. 6 (42m 41s): Where impacting our community and our world 5 (42m 43s): With the life changing message of 6 (42m 45s): Jesus Christ. What is your purpose statement? My personal purpose, 5 (42m 50s): Basically the same as our purpose statement for the Church 6 (42m 53s): Church I want to, I want to have an impact. I, I want to get to the end of my life and think about my life and one and, and realize I want to, I want to with great humility 5 (43m 5s): Say thank you, Lord, that 6 (43m 6s): There's been impact, right? I wanna, I wanna know that my life, I want to know, like Paul, I want to know 5 (43m 12s): That I finished. Well, then I ran the race and I finished the race, 6 (43m 16s): You know? And you can know that you can, you can do that. And what I want for you is I want you to know that, but you will never know that if you don't know what your purpose is, you'll never get to the end of your life and be able to hold on to that purpose and say, it is finished. I've done it by God's grace, right? Only by God's grace, because he is good. Not because we're good, but, but he works through us wonderfully in zebra. Now, supernaturally, he works through us. I want us to know when it's all said and done that God did something through us. Like there was something tangible and, and, and, and wonderful and supernatural. That happened as a result of the way that we lived our lives. And that's very possible. That's why we have purpose statements as a church. And that's why corporates, corporate businesses and others have mission statements because they want to know that what they're doing is, is actually accomplishing something. 6 (44m 3s): And there's a way to measure it. Are we impacting our community and our world of the life changing message of Jesus Christ. This is why church is open. Part of, part of my purpose statement is I want to create, I wrote it down. I'll just see if I can find it here. Part of my purpose is to create space for people to gather and worship corporately. So when Trouble comes and they want to shut us down, my courage comes from clarity about my purpose and our purpose. Our purpose, my purpose is to create a space 5 (44m 32s): Where people can gather, I believe were necessary, that were essential, that the church is essential. And so I want to create a place, a space for us to worship. And so that's why we're open. And that's what we're going to stay open by. God's grace, right? We're going to stay open by God's grace, clear purpose produces Courage where do you need courage in your life? If you attach purpose to that area of your life, all of a sudden you'll find Courage. If it's, if it's God's centered purpose, if God's planted something in your soul and is given you something to live for, then all of a sudden you're going to have Courage to accomplish those things. It will impact the way that, you know, 4 (45m 13s): You spend your time, your talent and your treasure will impact your whole life. It will in the best possible meaning of the word. It will wreck your life. You will make your life completely different than it's ever, ever been clear. Purpose produces. Courage what's your purpose. 5 (45m 33s): You could, because again, I want you to get to the end of your life, whether that's in a year from now or 20 years from now or 40 years from now, I want you to get to the end of it. And I want us as a church to be able to say this was this been my, my life, 4 (45m 45s): The purpose. And I realized it to the best, 5 (45m 49s): The best of my ability by God's grace, because he's good at that because I'm good. There was something wonderful and supernatural. 4 (45m 55s): It was accomplished in, in me and with me and through me. And then I just want to close my eyes and go be with Jesus. Amen. That's the best possible way to go, goodness. And all along the way. Cause you never know what's going to happen. Get step off the curb. And then you were with Jesus, right? And then what are you going to have to give an account for your life? Right? So you can't wait until you're, you know, out of high school to do this. You can't wait until you finish with college to do this. You can't wait until you're, you know, raise your kids to do this. 4 (46m 36s): Or until you have kids, you can't wait until you're, you know, retired to do this. You can't, you can't wait. You can't wait. What's your purpose. Now, 5 (46m 46s): Maybe as you grow and you get older, that purpose might change a little bit. Might get a little more defined 4 (46m 53s): Like you have kids. And then you're saying, man, my purpose is to make sure my kids serve the Lord 5 (46m 59s): That I live in such a way in relationship with them, that they fall in love with Jesus, like 4 (47m 3s): With Jesus, right? That becomes your purpose. You get married. 