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all right good morning everyone welcome back to our Sunday school series on trust in God where we have been going through this book by Jerry Bridges and I think by the end of today we’ll have covered about three quarters of the book and yeah so in today’s lesson we’ll be looking at chapter 10 experiencing God’s love and before we start let me pray for us father thank you for this time that you’ve blessed us with to um study your word to understand the truth of your love that revealed to us in scripture help us to experience it in a real way and and help us to turn that into worship Lord in Christ’s name I pray amen amen all right so I want to start off with a question um so question one does the bible teach that God loves those of us who are in Christ who says yes yeah and es especially if you were here for last week’s lesson then the answer is obvious right the I think Mike papers brought us through a series of different uh passages in Scripture that backs up this answer to to the question and it’s clear that the Bible um emphasizes the fact that uh God loves us if we are in Christ and so a follow-up question to that is this question to since it’s true that God loves us who who are in Christ does it always feel that way or does it always seem that way to us now who still says yes to this question and I think it’s clear why this is true because there’s a clear dis discrepancy between the experience of God’s love and the truth of God’s love that’s revealed to us in scripture and we may know for a fact that God loves us but when going through difficult times in life it may not always appear to us that God loves us and that’s the point of today’s lesson so let me start off with an analogy so this is a piece of drinking straw right and it appears relatively straight to the eye right but what happens when you place it in a glass of water so now it appears to be bent right not straight as you have seen before and for those of you who know this is just due to an optical illusion the reflection of light and water so in a similar way um our experience of God’s love may not always agree with what we know of God’s love has revealed to us in scripture and in those instances it’s our experience that has to be subject to what we know in the truth of scripture and I hope to be able to um bring us through a couple of passages in today’s lesson to help to iron this down and help us to have greater confidence when we go through difficult times to rely on God to truly experience uh the joy of uh knowing God’s love so let’s uh begin with a passage from the book of Ephesians and for those of us who are familiar with the book we know that in the first two chapters um it’s emphasized um Paul emphasizes the election that we have in Christ Our justification and the glories of our Salvation in Christ so it’s clear that the people the Christians at Ephesus knew about the love of God that um yeah that God had for them yet in the third chapter which is where our verses are drawn from here he still emphasizes his desire for them to fully comprehend the love of God for them so there’s a clear difference between um intellectual understanding of God’s love and an actual experience of uh that truth the passage uh for this reason I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on Earth derived its name that he would Grant you according to the reaches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the Inner Man so that Christ May dwell in your heart’s through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the bread and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God so we see that Paul desires for the Christians at Ephesus to comprehend the love of God and not only the love of God but the extensiveness of God love where here he talks about it as the breath and length and height and depth so it’s just the the the extent of God’s love is something that is really beyond our comprehension right we try to grasp bits of it in our daily experiences as we study the word we see glimpses of it but we’ve never fully grasped that whole extensiveness of God’s love for us and he prays for the Christians of Ephesus to on top of knowing that God loves them but to experience it in a very deep way and I pray that this is true for each one of us here today as well right so then this brings us to a short summary of what we’ve talked about in the first couple of slides we know that God loves us who are in Christ but many times it really doesn’t feel that way especially in difficult times and truly experiencing God’s love is more than intellectual understanding of God’s God love taught in scripture experience is more than a mere intellectual Ascent yet it’s important to stress that it’s no less than knowing what God says about his love in scripture right um our experiences are one thing but we should not um think of our experiences as validating what’s true right we should always go back to the word of God which is which is what we know as the only infallible source of Truth uh and let me bring us to an example of the Prophet Jeremiah doing exactly this so here um in the book of Lamentations and specifically in chapter 3 uh the Prophet Jeremiah is lamenting the state of Jerusalem right so he says remember my Affliction and my wandering the wormwood and bitterness surely my soul remembers and is bow down within me so here we see his state of distress and dis depression really about the dire state of that Jerusalem is in and yet in the very next couple of verses this is what he says this I recall to mine and therefore I have hope the Lord’s loving kindness indeed never cease for his compassions never fail they are new every morning great is your faithfulness notice