Mike Bickle explores the divine paradox of despair and glory in the Christian life, emphasizing that both experiences are integral to our spiritual journey. He highlights how believers often face struggles, feeling hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down, yet through these trials, God's power is revealed without corrupting our hearts with pride. Bickle encourages believers to embrace their weaknesses and the challenges of life as opportunities for growth, reminding them that true glory comes from manifesting the life of Jesus within our fallen humanity. He reassures that God's plan is to prepare us for our eternal assignment, using our struggles to cultivate love, meekness, and understanding. Ultimately, he calls for a shift in perspective, urging believers to focus on the internal transformation rather than external circumstances.

Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for the Word of God. We ask that you would inspire our spirits with living understanding. Come and empower our hearts, we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen. This morning I want to talk about the divine paradox in God's plan for our lives to release glory, but in the midst of really groping and struggling against despair. Despair and glory, both dimensions, are part of our experience as genuine believers who are growing in our communion with God. Some of us think that despair is gone forever, but we struggle, it has to be resisted. We can't overcome it, but with effort and in the right and biblical understanding. Let's read 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7 to 11. Paul the Apostle said we have this treasure, this treasure inside of our earthen vessel, our fallen humanity, that's the earthen vessel. And the treasure is the excellency of the power of God. And the point that God wants us to know is that this power, when he manifests it through us, he wants us to know it's not of us. Now we all know that and we all say it, but when the excellency of the power is released in our lives, it is the nature of the human spirit to begin to confuse the facts and our hearts get lifted up in pride and we begin to live and act as though it's of us. And the excellency of the power, the Lord says I'm going to release it through you, but I don't want it to defile you by stirring your pride up. Not that the power does, but our pride is what defiles us. So the Lord has a plan. He has a series of paradoxes. Verse 8, Paul said we are hard pressed on every side. This is true of every believer. Sometimes we have this lonely feeling like we're the ones being picked on more than everyone else. Lord, why am I your main target for adversity? But Paul says that we all are hard pressed. And he goes on to describe it so you don't feel too unique. He says on every side, yet we're not crushed. Our spirits aren't crushed in the process. God sees to it. There's a verse, 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13. The Lord says that there is no temptation. There's no situation so great that God will not give us the power to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. We're not crushed. He goes on the second paradox. He goes, we are perplexed. He goes, we have why God that's constantly in our spirits. Why God? But he says, but we don't have to yield to despair in the perplexity. Paradox number three. He goes, we're persecuted. You know, when we're taking a stand for righteousness, we expect things to go right. We're standing for God. We're standing for what's right. But we're persecuted even by members of the body of Christ. He says, but we're not forsaken by God. Even though righteous people might resist you. That's not the same as God forsaking you. And then he goes on to the most graphic of all. He goes, and there's times in our life when we are really struck down. The life crisis. Those happen, you know, the rare, really heavy experiences that everybody experiences a couple times in their life. The big ones. He goes where we don't feel struck down. We are in the natural. In the natural, it's a dynamic setback. We're struck down. But our heart and our faith and our love are not destroyed in the process of being struck down. And it goes on in verse 10. It says, here's God's plan. This is the plan of God for your life and mine. That we would carry about in our body the dying of Jesus. In other words, we would have the difficulty in our humanity. There's an operation of death. There's a struggle. There's a difficulty that Paul calls the dying of Jesus that is common to all of us. But there's a reason for it. There's a purpose for it. So that the life of Jesus would be manifest through you without corrupting us by stirring up our pride. Because when the life of Jesus, which is the treasure of verse 7, when it is manifest in context to our weak humanity, we so easily get tripped by it and we begin to be exalted in our spirits. The Lord has this real difficult thing that he's establishing. He's going to release the excellency of power in the midst of weak people without it corrupting the weak people in whom the power is working through. And sometimes we forget that. Because our life, we get so focused on our lives working right and having success by the human standards and having contentment and peace. And the Lord says, that's not exactly what I'm about in your life right now. Sometimes we have those things work out just right. He goes, what I'm really about is manifesting the life of Jesus in you without awakening and stirring your pride and it defiling you. Because you'll carry that with you to the next stage. The operation of the life of Jesus, love and meekness and living understanding, revelation, those are the only things we carry with us into the next stage. And the Lord wants to awaken, I mean, to release those in an ever greater measure in our lives now without it defiling us with pride. I mean, Paul's the one that said it himself in this very letter. