Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of understanding the Kingdom Paradigm as outlined in 2 Corinthians chapters 4, 5, and 6, focusing on the reality of our eternal purpose and the afflictions we face in life. He explains that while believers may experience pressures, perplexities, persecutions, and being struck down, these challenges serve to deepen our faith and renew our inner man. Bickle encourages the congregation to cultivate a spirit of confidence through the knowledge of our resurrection and eternal assignments, reminding them that our outer circumstances may perish, but our inner man can be renewed daily. He stresses that true fulfillment comes not from earthly accomplishments but from our relationship with God and our eternal purpose. Ultimately, he calls for a shift in perspective, urging believers to focus on the eternal weight of glory that awaits them.

2 Corinthians chapter 4, we looked at this last week, son. And if it's new to you, I want to encourage you that 2 Corinthians chapter 4, 5, and 6, those three chapters, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, 5, and 6, is some of Paul the Apostle's clearest and strongest teaching to life in the Spirit. And so, if that's unfamiliar, you might just want to take some time this week and read it through a few different times. I'm going to give you an outline of 2 Corinthians chapter 4. You know, I was thinking, do we want to go to 4, 5, or 6? Because they all go together. It's one big theme. It's the theme of the reality of the kingdom paradigm. God's purposes for us in eternity. I'm going to give a bit of an outline. I'm going to start with that in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7 to 18. First section, verse 7, But we have this treasure in our earthen vessel, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. B, or verse 8, We are hard-pressed, Paul said. He's going to give four categories of affliction that work together in our life to enlarge our hearts in God. He says in verse 8, We are hard-pressed on every side, yet we are not crushed. He says we're hard-pressed, but we don't yield to the temptation to be crushed in our spirit. We looked a little bit at this last week, that every single believer, actually every person on the earth, this word, every side, financially, physically, relationally, our ministries, marketplace, families, there's pressures, there's elements that press us in every one of these areas at various times. Paul says we're pressed hard from every side, but we're not going to yield to the temptation to feel crushed, that it's over. Number two, he said we're perplexed. We have this, the way God leads our life and the way life works, we have this, why God? We're perplexed, we don't get it. But we're not going to yield to a spirit of despair. He says in verse nine, I'm going to turn it down just a little bit here. He says in verse nine, we're persecuted, but we're not yielding to the temptation. Turn it down even more. Thank you. We are persecuted, but we're not yielding to the temptation that we're forsaken of God, this lie. When we feel persecuted, often we buy into the lie that, well, God's turned His back on us. And then number four, he says, Paul says that we're struck down, but our life purpose is not destroyed. There's times in our lives when we are struck down where those life-altering, even sometimes life-threatening crises happen. They don't happen very often in a person's life, but sometimes it might happen two, three, four times in 70 years, or something, I mean, really heavy happens. And Paul says when I'm struck down in any of the areas, I am not destroyed. My purpose in God is not over. My purpose in God is not derailed at all because I'm struck down. And so he talks about these four different categories of affliction that every single one of us understand. Hard-pressed, persecuted, perplexed, and struck down. He goes on in paragraph C, verse 10. He says, I'm always caring about. This word always troubles me. He goes, I'm always caring about in my body or in my human experience. He's not just only talking about his physical flesh. He's talking about in his human experience of dimension. He says, I'm always caring about the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus would be manifest in me. And the life of Jesus being manifest in us, it's not just through us to others. That's good. Where the Lord uses us to bring the goodness of God to others. But the life of Jesus being manifest in us is also our own hearts being renewed and experiencing the power of God on the inside. That's the life of Jesus being released on the inside of us as well. He says in verse 11, he repeats it. And what he's doing here in verse 10 to 12 is he's describing the impact of these four things, being hard-pressed, persecuted, struck down, and perplexed. He's describing what it's working. He says, as I carry the dying of Jesus in my body, he goes, the life of Jesus is manifest in me. Verse 10, verse 11, he repeats it again. He says, for we who are always delivered to death. Verse 10 and verse 11, he's saying the same thing in a slightly different way, but he's saying he's doubling it for emphasis. He says, because we want the life of Jesus manifest in our mortal flesh so that death is working in us, but the net result is, he goes, we have an anointed heart, and we have anointed words, we have anointed life to impact you. Beloved, when death works in you and the life of Jesus is manifest even in your mind and your understanding, when the life of Jesus is manifest on the inside of you, your living understanding increases, your heart of purity and meekness increases, and then you become a vessel to bring that to other people. Paragraph D, he's continuing with the passage. Verse 13, Paul says that since we have the same spirit of faith, he says, we have confidence. In the midst of this pressure, in the natural mindset, we would have despair, we would feel crushed, we would feel forsaken, and we would feel destroyed, the four negatives of verse 8 and 9. He said, but the truth is, we have a very opposite feeling. Instead of crushed and despairing, he says, we have a spirit