that he recalls to mind something and that something gives him hope right and and the thing that Jeremiah um calls to mind is the Lord’s loving kind kindness his faithful love for his people and he refers to this love as a faithful love right this is what he knows of the character of God so even in the midst of such a dire circumstance he recalled he brought to mind what he knew about God and that changed his whole outlook of the situation even though the circumstance really remained the same right all the physical circumstances were exactly the same but what he knew about God changed the way he viewed his circumstances so we should likewise view our circumstances in light of what God has revealed to us so the truth of God is really a spark to um how we experience God’s love so it’s one thing to know God’s love as revealed in scripture but that should be the spark that allows us to truly experience God’s love even when the circumstances seem completely dire and this brings me to the outline for the rest of today’s lesson um I’m going to follow the main subsections in the chapter as uh talked about by the author Jerry Bridges so there we know that there are many aspects of experiencing God’s love and we’re not going to cover all of them in the course of one lesson especially not in this hour right but um I think uh the author wisely focused on experiencing God’s love in the midst of difficult circumstances and that’s what I aim to do as well so these are the four points that we’ll be looking at Lord willing in today’s lesson the first is God God’s love in discipline the second is God’s unfailing love the third is God’s presence with us and if we have time we’ll look at some application questions and have some time of discussion all right so let’s move on to the first point God’s love in discipline and I want to bring our attention to this passage from Romans chapter 5 verse 3 to 5 and not only this but we also exalt in our tribulations knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance proven character and proven character hope and hope does not disappoint because of the love of God that has been poured out within our hearts through the holy spirit that has who has been given to us here here there’s a call for us as Christians to exalt in our tribulations and in other translations it says rejoice in suffering it seems counterintuitive for us to be able to find joy in the midst of suffering especially for us I’m sure many of us have gone through suffering of our own and during those times it’s hard to draw strength even from from God right so if we we know that we ought to lean on God in those times and God does bring comfort in those times yet it’s so difficult at times but we are given a reason why we can as Christians rejoice in our sufferings uh it’s because of the hope that we have that does not disappoint as you can see in um the next verse right and the reason why the Hope does not disappoint is because of the love of God that has been placed in our hearts through the spirit and if you know what’s the next verse after this in verse six it says for when we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly right so it’s really the gospel message of Grace that allows us to experience the love of God through the power of the spirit in our lives and that gives us the ability to have hope and because of that hope that we know is true and we’re not disappoint that we are able to then rejoice in our Affliction it’s not that we are foolishly optimistic that and thinking of a specific bad situation as being good in in and of itself but it’s because we are looking forward to the ultimate hope that we are able to go through this suffering with joy yet it’s also true that we often experience God’s love only through our happiness and what I mean here is that when life seem pretty comfortable when things are going fine and dandy and uh there’s no real relationship problems that you have with your family members your boss is treating you well you have um yeah no issues with your co-workers and in these times you say thank you God for all that you’ve given me and we should do that for the many blessings that God has given us in our life yet it’s still important for us to see the hand of God the loving hand of God through his work in conforming us to Christ and this often involves discipline and discipline we know can be painful and let’s look at this chap uh passage from the book of Hebrews 12 5-6 and you have forgotten the exaltation which is addressed to you as Sons my son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by him for those Those whom the Lord loves he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives so here we see a connection between the ones whom the Lord disciplines and the ones whom the Lord loves and there is really no distinction between the two right it’s clear from this passage that who the lord loves he also disciplines and what kind of discipline does one receive here a very strong word is used he scourges in other words he whips and when I looked at this passage it remind reminded me of uh what Jesus went through before he was nailed to the cross he was whipped and scourged right so this is not some light beating on the hand is scourging which is a very brutal way of beating so we can expect discipline to be painful and very painful in fact right and yet the Lord says that the one who he whom he disciplines in this manner is the one whom he loves so we can draw comfort in the fact that even when going through very severe discipline and correction is the Lord does it out of love not out of condemnation right we know in Romans 8:1 that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus so I think it’s very comforting to know that this is true