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. He said, when the revelation increases, my pride gets stirred. When the life of Jesus is manifest with living understanding and open visions and revelations, my spirit gets stirred up in pride. Now, that's true of Paul, where you and I stand. But the Lord's not going to abandon his purpose to release the life of Jesus in us. He's going to release it, but he's going to allow a context in our life that buffets us while manifesting eternal things in us called the life of Jesus. We're growing in love. We're growing in meekness. We have power operating in our lives without it ruining our lives while we have our sinful humanity, our bodies, and our fallen minds right now. Verse 11, Paul goes on to say it again. He goes, for we who live, talk about our natural life here. We're always delivered over to death. Now, beloved, that word always troubles me. You can underline the word always, and you tell your neighbor, I guess I'm not being picked on any more than you are. This is the plan of God to allow this to happen during our entire 70-year internship on the earth. We live in fantasy. We live in this delusion that right around the corner, it's always the breakthrough is maybe in a year, maybe in five years, the breakthrough is when everything works in our life. In this age, I want to tell you something. Never will there be a time in your 70-year internship on the earth where everything works right, never. Emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, circumstances, honor, there will always be resistance in those areas in our life. I have this idea where if I get all the plates spinning just right, finally my life will work, and then I find out the Lord's kicking down some of the plates. The devil's doing some of it, the Lord's doing some of it, and me, just in my pride and foolishness, I'm doing some of it, sabotaging my own life, my own plan in God. We do it with our own sinfulness. But Paul said in verse 11, always, in this age, we will be in the dilemma of the dying of Jesus. And the strength of this passage is that if Jesus, in perfection, if in perfection, with no sin, had to grapple with weak humanity, if that was God's plan for Jesus, He had limitations in many ways. He had temptations, He had resistance, He had persecution, He had setbacks. He says if the sinless, perfect Son of God, in His humanity, dealt in this arena of setbacks and struggling called the dying of Jesus, how much more do we need it to form love and meekness and understanding in our hearts? Verse 11, for we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, so that the power, the life, the wisdom, the grace, the power of Jesus would be manifest in us while we still have weak flesh. Having the power of Jesus manifest through us when we have resurrected bodies is no problem. The glory of Christianity is that we get the excellency of the power while we have weak minds and weak hearts and weak bodies. And the Lord, He's deeply committed to this level of partnership with us. He could say, you know what, I'm just going to have you get forgiven, bury your time on earth, get your resurrected body, and then I'm going to start using power. I'm going to start manifesting my power through you. Let's just hang in there with forgiveness, just do your best, get forgiven, push delete, repent every day and push delete, and let me forgive you. And I'm not going to really use you between now and the resurrection. He goes, no, I'm not going to do it that way. I'm going to use you. My plan is for the treasure, the excellency of the power to operate in context to our fallenness and our sinfulness. And the Lord says, I will create a circumstance where I will, I will create a circumstance that minimizes pride being raised up in our heart, and it maximizes, it maximizes growing in the things that are eternal. Our fallen minds, our understandings, we want to grow in the things that are temporal so bad. We so bad want the temporal things to all work right at the, even if our eternal and spirit man languishes behind, we don't mind if the money and our bodies and our honor and our circumstances are working. We don't mind that our hearts are shrinking. And the Lord says, no, you really, really do mind. You just don't know it yet. I am so committed to you. I'm going to see to it that my power will work through you without it corrupting or minimizing the growth of your heart. It's quite a dilemma, but the Lord in his wisdom is establishing it. Roman numeral one, the treasure, of course, is the excellency of the power. Paul encouraged believers in difficulties to understand, to have revelation that there is a treasure, but there's a dilemma, the treasure in us, which is so glorious, it brings so much help. It does create, because of our fallenness, it does create the propensity for pride and getting off course because we can get so enamored by being used by God that we cease to grow in God because we're being used by God. The foundational premise, B, we have this treasure in our earthen vessel. That's what Paul wants them to have, the revelation of the treasure. And he wants the people to have the revelation of their earthen vessel. And some people emphasize one over the other. But true Christianity is the treasure in the vessel. Some people imagine Christianity, it's just pure raw power. It's spirit. It's just the spirit. I remember Rick Joyner telling a testimony from his life. He said, he goes, I gave this message and this new believer came up and said, wow, that was really good, Rick. And Rick said, oh, that was God. And she's a new believer. She goes, it wasn't that good. I wouldn't say it was God. Rick said, well, I mean, it was from God. She goes, oh, that's