5 (47m 9s): You're like, man, I want my marriage to reflect the goodness of God. I want people to see in my marriage, the goodness of God, the love of God, the grace of God. I want people to 4 (47m 19s): See that in my life and marriage, 5 (47m 22s): Whatever season of life that you're in, God will give you purpose. 4 (47m 25s): This. That'll get you up in the morning. That will give you Courage tackle the things that God has called you to tackle. Paul was serious about his purpose and he understood it and he didn't play games with it. Never once. First five, 6 (47m 42s): Never once. Did we try to win you with flattery as you well know? And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends, just to get your money. As for human praise, we've never sought it from you or anyone else. Paul was living and serving for an audience of one. He was focused on God and he wanted to make sure that what he did properly reflected the person of God, the love of God, the grace of God, that the work of God, he wanted to make sure that it was like a mirror. Like you could look at his life and see the goodness of God through and through as apostles of Christ, verse seven says we certainly had a right to make some demands of you. 6 (48m 25s): But instead we were like children, that, that word means gentle like children. We were like children with you. We were gentle like children among you, or we like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. We loved you so much that we shared with you. Not only God's good news, but our own lives too. It wasn't, it wasn't this preaching thing. Wasn't a vocation for Paul. It wasn't like, this is what I do in my nine to five. And then I turned it off. I turned it on and turn it off. It wasn't, it just wasn't that, that it was his whole life. And he said, I'm giving you the gospel and I'm giving you my whole life, giving you the gospel. And I'm giving you my life. There's something powerful about Paul's connection to his purpose. 6 (49m 8s): He understood what he was here in the earth to do. He was connected to his purpose. What is your purpose? Are you connected to it? Do you know who you are? And do you know whose you are? Do you know where you belong and to whom you belong when you figure that kind of stuff out, 4 (49m 26s): It makes just, it makes life so much better. And it's just so much more fun. 6 (49m 32s): You wake up and you know, Hey, I know what I'm doing this week. I'm gonna impact my community, my world with a life changing the gospel message of Jesus Christ. I'm going to do something for Jesus this, this day, this week, I don't know what it is, but I know God's going to use me. And then you get to define things a little bit more clearly. And you, as you walk with the Lord, you say, I know that I'm called to this, this arena, this area of ministry, this arena, this area of service too, to the world with the gospel. I know that I'm called. And then you get, there you go. You get really good at it. You get it. You get the opportunity to practice and, and continue to drill down in that gift set and use your gifts for kingdom, 4 (50m 15s): The buses. So you're not going to start out very strong. Probably you just not remember. I was 18 years old and I was asked to preach a sermon going back before then I was about 17 years old and I was asked to do my grandfather's Memorial service to officiate my grandfather's Memorial service. That was a terrible idea. By the way, it was a terrible idea. I was grieving and trying to proclaim the gospel to my family as I'm trying to do as a Memorial, sir, it was, it was not a good idea, not a good idea, 6 (50m 58s): But it was the beginning. It was, it was what God, you know, 4 (51m 2s): You used to begin to shape me into, to teach me how to communicate. And then I got a chance to, like I said, when I was 18 to do a little sermon in front of the singles group of our church. And, and then over the years you got to do different things and, and, and there's just, God, God just kind of opened the doors. And I feel like, I feel like I'm still a rookie of that. As you know, I still feel like I'm just trying to figure things out. But I, I do have a confidence that God is doing something. God is doing something. And it's a confidence that God has had to teach me because we want to, there's a point to my sharing there. 4 (51m 45s): There's 6 (51m 45s): We, we, we want to diminish 4 (51m 48s): Our impact out of a false humility. And it's not God's design. If God's using us, we want to say, thank you God for using, thank you for using me. I, I don't want to say or do anything apart from your word or your will. So Lord just stick right with me as I'm doing what I'm doing, you know, you never want to be in your own steam. As I talked about last week, talking out of it in your own steam ministering in your own steam, a minister, doing the things that God has called you to do in your own steam. You always want to be prayerful and asking God for help. So now I can say that I've got confidence that when I get up to speak, God's going to do something. 