especially when we go through difficult times you know that this is a process of refining and it’s ultimately for our good and we’ve learned in the previous few lessons that our good is ultimately to be conformed to the image of Christ right so we should look forward to that even as we go through our sufferings so this brings me to my next point that discipline is painful we’ve looked about looked at that in the passage from Hebrews and God often brings various adversity in our lives to discipline us to refine us and this we know to be painful and many times the painful circumstances do not have inherent good in and of themselves right so let’s say I get some I contract some form of illness or I me made a car accident for example these things do not in and of themselves have any good really we could objectively look at these things as bad things right but some people may push back and say then what about Romans 8:28 don’t we know from scripture that all things work together for good so how would you reconcile the the two the some things that are objectively bad and evil like the the the devil tempting people for example yet we know that all things work together for our good uh I think the author explains this very well in the book so specifically on on page 150 there’s this uh analogy to uh the baking of of biscuit right so for those who’ve read the book you’re familiar with this and we know that the individual ingredients that I used to make bake a biscuit is may not be tasteful by themselves right if you were to like grab some um flour and eat it it’s not going to be tast and you probably sped it out and in in a similar way um the painful experiences in our lives may not be good by themselves right we can think of them as bad but in God’s infinite wisdom and Grace and perfect timing he orchestrates all these things that are bad in and of himself and to have them work together for our ultimate good which is Conformity to the image of God and back to our biscuit analogy um these ingredients they are not tasteful by themselves are mixed together and when baked to Perfection it comes up as a fantastic product that is delicious to the taste so yeah let us remember this when we go through Affliction let’s look ahead and let’s hope uh in God who is ultimately wise Sovereign all powerful and all knowing and he’s able to orchestrate all these little things that may be painful during the time and trust that in his perfect timing in in his will he would bring that into fruition and make you more like Christ and I think often times people see that in you right if you have been a Christian for some time now you have gone through your share of disciplining and you see the product of that discipline you see godliness Holiness the fruit of the spirit produced in your life and people can see that right and and in these times we give God the glory but when we Face the next set of Trials we may not always uh have that in mind and we do not often um have faith that God would be able to do good ultimate good in our lives during those trials but yet it’s important for us to do that because that’s it’s a very um attitude that God gives us that enables us to go through those trials in a in a Joyful Way and because that ultimately gives him glory and that’s our purpose to worship God and to give him glory um yeah so I think at this point I want to just share about some personal experience that I have I think how God often disciplines me is to uh injury really I’m for some reason very injury prone even though I’m not particularly clumsy um yeah but um I think in times where I get injured I it really crushes my pride because like for example like two years ago I tore my Meniscus and had difficulty walking for example and then um I’m someone who likes to carry out things quickly to do things by myself and get things done but in times of sickness and injury God really puts me in my place and humbles me and say that you are finite you’re not able to do this and through the various instances where he put me through this form of discipline I’ve grown in Greater Reliance on him knowing that I really cannot do anything apart from him and this um strengthens my faith in him then very next time he puts me through a very similar situation growing from obedience to obedience all right so and this brings me to the next Point U the connection between discipline sin and personal sin so I have a question so who thinks that whenever you’re disciplined it’s always connected to a particular sin in your life who says yes right so I think it’s clear that no one agrees so yeah it it’s not always true so it may not always be the case that we are able to link discipline to a specific personal sin right but I think a a better question to to ask is uh we know that discipline is often uh corrective though not always the case then the question to ask is does more discipline imply greater personal sin does anyone say yes I would I would say that it depends yeah I think there have been times when um a sharp discipline would point out a specific sin in my life often Maybe in my thoughts um that I need to deal with um but not always I I think one of the things that I’ve heard Jerry bries talk about although I don’t know if we did in this chapter it’s not just our sin but our sinfulness right there’s always things that need to be Sanctified out of us right there’s always room for sanctification and so for that kind of General reason um if we got what we deserve it would be a lot worse yeah so we can be maybe just thankful for that because I think for Me Maybe it’s true for a lot of you as well if I’m too comfortable I’m not going to be as focused on the Lord or as humble as I need to be yeah so Mike Mark rightly pointed out that yeah many