weird. And so sometimes we have a dichotomy. Sometimes we overemphasize one or the other. But the glory of Christianity is the supernatural dimension working in the natural frame, not just in eternity, because that's glorious in eternity, but actually in this age, while there is fallenness in our heart for the power to work, as we would think that the power would always enhance our spirit. But the history of the church shows us that the people used most in the grace of God often fell the furthest. They stumbled in pride. They got off course in the greatest way. Those that were most blessed in circumstances, even in the grace of God. So being used in the power of God is not always synonymous with our hearts growing in God. And we get a revision for revival, the breakthrough of power. And the Lord says, you need a breakthrough at the heart level, not a breakthrough just at the revival or the circumstance or the economic level. Oh, I want to heal the sick and all the dead to get raised, etc. And we want a breakthrough in power. And that's good. And we do. But if we get a breakthrough in power in our external ministries that does not correspond to a breakthrough of power at the heart level, we actually are set back because the treasure is in context to a fallen earthen vessel. But don't worry. The Lord has a plan, a tried and proven plan in verse 8 that we would be hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and even struck down. See, what is the treasure? Just real simple. Number one, it's the affections of God. That's part of the treasure. God's acceptance, his passion towards us. Part of the treasure in our life, even now, is the fact that we are his favorite one. And a billion believers have the right to claim that. We are his favorite one. We are the object of his affection. And he's made a way through Jesus to be able to release that affection to us. Number two, the treasure is the ability to use the name of Jesus, the authority to move things. We can move demons and angels. We can move things in the natural through the power of God. It's called intercession. As weak and broken people, we can cause things to happen. But what happens is when the Lord blesses us, we get distracted by the power of moving things. It's called answered prayer. It's called revival. It's called power in your ministry. Blessed circumstances where God actually breaks through and intervenes on our behalf. But that still is part of the treasure. Another part of the treasure is our internal partnership with the Holy Spirit. And I know it's true of my life, and I'm sure it's true of most of you. We don't really understand how much the Holy Spirit's doing in us. We typically think of that when we're so overwhelmed by the Spirit's presence, that's when he's working most. There's a verse in the Song of Solomon. I just love the symbolic picture it gives. It talks about God's right hand embraces us. And the right hand is the part you can see and feel and discern. But it says his left hand is underneath us, holding us up. The left hand of God is the invisible, indiscernible activity of the Spirit keeping us from all kinds of disasters that we never see. And so we have the discernible activity of the Spirit and the part of the Spirit. We can't see his work, but he's motivating us. I mean, without the Spirit's work in our heart, many of us have all these emotional issues that were despair and temptations and all these kinds of things. If the Spirit was not working, those things would be double and triple the power against our hearts. We're not really fully aware. Let's go to Roman numeral two. The treasure. Paul tells us we have a treasure. Christianity, again, is not only the treasure, but it's the treasure now with our fallenness militating against the treasure and even getting off course when the treasure's operating in us, at least the power dimension of the treasure, the breakthrough of power. B, the human or the earthen vessel speaks of the body of clay, our weak mind, our sinful emotions. C, many have the false ideals. They have romanticism about the kingdom of God, and it results in great disillusionment. They have this romanticism that because God is for us and God is with us and we're contending for the breakthrough, and even when the breakthrough of power happens in our external life, we have this idea that things will all work right when God has his way with us. And we end up in disappointment and offense towards God because when God has his way in us and he releases the treasure, he does understand our earthen vessel better than we do. We lose sight of the earthen vessel. And I tell the Lord, Lord, I don't need that much trouble. Trust me, I'm different than the other guys. The Lord keeps in view the power, the negative power of my earthen vessel. And I have this, you know, proneness, all of us do, to see the kingdom of God with idealism, with carnal, with false idealism or romanticism, that when God really has his way with us in this age, then everything will work right. When God has his way with us in this age, we, like Paul, will be in the paradox till the very last breath we take in this age. That is God having his way with us. Because God's higher goal is that our hearts grow, the breakthrough for the heart, because that's what we will carry with us to our assignment in the age to come. And our assignment in the age to come is our primary life assignment. We have various assignments in our life now. I call it our 70-year internship. We're only being trained in life so that we can grow in love, we can grow in meekness, we can grow in living understanding of his word. Those are the only things we carry to our primary assignment in the age to come. The Lord is so committed to us being ready for our assignment, our long-term assignment. We think, oh, well, not really. Lord, I'm more interested