of confidence. A spirit of faith means a spirit of confidence. We have a spirit of assurance, even in the midst of being pressed and perplexed and struck, we have a spirit of confidence, we have a free spirit and a spirit of boldness on the inside of us before God that we know what's happening is actually good for us, even though the devil is orchestrating some of it, and we resist the devil, but we know it's working together for our good. And we have this boldness and this confidence, we have this free spirit on the inside while those around us are living in despair, they're crushed, and they feel destroyed. They feel forsaken by God. It's one of the most powerful statements here in verse 13. We have a spirit of faith, we have confidence. Paul says, there's an assurance in me. This is one of the most supernatural ways to live, and this is within the reach of every one of us. Now, Paul isn't saying that he doesn't ever know despair pressing in. He just says he resists it and overcomes it by the truth, by the confidence of the Word of God in him. Paul had to ward off every one of these negative issues, the despair, the feeling crushed, the feeling forsaken, and the feeling destroyed. And all of us know those four emotions to some degree, but Paul said a spirit of confidence, a spirit of faith, and it's not just a spirit of faith fell on him, it's that he's renewing his mind according to the Word of God. It's specifically verse 14 to 18 where we're going to get to. He fills his mind with these realities, and it's a direct product of filling his mind with truth, therefore he has a spirit of faith. Some folks just kind of hope if they hang around long enough, faith will just fall on them from heaven, and then somehow God gave me faith, and that's not how it works. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes from hearing the Word of God. Faith comes by spiritual hearing. That's Romans chapter 10, verse 17. Faith comes by hearing, hearing with the eyes of our hearts, spiritual hearing, and that hearing comes when we hear the Word of God at the heart level. Romans 10, 17. So Paul has this spirit of confidence, makes him stick out, he's unique, he's different than many of the people around him. And some of you in this room have that spirit of confidence, and again, it's not just that it sovereignly fell on you, it's because you've labored to fill your mind with the hearing of the Word of God. I don't mean just the preaching of it, where you listen to preaching, that's good, but you fill your mind, you read it, you study it, you speak it to one another in fellowship, you want to be absorbed in the Word of God, that's where the spirit of confidence comes. I just want to say it again, do not imagine that the spirit of faith just sovereignly falls from heaven on you, the spirit of faith is the byproduct of hearing, and hearing the Word of God. And then he goes on to give some specifics here in verse 13 and 14, he says, since we have the same spirit of confidence, and here it is, he's going to say it clear, knowing, this is what he had confidence in, and this is an issue that most of the body of Christ is really, really weak on, and we want to purposefully strengthen this issue that Paul had of knowing. He said, I know that He, God the Father, who raised Jesus, here it is, will raise us. And that's not all, He's not just going to raise us, He's going to raise us and present us with you. What Paul's saying is this, he said, the reason that I have a spirit of confidence is that I know I'm going to be raised from the dead. Now we all know the idea of being raised from the dead, we all know the language, oh yeah, we're going to be raised from the dead, that's one of the great things of being a Christian, raised from the dead. But most believers are significantly disconnected from the reality of what this means. Beloved, you and I, it's what Paul was alive with, we are going to have a material, a material body. A body that's physical and material. It won't be flesh and blood, but Jesus said His body was flesh and bones when He was resurrected. He said, see and touch me and see if I am not flesh and bones. But then Paul the Apostle said, we know that our resurrected body isn't flesh and blood, and I haven't been able to reconcile those two statements perfectly together. But I want to say this, our body will be physical and material. We have this idea that we're going to float away to heaven on a cloud and just kind of take laps around the universe, around heaven with a harp, and every now and then, you know, I'll see Matt Candler, Matt, he's on his cloud, wait, Matt, Matt, oh, he went too fast, and then I've got to wait until the next cycle, maybe in a thousand years he'll come back around again. There's Stuart, Dave, hey, what's it like over there? I don't know, how's it over on your cloud? And we have all these fleecy white clouds floating, playing harps, you know, we're free from the attack of Satan, but we're just kind of floating on the clouds, singing. You know, we love singing, we love worshiping, but something is kind of leaving us empty. We go, Lord, we love to think on you, we love to worship you, but, you know, sort of we'd like to do some other things as well. I mean, we do have billions of years left on this cloud. And I want to encourage you that God the Father, God the Father, He made you with a spirit in His likeness, and that's a spirit to work. When I mean work, I mean in the most positive sense of He gave you, He built into your design the human spirit, we were designed to love, to accomplish things that are relevant and significant, and to do work that's enjoyable. Before Adam sinned, in Genesis chapter 3, he was assigned work when he was living in perfection of holiness, in perfect communion with God, face-to-face communion, he worked, and that was a part of his pleasure as a human being. And God is not remotely offended that you don't want to worship, and that's all you want to do for billions of years. You actually want to do more than be quiet, think, and worship. He built in your spirit a hunger, a demand in your spirit to be about a purpose that accomplishes something, that