times um the Lord reveals our sinfulness to discipline like at least in my case the the experience that I shared about really revealed the pride and the lack of Reliance in my own heart and it’s good for us that God brings us through difficult times because in those times we may it may reveal to us sins in our heart that may not be immediately obvious to us and people around us but in periods of Affliction these sin sinful behavior and desires may arise and may be revealed to us and we get the opportunity to then deal with it um and grow in Holiness yet it’s also true that many times um more discipline does not necessarily imply greater personal sin for example there have been many instances throughout scripture where relatively Christlike people have experienced periods of extreme adversity which uh resulted in their discipline right which resulted in their growth towards uh greater Holiness greater trust in God for example uh job and uh Joseph right so job was referred to in chapter one of the Book of Job as an upright man he was not perfect like the rest of us he’s also a sinner yet there was no specific personal sin that was um connected to the fact that he was disciplined by God and unknown to job um it was really part of uh challenged by Satan uh toward God that um job underwent uh the afflictions that he did and uh for Joseph it was a similar case right the um the Lord chose to use Joseph in this way to bring him through the periods of Affliction in Egypt in order to bring out ultimate good for Israel um and another example that is I think more interesting is that Jesus himself underwent discipline and yet he never sinned right which is a clear example of how we may be disciplined but not for any particular sin that that we did so here in Hebrews 5: 8 it says although he was a son he learned obedience from the things which he suffered so here in the verse when it says that Jesus learned obedience it’s not referring to the fact that it’s not referring to uh Jesus not being obedient before undergoing suffering and somehow being obedient after because we know that he’s God and he’s he he never sinned so what does it mean when they say that Jesus learned obedience here I think it’s really about how the father ordained suffering and trials like uh he’s testing in the wilderness for example which enabled the Christ to um obey the father willingly perfectly in Greater degrees culminating in Gethsemane and finally the cross right so there was greater degrees of obedience that the son was called to during his Earthly Ministry and this is what discipline is really all about right so it’s about refining us making us more like Christ and Christ showed us the perfect example during his Earthly Ministry so yeah the point here is that we ought not to always connect a a period of discipline with a personal sin yet it’s important for us to examine ourselves daily to see if there’s any hidden fults within us to examine our hearts to ask people for counsel if they see any sinful ways in us that we may repent and turn from that and um yeah so and there’s an aspect of discipline that is preventive to prevent us from falling into sin we need to put safe Gods around us we have the body of Christ Brothers and Sisters in Christ to keep us accountable and and uh but there’s also a corrective aspect of sin where we fall into sin and then the Lord graciously extends his hand of discipline often times that’s painful experience but it’s ultimately for our good Ganda personal sin and it as Mark was said it depends on if we are his child child it depends on how much we yield in the discipline so you may have to add more discipline sometime it takes a while for us to say well look something is wrong why I’m being chastised this way but then you looking just are you healing to what he’s showing you so it takes sometime it takes discipline and discipline for us to yield to him especially if we are his children or his child he’s not going to leave us in that St so that’s sometime puts more on US US Open our eyes to see discipline really works yeah I’ll say too um Pro Proverbs 29:1 says that he who hardens his neck after much reprove will suddenly be broken Beyond remedy and so I I think God is sparing us I think the harshness of reprove or discipline is nothing compared to the devastation that awaits us if we don’t follow it right both from a a Salvation persp effective and even in consequences in this one right yeah thanks Mark and glender for your comments right it’s true that um as both of you mentioned that the correction in discipline is often used to wake us up right is we we do not often um change our ways on at the first instance of discipline and often takes a lot for us to finally realize our sinful ways and turn and as Mark mentioned um the discipline of Correction although painful does not outweigh the consequences that sin brings about so it’s really God’s grace and love for us that he brings about this painful discipline to turn us from our sinful ways to prevent the potential consequences that could come if we do not change our ways and continue continue in our sinful patterns and this is only true for those of us who are in Christ who are dearly loved by God that we receive this discipline those people those of us who are out of the condemnation of God okay so yeah then this brings me to the next subo uh which is also brought about uh brought out in in the book so this is God’s unfailing love um there are two passages that I want to read here uh from Lamentations 332 for if we for if he causes grief then he will have compassion according to His abundant loving kindness so uh this loving kindness is uh sometimes referred to as the unfailing love of God where it’s um so in this case we see that um