in my internship assignment. I'm interested in the one right now. I'd rather have a breakthrough in circumstances than a breakthrough of my heart. Well, I'd rather have both. And the Lord is working very carefully and precisely in all of our lives. It's not casual. It's very precise. He's very careful. Let's go to Roman numeral three, the three sources of pressure in our life. Number one, the Father is committed to disciplining and training us. The Father is, He loves you and me so much. He goes, Mike, I am so committed to you. I will resist that which hurts you. I keep telling the Lord I'm different. Lord, I'm not like those other guys. I will obey you without the struggle. I really will. I will be humble and I will be obedient without so much hassle. He says, I am so committed to you. Don't get into disillusionment and then get at odds with me. I'm the one that's assuring that your 70-year internship is going to produce something that will cause greatness and glory in your life, in your primary assignment in the age to come. But we get into disillusionment, which so many believers get into. We actually get offended at the very God who is working with such precision for our welfare. Number two, source of pressure, Satan's rage. The devil wants to devour us. The devil wants to devour us. God wants to train us and the devil wants to devour us, 1 Peter 5, 8. He wants to devour us. There is no ceasefire in the spirit in Satan's kingdom. We get this idea that we've done some noble thing and, you know, we've poured ourself out and now we're exhausted. And so we're saying, hey, Satan, come on, give me a break. You know, just give me three days to recoup and I'll be right back in the ring, ready to go another round. He goes, forget it. I'm going to wipe you out when you're tired. I'm going to destroy your life when you're in the middle of pursuing righteousness. I want to prove to you that righteousness doesn't pay. We get disillusioned because we get out of touch. The fact that there is an adversary is a pressure. We think, God, how could you do this? And God says there's a real living being called Satan with a dark kingdom who goes against my will. I use it, I overrule it, but he moves against my will. And many times we open the door to that which is against the will of God. And then we say, God, why would you let that happen? And then number three, the third source of pressure is our own weakness and sinfulness, our wrong desires, our wrong thinking. Roman numeral four. There's three solutions, three necessary godly responses. Obviously, you know all these things. I'm giving you this by way of remembrance, this teaching this morning. Number one, we submit to the father's discipline with endurance and with gratitude. We submit to the father's discipline. It says in Hebrews 12, don't lose heart. Don't draw back. Don't quit. Submit with discipline to the father. Don't get angry and resist the father. Submit to him. But you have to do it with a marathon pace. We can't submit to the father's discipline through getting all kind of excited through a week conference. And we're at a mountaintop. And man, we're going to hang in there. We have to submit with discipline, not with discipline. Submit to his discipline with endurance, I'm trying to say, with gratitude. We lose sight of that. I lose sight of that. Secondly, we resist Satan. You know, people confuse these sometimes. Satan comes in the fiery flaming missiles of the evil one, Ephesians 6. Flaming missiles. And those flaming missiles strike us. I was talking about this just a little bit the other night on Friday night. In Ephesians 6, it says flaming arrows. And Paul said, you can extinguish them if you want. Or you can just kind of let them run their course in your life. And a flaming missile, a flaming arrow is when a demonic power touches us. It's a thought, it's an emotion, or it's a circumstance. Those flaming missiles hit us in all those ways. It's a heightened, it's an exaggerated thought that has power. It's like a missile, it only has fire for a little while. It only stays with us maybe for a few hours. A flaming missile, a flaming arrow strikes us. We have this heightened idea that is a lie. And we buy into it, everything is wrong. They're all against me. It's all going to fall apart. It's called fear. It hits our minds. It's irrational. It's a heightened, demonically energized missile. If you hang in there and do nothing, it will come and go in a couple hours. Maybe a day or two, you know, if things are really bad. But it does come and go. It has a very limited impact. Paul said, you don't even have to bear it for those hours. Extinguish it, stand against it, rebuke it, identify it, use the name of Jesus. Don't let it run its course for six hours in your mind. There's other flaming missiles, flaming arrows. They touch our emotions. They're anger, lustful. We get in just enraged with an anger or a lustful thought or an idea of fear, and it grabs a hold of our spirit. It seems like all of life is secondary to that emotion. It's less, it's second in power. It is a flaming missile. Three hours later, the next day you go, I don't know what hit me. I was in a funk yesterday. Beloved, it wasn't a funk. It's called warfare. It's a flaming missile. It's irrational. It's not true. It is a lie. It does pass. But why should we bear it for six, 10, 12 hours, one or two days when we can resist it in the name of Jesus? We must resist the attacks of the enemy with the word of God, the same way Jesus does. We say, it is written. That is a lie. I do not receive it. And I don't mean we just say it once. But we, in our spirit, we say no in the name of Jesus. And I'm telling you, demons move by the name of Jesus. If we pause and take time to speak it, we can pray for one another. One thing I've really appreciated over the years in my relationship