4 (52m 32s): And I'm always surprised. I'm always surprised. I'm always surprised. Number one, when I can write a message and I tell this to Jolene almost weekly, I say, well, finished another one. I don't know how, but I wrote another sermon. And then I preach it. And after church, I say, well, there's another one of the can. And, and God did something good because people come up to me and say, how did you know, that's what I was going through? And I said, I don't know. I've no idea what you're going through other than what you maybe you've shared with me, but God knew. And so when people say great message, I say, isn't God good. 4 (53m 13s): Right? Isn't God good. Right? Or if it's a bad message, I say, yeah, I didn't get much sleep 6 (53m 18s): The last night, whatever it is. My point in sharing this up is don't your 5 (53m 26s): Impact on the world that you live, you are called to have an impact with your friends and your family. So don't say it. What was me? I can't do that. 7 (53m 36s): Yes, you can. By God's grace. 5 (53m 40s): Yes, you can. So that should be the answer. Yeah. I can do that Lord, because I know you're going to be with me and it's not an arrogant thing at all. It's but yeah, Laura, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah. You'll be with me. Yeah. And so God's getting all the credit, all the glory, and all we're doing is just kind of going along with his plan. Right. So it's not an arrogant thing to say, yeah, I can do this. I can, I can, I can go minister. I can, God's giving you an assignment. Say, yeah, I can go do that. Right? Teaching, teaching Bible college or Bible school classes, whatever it is, teach teaching in a small group, Bible study, praying with a neighbor, your neighbor comes to you and says, man, I I'm, I'm fearful. Well, can I pray for you? And just, and just pray. 5 (54m 21s): And then you say, Lord, help me to pray. And then you pray and you say, thank you, Lord, that you want me to pray. Right? You take it all back to the Lord. Right? And then he does something great. And you say, thank you, Lord, for what you're doing. Right? Cause that person comes back later and says, man, you won't believe how much that prayer impact in my life. And you say, well, God's faithful. Thank you, Lord. Right. That's just what it's all about. That's what Paul was doing. He was all about the kingdom. He's the smartest guy in town, but it's all about just giving God all the glory and all the credit, because that's what, in his own strength, he was not going to do anything for the Lord. Don't you remember? 5 (55m 1s): Verse nine, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among United in the day, we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preach. God's good news to you. You yourselves are our witnesses. And so is God that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you toward all of you believers. Where do you find courage in the face of Trouble will God will give it to you, but also clear purpose produces Courage and then number three, a clean conscience yields. Courage a clean conscience yields. Courage Paul clarify, clarified a few things in verse three. We won't go back and read the verse, but I'll just tell you what he clarified in. 5 (55m 43s): Verse three Said in verse three, his message was not deceptive, but true. Paul wasn't playing games, trying to deceive anybody. He was bringing the real gospel. Number two, his motivation was not in pure, but clean. His motivation was pure. He was all about Jesus. He wasn't trying to build anything. He wasn't trying to establish his reputation. He wasn't trying to do anything apart from what God had called him to do, his, his motivation was pure. His method was not to trick or to see, but to be straightforward, it wasn't trying to be impressive. Eloquent, smart. 4 (56m 26s): Wasn't trying to trick or look good or deceive. He was straightforward with the message and his conscience was clear. His conscience was clear, a solely conscience hinders Courage 7 (56m 41s): So deal with it. Deal with your solely conscience, deal with him. How do you deal with it? 4 (56m 48s): If you confess your sin, he is faithful. And just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, that's how you deal with it. Just confess it. Maybe, maybe there's areas of your life, where your conscience isn't so clean, A guilty conscience, clouds, our clarity in and robs us of any Courage to do the things that God has called us to do. So maybe you're here and you've been wrestling with something. That's something that the Lord is asking you to do and you haven't done it. So I say, Lord, I'm sorry for that. I haven't done that yet. I'm going to do it now. That's how you clear your conscience. Sorry that I haven't done it yet. Lord, I'm going to do it. Now. Part of repentance is changing your mind about something, right? You're you're saying I don't believe that anymore, or I don't want to be disobedient anymore. 