God brings about grief maybe through discipline for example and yet this in this grief he brings his compassion and this is an Evidence of the Abundant loving kindness and unfailing love of God that he has for his people um in the next passage uh from Isaiah 54:10 it says for the mountains may be removed and the hills May Shake but my loving kindness will not be removed from you and my Covenant of Peace will not be shaken says the Lord who has compassion on you so here um the Lord parallels his unfailing love with uh the mountains and the hills which are symbols of permanence and stability right so the physical objects that we are familiar with that are expected to be there for the next centuries pale in comparison to the faithfulness of God’s love even these permanent seemingly permanent objects may be removed and yet the Lord says that his love will not be removed and that’s comforting for us who are part of God’s family because that’s exactly the way he deals with us maybe through discipline through his Providence which we will look at later but the point is that his love is a constant and consistent love that we could rely on and have hope so and yeah so God’s unfailing love is really repeated throughout scripture these are not the only verses that talk about it right but how do we experience it in our our daily lives and that’s the point of the next couple of slides so the first I think um is God’s gracious and daily provision and the first example that I want to talk about is from the book of Exodus which uh the man went through in our previous study at Iron Man so we are familiar with this and it’s God’s daily provision of manner for Israel in the wilderness and I read from Exodus 16: 19- 21 Moses said to them let no man leave any of it until morning so this it refers to the manner but they did not listen to Moses and left part of it until morning and it bred worms and became foul and Moses was angry with them they gathered it morning by morning every man as much as he should eat but when the sun grew hot it would melt so in this uh part of their wandering in the wilderness Israel was provided food by God and specifically in the form of Mana which is a kind of bread and God provided Mana for his people each morning and the people of Israel were commanded not to store up for uh the future and collect enough just for the day but what happened is uh they were stiff necked and stubborn like many of us right and they chose to store up for the future even though they were commanded not to and the manner which they sought up for the future spoiled and did not last so here we see that we are called like Israel to trust in the faithful provision of God because the fact that they were storing up despite being commanded not to was showing that they did not really trust the character and the faithfulness of God they were trying to take things into their own hands even though they just witness a miraculous provision of food from the sky from God right and but many times we are similar we can point fingers fingers at Israel and say that oh why did you do this but many times we have seen the gracious provision of God in our own lives and yet in the very next second we could turn around and say oh I I I have done this all by myself so this is really Pride that we have to examine our hearts for and deal with severely and I think it’s also comforting to know that uh we have a God that provides for us so Faithfully morning by morning is does he provide for us and we do not have to worry about the future for this very reason because he gives us Grace and provision consistently and uh that’s reason for us to pray for daily bread right so as commanded by our Lord in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 611 he says give us this day our daily bread and it’s because we have a God that is so faithful in the way he provides for our physical needs our spiritual needs can we confidently come before him and ask for our daily bread and then this reminds should remind us if we are actually doing it right are we actually relying on God for daily provision are we prayerfully um asking God for all that we need for the day or are we trying to deal with uh the problems of the day seemingly by ourselves with no acknowledgement of uh God’s provision for us daily and even today so yeah just a question to throw it out there uh can you think of some daily needs that God has Faithfully provided for you just as an exercise for us to put this into practice just a really basic thing U my daily prayer seems to be father thank you for waking us up into this day that you’ve created so our our our very lives uh the ground that we stand on the air that we breath uh all these things are the life that he gives us and then we go from there yeah Mark I think one thing I often think about is just food and drink especially after teaching through the The Book of Ecclesiastes which talks so much about food and drink being a a basic need but also Joy of life it’s it’s it can be it’s funny that we have this tradition in in Christianity that you always pray before meals and you thank God for the food but it can become rope not really actually sincere but it’s something we should do from the heart because it is a sign of God’s love his unfailing love that he provides us food every day thank you yeah yeah thanks for sharing because I I think it’s important for us to put this into practice as the man uh mentioned right so yeah let’s try to be more conscious about doing this because this is really what uh brings glory to God ultimately um the next point is that um God provides daily grace for us even as we go through adversity we’ve learned previously that the Lord puts adversity in our lives to sharpen us to discipline us