with the Lord is the value of 90-second prayers. You don't have to have an hour prayer meeting. Beloved, I get something in my heart or mind for myself or for somebody else. And I give myself to three times a day, 90-second prayer on a subject. And it is amazing. It is amazing how many things have changed. In a week or two or three or maybe a month or two, by a persistent, regular 90-second prayers three or four times a day, I'll bring it up. I don't spend an hour on it. And I look back and a few weeks later, and the thing is gone. Or maybe if it's a missile against my mind or against my emotion, it's gone in a much, much quicker time. That exaggerated lie that hit my mind, that idea, they're out to get me. I'm left out. They're all against me. My life will fail. And then our emotions get right there. Stand against it. This thing is common to every single human being. But most believers ride out the storm and they bear it for hours and days instead of extinguishing it soon. Get together with a brother or sister. Say, hey, I need three 90-second prayers for the next two days. I'm telling you, this thing really does work. I believe in longer than 90-second prayers, but don't minimize the value of them. The third solution is we humble ourself. We obey. We repent. So we, number one, A, submit. Number two, resist. And number three, repent. All three are solutions and godly responses that are necessary to experience the power of God in the midst of the paradox. Roman numeral four, the struggle. Paul outlines four paradoxes. He says we're hard pressed on every side, but we're not crushed. Paradox one. Paradox two, we're perplexed, but we don't have to yield to the spirit of despair. Paradox number three, we're persecuted. Even friends and family members stand against us. But God has not forsaken us. Even if righteous people say, oh, the Lord's against you. Paul says, that doesn't mean God's forsaken you, even if somebody you respect pronounces that you're forsaken. Paul had more persecution even within the body of Christ than we can imagine. And the number four paradox, which is the most graphic of all, is struck down. We feel like we will never get up again. Our life is over. Our life purpose is over. It's destroyed. These are these life altering circumstances. They alter our life. It's our bodies are broken. The accident, the terminal illness, or that which threatens to be terminal. It's the broken family. It's the colossal economic disaster. That one big one that happens in some people's lives, many people's lives, or sometimes it happens twice in 50 years. I mean, the colossal loss and the people think my purpose is over. My life vision is destroyed. There's no way to recover. And Paul said, your life vision, your primary calling isn't even tell the Lord returns. This is your internship. You can't lose your life vision during your internship unless you resist the Lord. Unless you say no to him. There's no circumstance that can nullify your primary life vision. I've been teaching the life of David some on Saturday night and getting ready for it in the fall semester. I just love the life of David because he has this weakness. But this pursuit of God with all this flaming weakness and God's kindness and God's power all mixed up. It's just a great combination. But the thing that I've paid attention to as I've studied the life of David is I've sought to be a realist. We read the life of David with romance and we only think about David's love songs to God. We think that's mostly what his life was, was just love songs to God. And beloved, he had some of the greatest love songs in history. Will continue to. But David's life, he had so much turmoil and pain and conflicts. And you know, I like to read it in reality. But one of my points I've said through the years that I've taught the life of David, I love this. I say it for myself, is that Saul cannot stop David. The vision for David's life is not in the hands of Saul. Saul can attack with 3,000 men and he did for years, for near seven years. David had 3,000 soldiers trying to assassinate him. The whole army, I mean, 3,000 men in the army were organized, mobilized against him. And you can get the idea that Saul had the final word on David's life calling. The only person that can stop David is David. Saul can't stop David. Caused some hassle, but cannot stop the life calling David. Beloved, there is no Saul, a person who's doing something overtly cruel or unrighteous to you. Or it's covert, it's just by neglect. They don't see your grandeur. They don't see your greatness. It's like, why can't anybody see how much I have to offer? Whether it's overt or covert, whether it's a militant attack or just a painful, consistent neglect of who you are, none of that can stop the call of God in your life, the plan of God. You will fulfill your assignment in your internship for 70 years and that will prepare you for your primary assignment when the Lord returns and sets up his kingdom on the earth in the full sense when we operate with him in that. You are not destroyed. It looks like our life vision is over when we're struck down. I've, through the years, I've just seen tragedy strike and, you know, the life-threatening disaster, the accident, the, oh, the terrible things. And it looks for a moment as though the life purpose and vision is over and it's not at all over. Paragraph A, Paul's premise. We will never graduate from struggling with difficulties in this age because God will not stop training us in love, meekness, and revelation. The devil will not stop attacking us and we will not ever have a time when all of our wrong ideas and all of our wrong desires are gone forever in this age. So I find if we can change our picture of life and we quit as just normal human beings pursuing this media-driven paradigm of life with no pressure where everybody