In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes five key applications for believers. The first application is surrendering to God and not fighting against difficulties. The example of Job is given, who surrendered to God and worshiped Him despite facing calamities. The second application is trusting in God's sovereignty and His plan for our lives. The speaker encourages the audience not to worry but to have faith in God's provision. The third application is to have peace and not try to change or judge others, leaving it to God to deal with them. The fourth application is to apply the cross of Christ in our lives, understanding His suffering and using it as a source of strength in our own difficulties. Lastly, the speaker highlights the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land, emphasizing the importance of transformation and preparation for the blessings God has in store for us.

The passages we read from the book of Genesis, chapter 28, it is the story of Jacob, the story of Jacob. Jacob is running away from his angry brother, Esau, for his life. And he's tired, and he now lays down to sleep with a stone as his pillow. When I lived in North India in the early days, there are hundreds of nights I slept on the roadside with the evangelistic team, and we didn't have pillows. And our pillow was usually a brick or a stone. And I never forget one morning we woke up from this strange place, because it was night, we spread our bedsheets and blankets and slept. And the morning we woke up and found out just two feet away from where we slept, it was a place they were cremating dead bodies. And all the skulls and bones sticking out. And we quickly jumped in our vehicle and left. So I wonder if Jacob had a strange experience, where he slept, I don't know. But God showed up. That's the important thing. God showed up. That's the story we read. And what is God wanting? Jacob to change. And you can read, it's a fantastic story, you can read about that. Then Psalm 39. It's Psalmist, the writing. You know, things like, God, you are here, you are everywhere, nowhere I can go without you, and you know everything. Search my heart and know if anything. In other words, he's saying, is there anything in me? It is a personal responsibility. Usually we blame other people for everything. We don't think about, did I create that problem? And he's saying, Lord, show me if there's anything in me that is not right. And then help me. And then Romans 8. We talk about, there we talk about the more clear invitation for transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit. And of course, Matthew 13. We talk about the reality of living with people. That is, you're never going to have all wonderful, nice people around us. There's always going to be, what you call, mixed multitude. People who do not know the Lord, do not understand it. And it is not our job to always go and change them, and this and that. God will do what he need to do when he must do. And that is the four passages that we read about. Now, I want to ask you a question. What kind of thoughts comes to your mind when you hear the word blessing, gifts, favor of God, doing God's will, God is with me. In other words, when you hear these words, what kind of thoughts comes to your mind? For example, the blessing, God's blessings, God's gift, what comes to your mind? Anybody want to say? So, naturally we think, okay, blessings and gift of God and all this, it's all good things. We cannot think of rejection, loneliness, difficulties, sickness, accident, death, betrayal, making terrible mistakes, and falling, you know, giving into temptations. We cannot think those things. Right? But, this is what we need to keep in mind. The pain, the groanings, the agony, the difficulties, whether you are responsible for creating it, or somebody else is responsible. You see, for example, you can take your head and hit on this, and you will break your head. Right? But also I can take a hammer and hit on your head. And, so, if you did that, you did it. If I did it, I did it. But both have the same problem. So whether it is intentional or not, the people of Israel, they are suffering in Egypt for 400 years. And God set them free for what? To go to the promised land of milk and honey flowing abundantly, and all the best of life they could have. But, how to get there? There was a wilderness. And God says, I allowed you to go through those wilderness to show you, to test you, to see what was on your heart. Your inside was not prepared. Your life transformation was not enough for you to be there. Therefore, this was a journey. The lack of water, the loneliness, and the difficulties, and the horrible terrain. Did you know that, these days I am studying the book of Numbers, reading through it. It was only 11 days journey. 11 days journey from Egypt to the promised land. But what happened? It's over 38 years, nearly 40 years. What was the reason for that? Going to a seminary and getting a PhD, or a MD, or BD degree will not make you any spiritual than before you came here. No, it will not. It is, you are allowing God daily what happens to you and how you respond to it. That will cause the transformation. Because God is sovereign. That's the reason I say, I am a hardcore orthodox. Why I say that? The reason I am saying that, it is the orthodox faith that says, time and space is irrelevant in God's dealing with man. All things happens for God's presence. Some people say, I am a wicked, horrible, murderer, thief, and this and that in my life, and then Jesus saved me, and now I am this and that. That is a good protestant talk. But the real matter is, before this person became a good person, all the wicked things that he was doing, God knew as present tense. And God was allowing and working through ways in which he will come to understand his love and mercy. And God uses adversity and difficulties to transform us. So the groaning to glory, the pain and all these actually has a meaning to make us better people. So somebody wrote a book, Don't Waste Your Sorrows. Don't Waste Your Sorrows. What does that mean? Say you are living with people in the family, so you take the family. You think all the family members are the same? No. In my own family, it was not sad. No. I never go to pick a fight with anyone. I run. In my school days, if somebody cause problem, I will be running. But I got one brother who will run toward them to fight with them. And if somebody troubles me, I usually tell them I got a brother. He is not like me. Everybody is different. In God's kingdom, everybody is different. And somebody says to us, you are angry all the time. You don't open up and you don't forgive. And you are not doing things rightly. You don't arrange things properly. Those are ways in which we learn our deficiencies and so we can change. And so during this season, our general season, our emphasis is how do we transform or become better people? And this is how we look at God's word and go through that. So for the sake of time, there is a huge amount. You read the Bible and take out the word