brings things forward better in relevance and in significance. It's called work. Jesus works. He said in John 5, He said, I am working even now together with my Father who is working. God the Father works. Jesus works, accomplishes, achieves, acts in a way that's relevant, that's purposeful, and that's in your spirit. And beloved, here's what Paul's saying. In verse 14 here, verse 13 and 14, he's saying that I know that God's going to raise me from the dead, and when Paul says that, he goes on in chapter 5 to develop the idea of being raised from the dead. That's what chapter 5 is all about. And so in some ways, you don't want to study chapter 4 apart from chapter 5. He's hinting at chapter 5 right here in verse 14. Beloved, we're going to have a physical body, a material body, on a physical earth, a material earth, a concrete earth. Well, I said that last night. Not a concrete. It's going to be dirt. But I mean a material earth. And our life will have a physical dimension to it. And our purpose, our purpose with our life, our work on this earth with a body like you have now, but significantly superior, but a physical body, you will have a ministry, you will have an assignment, and it will change people's lives when you work. It will matter. And Paul's mind was so focused on being raised from the dead, not getting on a cloud and floating, but working on the earth with a physical body. That excited him on a physical earth. That's what Paul meant when he said, the reason I have confidence, verse 13, is I know I'm going to be raised. He's pointing to the whole realm of reality of having a physical body and a physical earth with an assignment and an anointing and growing understanding and friendships and continuity between this age and the age to come. He said, I am excited because I know that when I'm hard-pressed, I know that when I'm perplexed, I know that when I'm persecuted, the four things, I know that when I'm even struck down, those life blows, those big ones. And there's a progression, by the way, of those four things. They get more severe. The first one is the most common, hard-pressed. We have pressures in every part of our lives. Not every day we're filled with pressure, but sooner or later, every area of your life will shout at you and say, hey, what about me? You know, it's going to be some pressure. And there's a progression in verse 8 and 9. More than pressure is perplexity. When people feel perplexed, when they have why God, why God can cause more pain than actual pressures in life. I don't get why you're allowing this. I don't get how life works. I do not understand how you're true to your word, and this happens. Why God is a painful reality. Every one of us know the pain of saying, why God? We know the pain of perplexity. But worse than perplexity, more intense at least, is persecution, being mistreated, having an injustice, whether it's from a believer or an unbeliever. We think of persecution as mostly being from an unbeliever. But beloved, you can get an unfair treatment. You can get resistance from godly people as well. And sometimes when that happens, we feel forsaken sometimes. We feel, God, aren't you listening? Don't you care? Doesn't it matter that I'm getting a really bad deal here? Because the sense of injustice is sometimes more painful than the hard-pressed circumstances. The first of the four, and of course the last of all, are those giant areas, those few times in our life where we're struck down. I mean, it's the financial calamity, it's the loved one, or maybe it's your own, the bad news about your own body, or a loved one, or your family, or a situation to where, maybe it's a ministry situation, and you can't predict them, you don't know what they're going to look like, but everyone has several of those in their life. Some have more. And Paul says, the reason I can be steady when these things happen, verse 13, I can have a spirit of confidence, I have a spirit of faith, is because I know I'm going to have a material body in a material world with a real assignment, with real friends, with a real anointing, and a real accomplishment, and a real place of authority. I know it, and it's going to happen in a minute. He says, that's why I can have a spirit of faith, that's why I can have confidence in my spirit. And if we disconnect from knowing, in verse 14, if we disconnect from that, of which most believers are not connected to this truth at all, I mean, they are not remotely connected to this, and what happens if you don't have the knowing? You're left with the opposite of a spirit of faith and confidence, you're left in your own strength, in my own strength, trying to combat and overcome despair, the feeling of being crushed, the feeling of being forsaken, and the feeling of our life purpose being destroyed. And in our own strength, trying to ward that off through just positive thinking or just kind of hanging in there is really hard to do. The only real answer to feeling crushed, feeling despair, feeling forsaken, and feeling destroyed, the only real answer is living understanding called the spirit of faith. You can psych yourself up, someone can pat you on the back and say, you know, it's going to be better tomorrow. And you can look up and say, just shut up, leave me alone. What do you mean it's going to be better? What's that mean? I don't know, it's just going to be better tomorrow. Keep a positive outlook, good luck, keep your chin up. Or worse than that, oh, I know a lady that that happened to, too. I mean, it was as bad as yours, even worse. Oh, that's really great. When someone's in a crisis, don't tell them about that other person that has it, too, just because you're nervous and you're trying to think of something to say. The only thing that can combat and overcome a spirit of crushing, despair, the spirit of feeling forsaken and feeling destroyed is, verse 13, the spirit of confidence and the only way that happens is through knowing, through revelation in the inner man. And the only way we get knowing is by filling our mind and understanding with the truth of God's word and it's a deliberate process. It is a deliberate process of renewing our mind, driving