but yet he provides Grace for us through adversity so here from 2 Corinthians 12: 79 it says because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason to Keep Me From exalting Myself referring to Paul there was given to me a thorn in in my flesh a messenger of Satan to torment me to Keep Me From exalting Myself concerning this I implore the Lord three times that it might leave me and he said to me my grace is sufficient for you for power my power is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore I will rather boast in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ May dwell in me so we see that the Lord is the one who gives Paul The Thorn In the Flesh we don’t know exactly what the thorn is but we know that it was clearly painful and Paul want it to be removed yet the Lord in his wisdom says you keep going through it but I’ll give you the grace that is sufficient for you to endure this uh painful circumstance and the Lord used this to uh magnify his power in Paul’s life and to Humble him as well and yeah in a similar way here is from uh the book of Lamentations once again uh chapter 3 21-23 this I recall to my mind and therefore I have hope the Lord’s loving kindness indeed never cease for his compassions never fail they are new Every Morning greatest your faithfulness so we see here that God gives us Grace To Face adversity day by day from uh the phrase they are new every morning right the faithful love of God Is With Us each morning but yet at the same time we get anxious and frustrated when God doesn’t give us all the grace uh for all our problems all at once and we cannot see how the problem will ultimately we resolved and we start panicking and say oh God yeah you’re not like you don’t see the go love of God in those times because you don’t see how everything will pan out but that’s exactly how the Lord chooses to operate right he enables us to trust him enables us to know more of his character his faithfulness by exactly giving us the grace that we need for the present circumstance and that’s really all we need and we can trust that even if we cannot see the end we know that first God is working for our good and second is in in love that he really does what he does and and that we can trust that he would provide for us what we need for the problems of the day because there’s enough problems in a single day and we do not have to worry for tomorrow as Jesus commanded us and yes we should expect we we should look at this expectantly not in a spirit of fear or anxiety or frustration but we should be expectant in uh toward the the provision of God and to pray in faith knowing that the Lord is a God who is glad to provide and is able to provide and to trust God for his faithful provision of Grace I’m sure that all of us if you have been in the faith know and tasted and seen this gracious provision of God come coming in in very timely manner just at the right instance to meet your needs and so why not trust God in the future when you face similar trials because we know that we have a God that can be trusted we know his character as revealed to us in scripture and we’ll move on to the final section of the book God’s unfailing love sorry um yeah before that let’s look at um uh how we would combat um the lack of trust uh in God and the lack of uh recog of his provision so one way we could do that is to recognize um his provision and to be uh content and to have an attitude of gratitude toward it so here in first Thessalonians 5 16-8 it says Rejoice always pray without ceasing in everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus so we see that um God’s love is magnified in our lives when he provides us comfort and relief from our afflictions so we ought to recognize and to recall these things when in periods of relative comfort in order to develop an attitude of Thanksgiving knowing that God has provided in the past and in difficult times and therefore uh we can trust that he will provide for us in the future as well and not only that gratitude is appropriate and is worshipful and it’s uh what we ought to do but it’s also something that helps us to um go through trials in the future right when you recall the loving hand of God in your lives you understand that his character and therefore are able to trust him more as you face similar adversities in the future all right so yeah then now moving on to the last section of the chapter God’s presence with us so first Isaiah 43:2 it says when you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they will not overflow you when you walk through the fire you will not be scorched nor will the flame burn you and it’s true that uh as brought up by the author Jerry Bridges in the book that it’s often in the very midst of our adversities that we experience the most delightful manifestations of his love uh I think we know this experience of uh God’s care and provision to his word to his people that um he brings to us especially in periods of Affliction adversity I know this is true for myself um going through periods of difficult times is when I’m um claing the most to God I experienced most the most joy in those times and sometimes when I’m brought of the Affliction you kind of want to go back to those times because that’s when you experience most greatly the care and love of God even though God loves me and cares for me in the same way at yeah just throughout my life but you just experience it more during the times of affliction um yeah in second passage uh Isaiah 63:9 in all their afflictions he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his Mercy he redeemed them and he lifted them and carried them all the days of all so here uh he is referring to God or Christ right so uh and the point here is that um we have