inconvenience, suffering, persecution, hunger, nakedness, betrayal. You take out all those words in the Bible, there is no Bible left. There is no cross left. There is no disciples left. There is no preaching left. Isn't that strange? It is true. So here is a statement I want you to remember. Those who don't understand it, maybe Trimin, you need to have your mic and translate that into Hindi. I want to make sure they know this sentence. That is, you can pray for everything in the world and God will answer somehow. But one thing I don't believe God will answer, it is to remove suffering from your life. God answers for everything in the world. But there is one prayer which God does not answer. When we pray for our pain and suffering that God removes it from our life, God does not answer that kind of prayer. I tell you it is because you argued and fought and kept on asking, kept on praying and God says, okay, I will do that. But it is not a blessing. Bible has plenty of proof about it. So I am not asking you to go after suffering and this and that, but this is a part of our life. Now, what is suffering? What is groaning? Okay, the classic example would be Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. We read statements like this, he prayed with groanings, tears and weeping that he will have the strength to overcome and please the Father in Hebrews. It says he learned obedience through suffering. What kind of suffering? We never read anywhere in the four Gospels Jesus was stoned or beaten up or somebody plucked his eyes out or any of those things. No, then what was the suffering? He was constantly misunderstood. He was called someone who didn't have a father and accused his mother and people started saying he got demons and devils in him and then he went and had food with some unconverted people or bad people and they said this man is an evil person. And think about all the suffering Jesus had to deal with. You read the four Gospels which is only 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1,000,001%. We don't get the whole picture there. So he would be a perfect example to follow. So what is suffering? It is our body, our mind, our emotions and we go through all this. How many families I counsel and I find out some wives, not the husband, she will be crying all night long. For what? The husband scolding her about something that she doesn't know what he is talking about. How many times you cried saying, why is he punishing me? Why they are doing this to me? You face it and you know a lot of secrets about your life that you don't want to tell anyone about. But they are all pain, all difficulties. Didn't God know all about it? Couldn't he have stopped it? Yes, he could have stopped it. But that is where the solution to this journey you need to keep the end in mind. Work with the end in mind. For example, when we built this building we had a blueprint. Trimini, you can sit down. Thank you. And that is, we had this photograph, this image this is how the church is going to look. The same way, don't look at the present events. Look into the future and see what God is going to fulfill and plan. So when you fail, you don't go and kill yourself. You don't get discouraged. That is the orthodox thinking and faith. That is, Peter was going to deny Christ just like Judas. And Jesus said, Peter, Satan is going to do this. But I am going to pray. Pray not that you will not face the temptation and fail. I pray that your faith will not fail. And when you become strong, then you help others. You see, a transformation should take place while we live on earth and through God's word. And the difficulties and pain are the means, the wilderness is the way God uses those things. And sometimes you say, I didn't do anything. Why am I faced with all the problems? Listen. Blueprint was made before you were born. You think things just happened by accident and you were forced into this situation. No. One of the greatest secrets for living in peace, not to worry about tomorrow, not to worry about what people think, or this and that, or how I get my money for this or that. Don't think about any of those things. Life is more than all this. And whatever the Lord allows, you humbly embrace. And once we learn to do that, things will change. And I thought maybe I should put some applications. Okay, these are the five applications. One, surrender. Surrender. Don't fight. Difficulties come, don't defend, fight, and don't be a snake. Don't be a wolf. Job, when all the calamities came on him, he simply bowed down and he worshipped God. He said, God, I am yours, and all that happens is yours. You are God. And that is a key thing. So you don't accuse all the people and everything else and you and everybody. Number two, trust in God's sovereignty. The song we sang. God, how do you know you're going to be alive next month? How do I know? Why do you worry about so many things? God is sovereign. He will fulfill the plan he has for you. And as St. Augustine said, if you are the only person living on earth, Jesus would have come to die for you, to give you this glorious life. Trust him. Let not that be just words. And number three, learn from the pain, the groaning, the difficulties you experience. That's what happened to Jacob. That's what happened to Samas. That's what happened to everybody. And we are dealing with bad people living with us and we don't know what to do. God is sovereign. And so we need to be concerned about what do I learn from it? How do I learn from it? You know the disciples must learn there's going to be bad people. There's going to be difficult people in the church. There'll be bad disciples. They must learn they should not become God. They must let it be. God will deal with them. And that gives them peace. And number four, apply the cross. Every time you have this journey becoming very, very difficult, like they came to the pond with the water. They were thirsty to death and they ran to the water, the children of Israel, and you find then it was bitter. It was poisonous. And Moses was told to cut a branch and put it into the water and the water became sweet, the best water in the whole wide world. That branch is speaking to us about the cross of Christ. When in your difficulties in life, when you can say, Lord, now I understand how you suffered. Now I understand little about how lonely you were. Now I understand how they abused you. Now I understand that nobody understood you. Lord, help me to be like you. That's what Philippians chapter 3, Paul said. Somehow that I may enter into the suffering of Christ. Apply the cross into the waters of Mara and it will become sweet. It makes sense. Finally, means, it is a means. You are growing. You are understanding the glory and life of Christ is to bless others. In Corinthians chapter 1, 2nd Corinthians, Paul said, you know, all these horrible things that I am experiencing, but this will help that others can be blessed. So those are some practical things to keep in mind. This is a journey we are making and during this journey we must continue to transform and through others we will find hope and meaning too. May the Lord speak to us.