out dark thoughts and just unbelieving thoughts and saying what God says about our lives. It's not just that we're going to be raised up. Again, when he says in verse 14 we're going to be raised up, he's saying to the Corinthians, hang on in a minute, because in chapter 5, I'm going to give you a whole bunch about what being raised up means. So he's going to develop it. Then in chapter 6, he's going to come back to the same themes of chapter 4. So he's going to, on both sides of the chapter about being raised from the dead, he's going to talk about the value of pressures because these pressures actually drive us into a spirit of a dependence and a spirit of abandonment to God. These things cause us to lose our zeal and our confidence to build things in the natural outside of the grace of God. When we have these pressures, we say, you know what? It's too hard out there. I want something that God likes. I want to press for, I still want to stay about my mandate in this age, but I'm not going to have my confidence in it. I'm going to be faithful. And whatever mandate God gave you, you want to be faithful in it, but you don't have confidence that your happiness and your greatness and your value is going to come from your mandate in this age in terms of circumstances. I want to be faithful in my mandate, but I gave up a long time ago on believing it would make my spirit happy or it would define me as successful and valuable. My mandate's building IHOP. And I tell you, there's so many negatives and pressures in building IHOP. And of course, I understood this before I did it. I'm not even going there to try to get my pleasure in my inner man or a sense of importance if IHOP goes good or IHOP goes bad. I have sought to distance myself from my inner man measuring itself by how IHOP was doing a long time ago, even before IHOP started. That just happens to be my job in ministry, my assignment. And when things go hard, when things are pressure, we're not near as tempted to draw our life and our value from circumstances or ministry or achievements. And that's what Paul's saying. He says, you know, in theory, we should just draw our value and our definitions of success and our greatness from God. But you know what? In reality, we end up drawing it from life circumstances for how good and how big things are that we put our hands to, how much honor we're getting. But Paul says, don't worry. There's going to be enough pressures to make you good and disillusioned about living off of the grandeur of what you accomplish. Beloved, it's a serious deception, and most believers are still caught into that deception. They dream about accomplishing, and their dream isn't that they would accomplish. The dream is that their inner man would be satisfied, and they would honor, and it would finally work. And I assure you, young people, that 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years from now, you won't buy into that dream at all because there's enough hard-pressed circumstances, there's enough perplexity that God is designed to wean us off of the feelings of grandeur by what we accomplish economically or in honor or in relationships. And it presses us to find our life and our greatness in the eyes of God. That's what this pressure is all about. And I wish I could just draw it from God without help from circumstances, but my problem is, I'm just like you, is that we try not to draw from circumstances, but we tend to until we get utterly convinced not to. But look what Paul says here in verse 14 as well. He goes, Knowing that the Father who raised Jesus with a physical resurrected body to rule on a physical resurrected earth. The resurrected earth is in the Millennial Kingdom. That's a token of the earth resurrected. And then the new earth after the Millennial Kingdom is the fullness of the earth resurrected. Beloved, we're on our way to a resurrected earth with a resurrected body, but both will be material and natural and physical. You won't ever be floating around on some cloud somewhere. Don't worry. It's not where you're going. You will always have a work assignment. You will always be accomplishing, serving and pressing the envelope, so to speak, to achieve more. You will always be growing in understanding and always giving understanding to others. You will always be in relationship with people where you're learning about them and they're learning about you and you're growing in delight in the fellowship. That will always be happening forever and forever. You will always eat food and like it. You will always drink. You will have hunger and you will have thirst in your resurrected body. Your resurrected body will fill hunger and thirst. It will be a material physical body. The good news is because of the bounty and the plenty, nobody will ever, will ever that be a pressure, will ever that be perilous to them. But what you will have is you will eat and you'll never gain weight. You'll never get sick. You'll never have bad energy because of the junk food you ate. But you will always love the eating and drinking and the fellowshipping and building and talking and serving and you'll have a mandate and you'll have a ministry assignment and you'll learn in the process of it. That's called heaven on earth. And it was this knowing that gave Paul a spirit of confidence. Paul had a spirit of confidence because he knew this. But look what else he knows in verse 14. He says, I know that he'll raise me up just like he did Jesus. And that's the model. We studied Jesus raised from the dead and that's how we get our understanding. Plus there's plenty of other verses about this as well. But he says he will also present us with you. Paul is going to be in fellowship with his Corinthian friends in eternity. Paul will know them and they will know him and they will remember their time in Corinth together in the spirit. They will have a remembrance of their friendship. It's not like you get to heaven and all of a sudden you've got this glorious resurrected amnesia. You're walking around happy with a smile. I walk to my boys, Luke and Paul. Hi. I think I know you. Big smile. Hey, I think I know you too. What's your name? Luke