4 (57m 33s): So, so sorry Lord, that I didn't do it. I'm going to do it now in your conscience. It will be clear when you do that, right? How's your conscience. Do you need to do something to clear your conscience? 7 (57m 50s): Okay. 4 (57m 50s): Do you need to pay back a debt? Do you need to repent of sin? 7 (57m 58s): And again, 4 (57m 58s): Sin. Repenting is not just saying, sorry about that. And then continuing in it, repenting is saying, sorry about that. I don't ever want to do it again. You actually change your mind about it and you turn and go the opposite direction. Do you need to have a tough conversation in order to clear your conscience? Do you need to say, sorry, 7 (58m 21s): Do you need 4 (58m 22s): To humble yourself? Do you need to admit around 7 (58m 24s): Long? 4 (58m 27s): God wants you to live with a clear conscience because you are empowered. And you're courageous. When you've had a clear conscience, you are empowered and courageous to do the things that God has called you to do. When your conscience is clear. When you know, by God's grace, you've done everything that he's asked you to do. And when you fall in short, you've quickly, you felt short accounts where the Lord and say, God, forgive me. I'm going to do it next time. And then when he asks you to do it again, you do it because you've repented of not doing it the first time. And by God's grace, you want to do it the next time. Because in our humanness, sometimes we get fearful and we are disobedient and we don't do what God has asked us to do. 4 (59m 7s): So he gives us a second chance. And then another chance we clear our conscience. When, when we say yes, you're right, Lord, I, I, I heard you and I disobeyed not making excuses. I heard you and I disobeyed, but I'm not to disobey anymore. I'm not going to do it. Paul lived in ministered with a clear conscience because this is true. We had the courage, he needed to face the Trouble that he faced, including false accusations and slander and beatings and imprisonment, verse 11. You know, and you know that we treated each of you as a father, treats his own children. 4 (59m 47s): Look at the depth of commitment and the relationship with the connection that he has with his people that he's serving. We pleaded with you, encouraged you and urge you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy, free, called you to share in his kingdom and glory at your part of your purpose, right there, he's called you to share in his kingdom and his glory. Therefore, we never stopped thanking God that when we received, when you received this his message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God, which of course it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe 7 (1h 0m 29s): . 4 (1h 0m 33s): So all we have to do is humbly obediently, open our mouth and do what God has asked us to do. And God will work through us, but we have to humbly and obediently open our mouth so that God can work through us. Like that's our parts. Yes, Lord. I'm going to be humble and obedient and I'm going to be available to speak whatever it is so that you can speak through me or simply conduit conduit. That's what I am. That's what you are. We're conduit for God. And then do your brothers and sisters. You suffered persecution from our own, from your own countrymen. And in this way, you imitated the believers in God's church, in Judea, who, because of their belief in Christ, Jesus suffered for, from their own people that you use. 4 (1h 1m 16s): So persecution will be part of the deal, but are we living for God? Are we living for the approval of man? That's what we got to decide. What is our purpose? Are we living for God? Are we living for the approval of man? Are we living before an audience of one says, God, your will be done. Not my will be done, or are we living to please the people around us? Because we're living to please the people around us, we will not please God sell them. Do they agree? 