a God that does not merely send us Grace from a distance we talked about how God graciously provide for us but he goes further and beyond that right he is a God who comes alongside us in our suffering and he’s familiar with the Temptations that we undergo familiar with the afflictions that we go through and it’s able to sympathize with us and even identify with us and that’s the next Point Christ identifies with us in our distress here is from the book of Acts where uh Jesus was talking to Paul on when Paul was on the road to Damascus so and he Paul uh and he Saul fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him Saul Saul why are you persecuting me and he said who are you Lord and he said I am Jesus whom you are persecuting so here we know that Saul was persecuting the Church of God right he phys at least in the Physical Realm realm he was not not directly persecuting Jesus yet Jesus said that Saul was persecuting him for the and the reason is that um Christ identifies with his church and to persecute the church is to persecute Christ himself and Christ people are in Union with Christ so we have a God that identifies in our difficulties be persecution or Affliction Christ is with us and is and he shares in our ition we see in Hebrews 4:15 it says for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but one who have been tempted in all things as we are and yet without sin so God is a God who knows the intensity of our afflictions the pain that we go through in um our in persecution because that’s that’s the god he uh that that that he is and we can take comfort in that and next point is that uh God’s presence is experienced through the indwelling of God’s holy spirit um so from John 14:17 it says there is the spirit of Truth which whom the world world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him but you know him because he abides with you and will be with will be in you and in John 16:3 it says but when he the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all Truth for he will not speak of his own initiative but whatever he hears he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come so there are two points here right first is that we for those of us who are in Christ for us for us who are part of the family of God we have the spirit of God indwelling us and sometimes it’s it’s just so amazing to think about and to reflect that the the the third person of the Trinity indwell us gives us the strength to go through the trials that God has ordained for us and he promises to guide us according to the truth that is found in scripture we’re not left to fend on our own um we know that it’s important for us to um understand deeply the truth of scripture and allow that to spark our experience of God’s love and that’s exactly what the spirit of God does he reminds us of the truth of scripture and when times get tough you recall scripture that you have memorized or you have learned hymns that reflect the truth of scripture that are recalled to mind and these things give us hope and joy and we truly experience God’s love even in the midst of Affliction and this is what the world cannot uh do right they’re unable to do that because there’s really no hope for them outside of Christ but for us who are in Christ we have that hope because of the spirit that dwells in us so right so after all is said and done what should I then do when God feels distant right so after this entire lesson you would still face difficulties in your life you would still face discipline that will be extremely painful and these times what do we what should we do I think the Psalms model for us very clearly how we ought to react in the face of adversity um so I have a couple over here um Psalm 1 Psalm 13 ver1 for the choir director a Psalm of David how long oh Lord will you forget me forever how long will you hide your face from me so we see here here that David was in distress and he cannot see how God is acting in a loving way toward him in this particular instance and he even says that the Lord appears to be hiding his face from David the one whom the Lord loves right and sometimes he can feel that way to us and yet uh the Lord wants us to cry out to him not in a faithless manner but in in faith and we can do that by waiting in silence as um talked about in Psalm 62 my soul wait in silence for God only for him is my salvation he only is my rock and my salvation my stronghold I shall not greatly be shaken and it sounds really model for us how we rightly should cry out to God in our Affliction it’s not acting in a faithless manner to cry out to God in fact is because we have faith that God can and will provide in his time that we cry out in faith and we wait for him to act in his perfect time and so let me end with Psalm 13 and I’ll read the whole of it for us to see how we ought to be um to to cry out to God in a way that’s in faith and in a way that trust the faithful character of God during our pain so Psalm 13 for the choir choir director s of David how long oh Lord will you forget me forever how long will you hide your face from me how long shall I take counsel in my soul having sorrow in my heart all the day how long will my enemy be exalted over me consider and answer me oh Lord my God Enlighten my eyes or I will sleep the sleep of death and my enemy will say I have over overcome him and my adversaries would rejoice when I am shaken but I have trusted in your loving kindness my heart shall rejoice in your salvation I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me so yeah so this is a model among many other Psalms in scripture which shows us models for us how we should cry out to God who so dearly cares for his own we have seen that he shows his love to us when he disciplines