Bickle. Hey, I do know you. You're in my family. Hey, yeah. No, you're not going to have glorified resurrected amnesia. You're going to remember. Luke, my man. High five. What are you doing? Dad, come on up. Come and visit me up here. E. Paul says in verse 16, Therefore we don't lose heart. Why doesn't he lose heart? Because he knows he's going to be raised from the dead. And not to float on a cloud. He knows he's going to be raised. He's going to have another assignment from God in a real practical material world. Even though our outer man is perishing, Yet the inner man is being renewed day by day. Beloved, our outer man is perishing. Our outer circumstances, our business, our ministry, the things we're building, even as they're growing in a momentum, the decay process is already operating. Even while they're growing, they're still diminishing and decaying on the inside. People have this idea that the longer they do something, just the better it gets. That is absolutely not true. People have been in ministry. I know so many guys that have been in ministry 30 years. I know many, many guys and gals that have been in ministry 20 to 30 years. Some of my good buddies 30 years ago. And most of the people I know, at the 25, 30 year mark, their ministries are more painful to them now, by far, than they were 25 years ago. I mean most of them. They have more perplexity. They have more confusion, because they thought by now, they would have a grandeur, and their inner man would be satisfied, and finally the honor they longed for would be happening. And there is an element, even though some of them, the numbers are bigger, there is an element of decay and diminish in everything that we put our hands to in this life. And that draws us into reality, and it draws us away from being seduced by this age. It's actually a very positive reality. It's very disillusioning, until we understand it's built that way for our good. And once I begin to understand that some time ago, I begin to cooperate with it instead of resist it. Instead of being mad that God's doing it, the Lord says, don't you understand? You are really in a fallen world. You're really redeemed from it, because you needed to be redeemed. The world needs to be redeemed. You need to be redeemed. There's real sin in your members. There's real sin in your nation. There's real sin in the world, and sin really brings death, and you're really in a place of death. It's like, yeah. Yeah, that changes things. Now get sober about it. There's a real devil, and a real eternity, and everything can turn around, but I really need you to be sober about life during your short stay on the earth. And many people are very, they're just kind of airhead about life. They just are real kind of out of touch with reality. They're living in romanticism and idealism that they get from the media, and it's just falsehood A to Z, and it injures their heart, and they live from one season of crushing, and despair, and perplexity, and feeling destroyed to the next one, and they just can't get through it. They can't get a balance. They can't get clarity. They don't know they have sin in their members. They're in a fallen world. It's only a minute of time they're here, and they need to be sober, and vigilant, and awake as to what's happening in a dark world. And they want to make their home here, and they want to get their value, and they want to build a big following, and a big ministry, and have a big house, and have a big honor, and have a big, a big, a big, a big, and they're gone in a minute, and it's all dark and tainted here, and they're supposed to be getting a big heart right now, and they're supposed to be building for their next assignment, but they're confused about it. They want this to be their main assignment. And the sooner that you connect, that the outer man, and I want to add, because it's a very biblical concept, the outer circumstances have an element of decay, an element of diminishing. There's death working, even when it's growing up, and getting bigger. The business is growing. The ministry is growing. It's already, the seeds of its destruction are already on the inside of it. And that's not, that's not a pessimism. That's realism. And it's meant to steer you away from seeking grandeur in a fallen world, and find your glory, and your grandeur in the spirit, in a world that's coming, that's as physical as this world, but fully supernatural as well. Paul said, therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outer man is perishing. That's a fact. It wasn't a negative confession. It was a fact of life. He had a revelation. He understood it. Beloved, the more I understand this, the more free my spirit gets. It makes me resolved and steady about what I'm about. Paul said, but however, not only is the outer man perishing, the inner man is being renewed. It's being renewed daily. Now it's, most people do not have their inner man being renewed daily. Most people have a, believers have a little season of renewal here or there. You know, they have a month or two where they're really getting renewed and going, and then the next six or eight months, they're diminishing, even their inner man is perishing and diminishing. Because they're feeding their spirit on darkness. The way they play, the way they rest, and the way they seek their occupation has darkness in it. And it's not just that their outer man is perishing, their inner man is decaying as well. That's true of many, many Christians, but it didn't have to be this way. Somehow we think, well, if we say enough grace of God verses, we can drink from the spirit of pollution, and our inner man won't decay. Our inner man is only renewed when we live in the truth and the lifestyle that Paul the Apostle set forth here. Beloved, it is your inheritance, and it's my inheritance, and I'm fighting for it. I want an inner man that renews, that's getting renewed under the anointing daily. And our inner man is renewed, our love grows, our meekness grows. Our inner man is renewed, our revelation, our living, I don't mean Bible facts. Bible facts are important, but Bible facts is not what I mean by understanding of the word. I'm