7 (1h 1m 45s): 4 (1h 1m 51s): For some of the Jews killed the prophets and some even killed the Lord. Jesus. Now they've persecuted us too. They failed to please God and work against all humanity. As they try to keep us from preaching. The good news of salvation to the Gentiles, by doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last 7 (1h 2m 14s): Kind 4 (1h 2m 14s): Of uncertain what Paul is referring to there. It could be referring to a lot of things, but John three 30, the writer there talks about the angry judgment against the unbeliever and the disobedient. So maybe there's just, this is just a general judgment that Paul is referring 8 (1h 2m 28s): To, 4 (1h 2m 31s): But the anger of God has caught up with them. At last, the people that were persecuting them, 6 (1h 2m 39s): They didn't believe, and they didn't want others to believe they weren't content. Just not to believe themselves. They didn't want others to believe like Paul self-righteous Pharisee, who didn't want to believe and didn't want others to believe. 4 (1h 2m 53s): And then the Lord got ahold of him and changed his life, changed his life forever and ever. Where do you find Courage on the face of Trouble Where Where did Paul Find Courage in the face of his Trouble. Well, God gave him Courage 6 (1h 3m 9s): His clear purpose produced Courage and then his clean conscience yielded Courage they all kind of worked together and it's a beautiful thing. And it's a powerful thing. And it's something that God wants to usher 4 (1h 3m 25s): You into and bring you into and make you 6 (1h 3m 27s): A part of. I'm grateful that when I'm in trouble, I've got a person, the living God, to cry out to you. I think about holding onto that piling and having that water go help water up, like what? I'm in trouble. Now I can call out to the living and true God and get an answer every time, every time, because he's, he's never gonna 4 (1h 3m 45s): Do you mean, or for sake, we just won't do it. The Bible says it's true and it's not been my experience. My experience is that he's only been faithful and that's what God says to him. He is not in his nature to be unfaithful. He's going to be faithful. So what, what is your purpose? You know, as we wrap up another year, we're coming up on December 1st, pretty quick. What is your purpose? I do talk about this every year. It's core to, to who I believe God has called me to understand purpose and to help people understand purpose. I, so I, what do you wake up in the morning on your mind to do what is his kingdom purpose attached to your daily routine? 4 (1h 4m 29s): And you're in the way that you spend your time, talent and treasure. Are you, are you intimately acquainted with the living God in such a way that he's got, he's got say over the way that you live your life, is he in charge? Is he, Lord, is he, is he the boss simple terms. You see the boss. If he's the boss, then he gets to tell you how to live your life. If you're the boss, then you get to, till you get to determine how you live your life. I've been the boss of my own life. I didn't do a very good job. Maybe you'll do a better job than me, 6 (1h 5m 5s): But I'm grateful 4 (1h 5m 6s): That I'm and what I'm in trouble. I've got the living God, the boss, who I can call out to you and he's faithful to meet me and to give me Courage with that, I'm gonna invite the worship team forward. So last couple of weeks, I asked you to come up with 12 things that you're thankful for this week. I'm asking you to write a statement, a purpose statement for your own life. What is, what is your purpose? Write that down in the margin of your Bible or on a sheet of paper or on your device and reference that from time to time on a regular basis, to see what God will say and how he might use you and how your life might change as a result. 4 (1h 5m 49s): So with that, let's go ahead and stand up. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the opportunity to hear your message, hear your truth. I believe that you speak through it by, by your grace, the Lord, because you are good. And so thank you for what you've done. Continue that good work. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 0 (1h 6m 17s): Bring it all of the storms around me. 0 (1h 6m 27s): your name is 1 (1h 11m 34s): Amazing. Grace. 0 (1h 11m 36s): 1 (1h 14m 50s): The first verse together. One 0 (1h 14m 52s): More time. 1 (1h 15m 28s): Thank you that we see you a little more clearly this morning, having spent time in your presence and in your word, I had a spray that you would speak to each of us this week about the purpose and plan for our, each of our lives. God, thank you for this time to be together. I look forward to what you want to do in and through us this week ahead. So he laid out our lives. Give you our hearts today in Jesus name. Amen. Amen shirts. Well, we just want to say that we're always wanting time to pray with you. If there is something that we can pray with you this morning about come on forward. Love to do that. 1 (1h 16m 8s): Otherwise have a wonderful week, say hello to somebody on your way out and enjoy the beautiful sunshine day. We'll see you next Sunday. Take care.