us he spares us from the consequences of sin by disciplining us harshly he has shown us his love through his gracious daily provision through even material and spiritual blessings he shown us his love through his presence with us uh and we experience it through our knowledge of who God is and that’s revealed to us in scripture so the Lord has provided us enough sufficient Grace to be able to rightly experience God’s love as revealed to us in scripture so let us pray that we would be able to do so for his glory and as he continues to sanctify us discipline us will we be able to go through that joyfully knowing what his ultimate purposes purposes are to conform us to the image of Christ to bring himself glory and to make us yeah more like Christ and that’s such a blessing and and it’s such a blessing to see people Brothers and Sisters in Christ grow in godliness as well so let’s look at some application questions uh to end so these are some things that I hope we can think about in the coming week we might not have too much time to talk about it now but uh yeah so the first question is when have you doubted God’s love and what has helped you regain your confidence in his love because it’s important to uh reflect on um times in your life where you have not often experienced God’s love the way you should at least it doesn’t line up with how God Reveals His love his love to be in scripture and I I’m sure there are times where there are some things that God has brought to mind or people that he has brought in your life which helped you to regain confidence in his love and the second question is has there been a time where when it was especially especially important for you to focus on God’s daily grace without looking ahead we are often tempted to look ahead and try to see how the problems will be solved but that’s not how God often chooses to operate and what happened when you tried to look down the road to see how you would cope tomorrow it often brings me an anxiety but yeah so it’s something that we should all think about and lastly what can we do to remind one another of God’s love for us and I put it here because this is not something that we should be doing on our own we have the Church of God to come alongside us to um spur us on toward Holiness and to keep us accountable so will we help one another to uh more rightly experience God’s love Yeah and with that I end for questions or comments Glenda I think most times as Christian we rest so much on our feelings I feel this way if I’m feeling this way God is not with me and we leave the word of God out we rest so much on our feelings that we wanted we want that feeling to pass we want we want it in our own way and in our own time that’s why sometime we get so frustrated but when we turn to the word of God then that’s where we get the peace and the joy that we can live a Christian life and stop resting on feeling because he said I will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory amen yeah yeah along with that I noticed in Psalm 13 it says how long will I take counsel in my own soul right right we shouldn’t we shouldn’t be caught up on our own thoughts we should go to What God Says in his word oh Arthur you brother yeah um give me one second I um I I waited to the end your application questions um I’ve got a good example that covers all the questions first of all I’m sorry first of all one of the things I always try to remind um members of my church is that we have to take God’s word in context and I know we teach that here um EX for example the word discipline um that’s the problem with English um in the original language um discipline can mean many different things and um um when we understand that we can understand how God disciplines us because it’s not always um where it has to be correction or or pain where there’s pain involved but what I wanted to talk about was the the um the word love um some of you probably already noce that the first place where love is mentioned is in Genesis chap 22 22 chapters before the word love is mentioned and if if you know that then you know that it was in connection with Abraham when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son and um I just wanted to read the verse it says um I think this is new inter I’m sorry New International Version because I rushed take your son he said your only son Isaac whom you love go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about so here when the word love is mentioned it’s mentioned in connection to sacrifice when we go to John it talks about God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son if we start there in our understanding of love then we can understand how God works in our life and I I I I I give people it’s like an acronym I’m into acronyms so I use the gospel letters of gopel and if you want to understand love I always say understand it’s God’s response to the problem of evil in our lives because when we I’m talking too much but when we when we go back to the Garden of Eden remember um God put the tree good and evil so those are the issues good and evil God’s love is always connected to good evil is what we find ourselves encountering every days of our life so how God responds to that even in our lives is how he shows us how he loves us yeah amen thank you Arthur yeah yeah I think with that we are out of time but yeah so let me pray for us as we close father thank you for the lesson today reminding us of the need to experience your love in a right manner help us to look back to Calvary where you died for for our sins help us to uh rightly experience your love according to your word what you say about it in your word Lord and help us to uh keep each other accountable as well in Christ’s name I pray amen amen thank you