talking about the living understanding that only the spirit can get you. We fill ourself with the word of God, and when our hearts are renewed, one of the ways it's renewed is that living understanding happens, gratitude takes place, meekness is rooted, a sense of enjoyment of the presence of God, a sense of holiness, issues being settled in our life, that's what it means for the inner man to be renewed. And there's growth. Daily, we can have a renewal. But I want to say this again, I'm not trying to be negative, I'm truly trying to be positive and helpful, is that preaching this is not enough just to hear it and say, praise God, I agree with it, because it's not enough just to buy into the concept we have to live the lifestyle because many people, many believers, their outward man and their outward circumstances are perishing, but their inward man is perishing too. Or there's a decay, there's death working in their inner man because of the way they live, the way they talk, the way they spend time and money, their inward man is corroded and their outward man, what an absolute disaster to have your outer man and your inner man falling apart. Beloved, I've just described the world because the most famous athlete, singer, businessman, the multi-million dollar guy here, the multi-million dollar guy, the president of nations, their outer man, I promise you, as well as their presidency, as well as their business, it may be growing, but even in the midst of it, there's a decay that's operating no matter what arena of life they're in. And if they're unbelievers, their inner man is decaying as well. What a horrible lot. But for believers, many live the same way. Outer man, things are breaking. Inner man, they're not growing. They have the, I know more believers 30 years later, 35 years later, walk with the Lord. Many that I met the Lord with way back when, many of them at 40 and 50 and 60. Some were older, some were younger. 10, 20, 30, 40 years, 30 years later, many of them are far worse off spiritually than they were 15 years ago. They have addictions to areas of darkness that they did not have 10 and 15 years ago. They've got more bitterness. They got more of an angry, cranky spirit. They know more. They have more Bible knowledge, but their inner man has been decaying for years slowly. I see it all over. I just got scores of relationships over the last 35 years in the kingdom. I've always been in the middle of big groups, always been around a couple thousand believers at every given time that were trying to go hard after God, and now I can look back 20, 30 years ago and see that group. I can look back 10 years ago, 35 years ago, and very few of them are not succumbing to bitterness, the dabbling with all kinds of other things in their life, and I go, this idea that if they just stay, if they just live, somehow their inner man will be renewed. Absolutely not. If you live without going after this, your inner man will decay. Your inner man will decay. There will be a diminishing in it. When Paul says our inner man is renewed, some folks think that's just automatic for just biding time as a human being, as a believer. So long as they hang in there, their inner man increases. Absolutely not. It's almost always the opposite, and those that are my age can tell you that. They've looked around. And the big reason why, I'll tell you the biggest reason why, because bitterness and disappointment, that is the greatest toxin in the human spirit. The bitter, disappointed person, and the older you get, the more chances you have to get disappointed and bitter. And that grows like a cancer and a toxin. And when our spirit gets weakened through bitterness and disappointment, we're disappointed at God, we're disappointed at people, we're disappointed at church, we're disappointed at our marriage, we're disappointed at our children, we're disappointed at our parents, we're disappointed at the business, we're disappointed at the neighbors, we're just disappointed. So many, after years, you have so many more chances for somebody to do it wrong to you. And that toxin works in a person's spirit. And you know what happens when you call it disappointment or bitterness, call it towards God or towards people, any arena of life, I mean, there's so many chances to get it. That toxin makes you vulnerable to drugs, alcohol, pornography, and any other number of things that promise a temporary relief of the pain of that toxin, and it weakens our spirit. That's why there's way more believers that are on the back end of their life with the Lord with disorders and addictions than they had on the front end of their life. And when I was on the front end, I assumed by biding time, I figured if I'm 20, when I'm 40, it has to be better. You know, if you're 20, I was five years old in the Lord, well, when I'm 40, I'll be 25 years old in the Lord. Just won't it be better? Absolutely does not work that way. I didn't realize there'd be scores more demons hitting me the next 20 years, and scores more opportunities for bitterness and anger. But beloved, I don't want to make a big statement about myself, but I locked in, and I said I'm gonna fill myself with the word of God. I'm gonna get a spirit of prayer, and I can say by the grace of God that over the years, I have known what it means to have my spirit grow in understanding and experience the presence of God, and the pain of seeing, I'm not the only one, there's many, but most of my friends over the 25, 35 years are certainly in a far worse position now than they were when they were 20 and 30 years old, because they did not understand that the renewing of the inner man is a opportunity they have to seize and go after. It says in verse 17, for our light affliction is working for us a far more exceeding weight of glory. Beloved, the light affliction, the light affliction he's talking about here, the light affliction in verse 17, he's talking about the four things in verse 8 and 9. He said, when I'm hard pressed, when I'm perplexed, when I am persecuted, and again, it gets worse, those four are growing in intensity, and even when I'm struck down, those afflictions, they strike my spirit, they strike