is beautiful and within one hour, all the conflicts are solved and they ride off in the sun happy. That's an absolute lie. The 30-second commercial where happiness is full and the one-hour show where everything is solved. And because we're so media bombarded, that begins to seep into our spirit little by little without us knowing it. And we picture our future as trouble-free or at least minimize trouble because we're thinking of our circumstances being blessed and we're not thinking of our heart being enlarged for our primary assignment when the Lord returns. And we lose our way and then we start thinking God's not listening to me or God is just mad at me. We get these lies. He's either not listening. His word's a lie or I'm so disqualified it will never work. And none of it's true. The Lord says you got the wrong picture in your mind about how life works with the treasure working in the earthen vessel. I am preparing you with my power without it corrupting you in your pride. In the midst of Satan's rage against you, I am preparing you for a primary calling of greatness and grandeur on the earth with me when I return. And this is your internship. And I'm not going to be seduced into the American dream for your little life right now. I am preparing you as a vessel of glory in my kingdom. Well, God's hiding his face from me. Lord, I'm not hiding your face. I'm letting you struggle through it. It's the butterfly in the cocoon. The person comes as all the poor little but cocoon. Let's rip it open and let that little worm out. It will stay a worm forever. The Lord doesn't want to rip open the cocoon. That doesn't mean he's not going to answer in glorious ways in various issues of struggle. He will many times. He will break through. But the timing or the way he chooses is such that it doesn't rip the cocoon open. And we stay a little worm our whole life. He wants us to be a butterfly. The struggle is critical for our life calling. Well, God either has hidden his face from me or I'm doing it wrong or I'm disqualified. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're just believing lies is all you're doing. You get the wrong picture in your mind about what your life is about during your internship. And when I began to switch over, not that I have fully done it. It's called the renewing of the mind. But as over the years, I switch over to a biblical paradigm of what I'm doing for 70 years on the earth. When I switch over, I find my heart's far more encouraged because my expectations are more in line with what God's doing instead of the Western media culture paradigm of what life's about. And when I line up with reality and I know that God's working for my greatness and my glory and my assignment with him after he returns, I'll be ready for it. And he's using my free will. He's not going to just give me that glory. He wants me to participate with him in it. When I understand that, I have a whole different mindset of endurance to the struggle. I'm not surprised by the struggle. I'm not thrown off by the struggle. It's as I just want to, well, I mean, I am some of those times I'm talking about ideally. But I want to stay steady. I'm on a marathon course. I want to stay steady. And, you know, I used to say to our staff when I was pastoring at Metro, I'd say we'd all get together, you know, there'd be 40 or 50 of us around. And there's a real sense of momentum. Things are going good. We're growing and blessing. And there's a sense of momentum. And people, you know, we have some of the reports and the whole staff would be there. I says, ah, don't worry. I said, that momentum will pass in a minute. It'll get hard in a little while. A couple of them, we look up the new ones, go, what? You know, some of the old guys go, ah, he does this all the time. I go, it's good. There's a momentum. There's a joy. It's going to get hard in a minute. So just don't overly excite yourself about the momentum. But I want to, but I'm just as steady at the other time too, when it's really bad and you're in that season where you're getting pruned and the devil's attacking and dah, dah, dah, dah. I go, ah, don't worry about it. In a minute, it's going to be really good. And the momentum is going to be here. It's going to ebb and flow a number of times. I said, just put your seatbelt on. Stay steady. Don't get excited about the momentum. Don't get depressed about the lack of momentum. Let's stay steady and do the will of God. I said, let's get our eyes on being trained for our primary assignment. We're still in our internship. We're in Bible school, so to speak, during our whole 70 years. We want to stay steady. I've, uh, picture life, uh, now put your seatbelt on. This is kind of an ugly picture, but it's how I picture it. I picture life, my life, and therefore your life, is that our 70 years, we're walking uphill in mud. And, uh, we got all of our food and our water and our clothing, all that we have on our back, big old backpack, 100 pounds, whatever. We're marching uphill. It's 120 degrees. We're marching up in mud. We walk all day long, 12 hours. We look over our shoulder. Oh, we got all our food. We got to carry food supplies or we're going to die. We look over there. Ah, we look at the marker. We've only gone 10 feet. Sweating, mosquitoes, wasps, everything's people, right? Left complaining. Hurry up. Get out of the way. And I'm not, I hate the mud. You're bombarded by everything. Oh, I'd love to get rid of this backpack, but then I'll starve in the death and die of thirst in the next couple of days. So I better not. So I walk up here 12 hours, 10 feet from that little rock I was at yesterday. Oh my goodness. Then suddenly, what's that? Oh no, a mudslide. The mudslide hits. I scoot all the way back to where I was six months ago. And the Lord says, keep walking. So I was walking. I don't like this. And the