my mind. He goes, but I, they strike me, but I'm not in a vacuum, I'm filled with verse 14, the knowing, the knowing, the knowing that I'm gonna live in a resurrected body, in a resurrected world, with a resurrected assignment, with friends and fellowship, and eating and drinking, and life is gonna be powerful and strong. He goes, when these things afflict me, when I know this, when I know it, my inner man grows. It dislodges darkness in my spirit. But woe to the man or the woman, in the kingdom or not in the kingdom, who when they are afflicted, they do not know, they do not know where they're going and what they're assigned to, which is the vast majority of the people in the kingdom, but it doesn't have to be you. Doesn't have to be you, and nobody can do this for you. You know, some people, it's enough for them if they know a man who knows God, or a woman who knows God. Many people are content just to know somebody who knows God, they don't even care if they know God that much, they wanna go to heaven when they die and all that, but they're happy just to kinda aimlessly go around the kingdom, just taking whatever comes to them, as long as they're connected to a few people who know God, they're happy. Beloved, that is not ever going to satisfy the cry of your spirit. It's not enough that you know somebody who knows God, it's not enough that you're a part of a ministry where there's 10 or 20 or 30 or 50 or 100, I don't know the number, I don't care to know the number, but it's not enough that you're a part of a swirl of some people going hard, you wanna go hard because you want your spirit renewed, and you wanna be trained and fashioned and formed for an assignment that has your name on it in the age to come. I've said this over and over, but for those that are new here, our assignment down here, we have a 70-year internship. We have a 70-year internship. That's what Moses said in Psalm 90, verse 10, he said, we have 70 years, 80 due to strength. Now obviously, there's plenty of people that come up short of 70, and there's a number that go far beyond 70, but 70 is what God has given to the human race. 70 years since the flood, that's been kind of a number, the average number, the 70 years. And you have 70 years as an internship, and that 70-year internship, there's two major things God wants you to answer in your 70-year internship. I said this last night, a number of you were here. God wants you to decide if you wanna be in his family. He's not gonna make anybody being his eternal family. So once you decide, I wanna be in your family, good, that's settled. That's settled. Number two decision, do you wanna be a part of his government when he rules the earth? I'm happy to be in the family. I'm happy to be in a support role. I'm happy just to not be in hell. The Lord says, yeah, but I've ordained that you would have a place in my government. I'm gonna rule the world, and as I talked about last night, people have this real eschewed vision, I mean, understanding of what eternal rewards are. They kind of have this really false idea that they're bigger than eternal rewards. They're living carnal, and they're not living very, they're living pretty passive for God, but they imagine that they don't care because they're above eternal rewards, that Jesus taught on eternal rewards more than any person in the Bible. Matter of fact, if you take all the teachers who taught on eternal rewards in the Bible, add up all of their references, Jesus has more references on eternal rewards than everybody else put together, added up. Well, Jesus doesn't really get it. See, I'm in it for God, and I realize Jesus maybe was going after the rewards, but I'm bigger than that. I'm living a little carnal right now, but when I die, I'm gonna go for God, and I don't really care about it then. I mean, I've heard it for years. I'm not into the rewards as though Jesus setting that before his people was doing something peripheral or doing something that was second best in the kingdom of God or something that was insignificant, and he wasn't because eternal rewards is Jesus saying, I want you to work near me. You love me. I want you to, I mean, as a lover, you want to be with the one that you love most. You want to do what they do, and you want to be where they are, and the thing that's dearest to them, you want to do it with them and for them, and you want to see the brightness of it touch others. That's what eternal rewards are about. It's not about being over people so you can strut. Eternal rewards is about being with the man you love the most, Jesus, and doing what he loves the most and doing it with him and near him and for him and seeing the light of it touch other people and having a greater capacity to do that. That's what eternal rewards is. It's about love and intimacy with the son of God. He taught on eternal rewards more than anybody, and Jesus, the essence of it is we have a 70-year assignment on this earth, and to the degree that we grow in meekness, we get our 1,000-year assignment after the Lord returns, and, beloved, in the age to come, the millennial kingdom is only the first installment of the age to come. Matter of fact, it's a very, very, very, very, very short installment of the age to come, but it's an important one. Seventy years, our internship. Billy Graham is still in his internship. Our main calling in life is not what we accomplish externally in circumstances or in ministry in this age. It's what our assignment is in the age to come, but even our first assignment, our first assignment in 1,000 years is very important. It's a very important part of our life. It's a very important part of what we're doing right now in this age. You know, it's not a strange thing at all for a physician, for a young man or woman to, you know, they're 22, 23 years old, and they decide, yes, they got accepted to med school. It's not a strange idea. I'm not going to say the number's accurate because I don't know the exact numbers, but they're going to invest $100,000, $200,000 to go to med school and to do all the programs afterwards, the residency, the internship. And if they specialize in an area or two, they may be 10 or 