Lord said, that is the context that I am forming bright righteousness in your spirit. That's the only way I can get to your spirit to form righteousness. That's bright and enduring is in that context. And we're dreaming as though our life is supposed to be at the Bahamas. You know, the, the end they show on the TV, dah, dah, dah, dah. That's afterwards. And we get angry and we look at other people that have that moment, that minute and a half where they're at the Bahamas. And we think that's their life. I am locked in to walking up that hill steady in God. And I'm going to slide back. But I haven't lost my life purposes. My life purpose is on the inside of my heart. It's not on what I'm building external. The ministry may grow, decrease the blessing, grow, decrease the money, grow, decrease. My life purpose is on the inside. I'm building a mansion on the inside. It's not what I'm building with my hands, walking up that mud hill. That big mountain, not a hill, it's a mountain. We're on it for 70 years. And at the end, the Lord shocks us at the end. And he doesn't talk to us about how big it was. Our money or ministries or honor. He talks to us about how big our heart is and how enduring it is in the age to come. And how wise it is that he wouldn't be. He wouldn't move from the path because we were threatening him. We'd quit if he didn't change the battle plan. He says, aren't you glad I stayed with it? We said, Lord, this is awesome. If I was the one voting, I would have voted for the easy way. I'd have had nice life externals and a small heart and nothing to show at the end. Paul says in Romans, I don't have this on those Romans chapter 8, verse 23. He says, we grown within ourselves, even with the glory. The grown is always there in this age. Romans 8, 23, we grown. Our satisfactions are imperfect in this age. Our satisfaction and communion with God is imperfect. Our satisfaction in relationships, imperfect. Our satisfaction in our jobs. Every single satisfaction, every breakthrough has a grown in it. In the midst of the breakthrough is a grown, and it's meant to be that way so that our hearts expand while we're journeying up that mountain in this life. And then we have a thousand years and then far after that billions to live in the fruit and the wisdom of bright righteousness we worked out in this life. And when I stay steady on that, beloved, I just, it's just amazing when I stay steady in that concept. I don't always, but when I get that clarity, you know what I'm really doing, I'm not even concerning myself with you. I'm just preaching myself out of a funk right now. That's what I'm really doing. I'm just letting you guys eavesdrop. No, when I get this mindset, it's, it's, I get a steadiness in my spirit. Everything makes sense. It seems brilliant, not, I'm not a victim. I'm, I'm in a brilliant plan of God. The four paradoxes. You can just kind of read those if you want. I'm going to skip them, but the hard pressed perplexed, you know, I'll mention that one and be Paul. The apostle said, we all, he, Paul wrote 13 books of the new Testament. You know what he says? He still says, why God? Paul is still perplexed. I mean, here he's been. He's apostles right in the Bible, but he still says, I still don't get half the stuff going on. And I figured if Paul's perplexed, where do I think I'm going to end up? Not perplexed in this age. The white God will be in your spirit till the, till the end. And the resurrection, it's all different. I'm sure we have lots of wise, but it's a different feel. Different looking field in the reason we were perplexed. We want to get security through knowing about when the deliverance is coming. And the Lord wants us to get security by our intimacy with him. Because I could give you the information when I'm going to deliver you. I'm not going to, I don't want you at peace because you know the day and how I want you at peace because we're connecting at the heart level. So I'm going to keep the perplexity there. D persecuted the next pair paradox. We're persecuted. I mean, we think if we're doing good, we wouldn't be so resistant. I mean, come on, you guys, I'm serving God. And it's the church that's troubling me. Paul said, no, honestly, it's me disciplining you and the devil raging against you. Because we've got a lot of people to work with. We're, we're after something in your heart. Let's go to, to the middle of page four, Roman numeral seven. It's going to end with this. You can just read the more details on your own if you want to. If you have those notes, you can get them on the internet at home. If you don't have a copy of them, if you want to look at the verses again. Roman numeral seven, Jesus embraced this very struggle. I mean, he had different dimensions because he didn't have sinfulness. But he had limitations in his body. He had limitations in his mind. He walked in humanity. He had temptations. He was assaulted by Satan, attacked by the people of God. Betrayed by his friends. And had all the limitations of, of humanity. And it says this, Hebrews chapter two, it was fitting for the father. It was fitting for him, him as the father, in order to bring many of you to glory. And that glory is only seen in the fullness of the age to come. It was fitting. It was a perfect plan for God to bring you to glory to make your captain. That's Jesus. Perfect through his suffering and his humanity. It was fitting. It was a good plan that God said to the perfect man. Even you will be perfected through the struggle. Beloved, if the sinless one is perfected through the struggle, how much more do you and I need the struggle? If God gave us that utopian dream of circumstances, blessed everything in this life, I'm telling you, our hearts would shrink away to oblivion. And we would despise the blessings of this life. When we go to the age to come, we would despise them. Looking back, going, why, why did you let me have my way? You know, it's the time when I finally broke three of, free of all authorities, five years old, ate the whole box of candy. Finally, I get what's right. Why did you let me eat it? You could do the math. The next verse in Hebrews five, same thing. Jesus learned obedience through the struggle. Can you imagine? He learned. He learned obedience. He was perfected through the struggle. Jesus, beloved that, that assignment to march up that hill, that mountain of mud is absolutely a brilliant assignment because we have an earthen vessel that's fallen. And the Lord doesn't want to eliminate the natural dimension. He wants to break and empower in us now, but in a way that blesses people now, but affects our eternity without defiling our lives. Let's go to the next passage. In Isaiah chapter 49, this is, it's a prophecy about Jesus. Jesus is talking. He's talking about his sufferings. It's through Isaiah's picking it up through the spirit of prophecy, but he's describing the Messiah. And he's describing the ideal Israel, Israel under the anointing. But look at what Jesus says. This is, I mean, this is really intense. Jesus said about his, he's 30 years old. He says, I've, and he's talking about from the natural point of view, not from his heart development and who he was in the spirit. He goes, I've labored in vain. This was not a complaint. This was a revelation of his, of his paradigm of life. This was not a complaint. He goes, I've labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain. He says from the esteem of men, I'm a 30 year old man. I've got one of a number of carpenter shops in a little out of the way village. I'm incredibly brilliant. I have great people skills. I have great leadership skills. IEC Genesis chapter one, what he did. I mean, think of the brilliance of Jesus at 18 years old, how smart, how clean he was, how good, how effective in leadership. He produced nothing except for one of many little carpenter shops in a village out of the way, didn't write books, didn't accomplish any awards, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. He says in the eyes of men, I've spent my strength for nothing, but he means in the eyes of men. I can imagine the little lady, Jesus, you have to get out some more. You have so much to offer. You need to find a girl. You need to start a business. You have so much going for you. Jesus says, no, she's you're wasting your life. Jesus. No, I'm not. I'm building a mansion. It's just on the inside. I'm building a mighty, mighty thing. You can't see it. It looks like I've wasted my life in vain. I haven't at all. He goes on to say again, it's not a complaint. This is the opening of his heart. He's allowing us to see he stayed steady in this. I mean, again, he's 20, he's 25, he's 30. He knows the Bible. Well, he's a great leader. He's not doing anything, but the perfect will of God, according to God's esteem. He says my reward, surely it's with God. He's watching every movement of my heart right now. He says in my work is in his hands. He goes, you see my work externally. I got a little carpenter shop. He sees my work internally and my future. What's going to come? I will rule the whole earth because of what I've done internally in my meekness and in my obedience. God sees my work. You don't see my work is what he could have told the people in his village. Beloved, God sees the work of your life. Your friends don't see the work of your life. And probably you don't see the work of your life, but God sees it with strength and clarity. Verse five, and the Lord says, who formed me from the womb, he says, Jesus, you're going to bring all of Jacob. You're going to bring the whole nation of Israel back to me, but not till the age to come. You're going to bring the whole nation back after your return, not the first one. You'll bring the whole nation back. And then he goes on to say later on, I don't have it in the text there, but it's in it. It said, he says, then you'll bring all the nations of the earth back to not just the Jews. But that's going to be down the road. That's at his second coming. And look what Jesus says. That's what I want to end with this. It says, Jesus's confession in the midst of it. He talks now because the father was talking in verse five. Now Jesus is talking and he breaks in and he says, I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord and God will be my strength. In other words, he will sustain me during his earthly life, not to get off course and not to lose my way. He goes, I have produced nothing. Nothing. Guy says, your life is wasted. What have you produced? Beloved, the only way we can tell what you've produced is on the inside. It's not how big and how great the thing is. It's what you've produced on the inside that you bring before God. And Jesus had the assurance. He goes, I am glorious in the eyes of my father right now. And I, he will strengthen me to stay on steady, to stay steady on course. You see the verse next one, Matthew chapter three, when Jesus, the father said, I'm well pleased with you, my beloved son. You know, when he said that to him before he started his ministry, God, the father bends over the balcony of heaven. And he says to Jesus after 30 years, then have a Bible school. He's not leading a church that have a business, a little dinky one in Nazareth. He looked over and he said, let me tell you my assessment. Here's God, the father during Jesus earthly life, no ministry yet. This is before he's ever preached a sermon. He's not healed. Anybody's done nothing yet. The father said, I am so pleased with you, just like you said back in Isaiah 49, you are glorious in my sight. And you haven't done anything externally yet because you built your heart in the will of God. Amen. Let's stand. Let's just close with that.