12 years later before they're out of school. They're going to go to college and med school and then some more training to specialize. $100,000, $200,000, 10 or 12 years, and they work 15, 18-hour days. They don't think it's strange at all because they're going to have a medical career for 50 years that's going to bless many people. It's going to be a financial blessing to them. It's going to be a place of honor. There's many, many positive things they're going to do. They go, hey, what's the deal? 12 years, a couple hundred thousand dollars. I'll do it because 50 years, I'm going to have a medical practice that's going to be helpful. It's going to have all these benefits to it. The math seems good. 10 years for 50 years. Why not? And men and women do that. They make that choice all the time for various careers. I mean, that's intense price. A couple hundred thousand dollars, an intense amount of time, 10, 12 years. Beloved, that's the same logic of what we're doing in this life. We got 70 years, but our medical practice, if you will, our assignment is 1,000. We have 70 years, and it costs a lot of money. We put a lot of money in it. We miss a lot of opportunities where we could make a lot of money because we're staying steady in things that are godly and not everything. Most things godly don't have any economic return in this age. Not all things godly, but many, many things don't have a return. People don't pay you for fasting and serving in secret. They don't pay you for humbling yourself, becoming a servant without getting attention. They don't pay you for feeding your spirit on the Word of God, getting living understanding. So it costs a lot by what you don't get. There's a lot of money a lot of you are not getting because of the path you've chosen. So it does cost you a lot of money, just like the young man or woman in med school. 10 years of med school, a couple hundred thousand dollars. 50 years of a practice, that's a reasonable math. 10 years for 50. What about 70 years for 1,000? Why not lock in and be an intern? Because even if you don't want to be an intern, that is all you will ever be in this age is an intern. You will be a given very little thing. You'll be entrusted with very little, a very small amount from heaven. That's what the Bible says and history says it. 99.9999% of all the people have only been given a very little assignment. I have a very little assignment. You have a very little assignment externally. Our main assignment is to build an interior castle, to build a mansion on the inside. That's our primary assignment. When I stand before the Lord, He's gonna say, Mike, your internship is over. Now I'm gonna give you your assignment. I want to be unashamed about this. I want to be great. I want a big house. I want to be rich. I want to be powerful. I want to be filled with glory and I am working hard because I have an assignment that I want to receive from the Lord. I don't know what it looks like, but I want it to be massive and I'm bold about it and God likes that. God says, so you esteem working close with me in the age to come more than you esteem getting more attention in this age. Yes! He goes, well then, I'll give it to you. Lord, I want to be close to you. I want to be filled with glory. I want all kinds of riches and treasures. I mean, I'm greedy for the glory. I want it bigger. It's better. And I'm gonna invest my life in meekness and pouring myself out and understanding and fasting and prayer because I have my mind on being great in your sight after my internship's over. And he goes, good. It's like the student that's trying to get straight A's in med school and they're gonna get the number one score in the nation. And I'm working hard. I mean, I got the 4.0 plus some. I don't want to outdo anybody. I want to reach the fullness of my capacity. And I'm telling you, the Lord loves this kind of stuff. Look at verse 17. He does. The word of God is fulfilled. You mean you would rather lose out now the attention of men. You'd rather lose out now on some of the grandeur in this age, the utensil of this age because you want to be closer and more full of responsibility in a partnership with me in the age to come. Absolutely, that's what I want. Absolutely. Unashamed, that's where I'm going. And I can do it if everything falls apart. I mean, IHOP could collide. Everybody get mad, glad, sad. I could be struck down, but that life purpose will not be destroyed. If I have the most horrible physical accident, a terminal disease, if I am struck down, everything I'm building falls apart, I am not destroyed. That life vision is not in jeopardy. I do not destroy my life vision to be great in His sight in the age to come because I'm struck down in this age. I assure you, you are not in jeopardy. Anything that's in your spirit before God is still fully alive. When Paul the Apostle went to prison and he got killed, he didn't lose anything. His ministry didn't go as long, but he was struck down. He was struck down. He went to prison a number of times. He had several prison sentences. That's called being struck down. But he didn't lose anything in God. Beloved, that's how you have verse 13 in the spirit of faith. It's fantastic. Verse 17 and 18. It says, For our light affliction is working for us. Look at that, working for us. Those four things in verse 8 and 9, they're working for me. They're weaning me off of the deceptive grandeur of accomplishments in this age. Again, I appreciate accomplishments in this age, but I don't want to have hope in them, and I don't want to put my confidence in them, thinking that's who I'm about. I don't want them to measure me. That's all. I want to do things in this age, but I don't want to be measured by them. And I don't want to imagine my spirit will be full when I get the honor and the joy of building something big, because there is no true honor and joy in it that touches your inner man. It's really a cloud. It's a vapor. It's a deceptive lure, because the people that worked their whole life, they finally get in the limelight, whether it's athletes or actors or great businessmen or politicians, or they built the mega ministries, and they're 50, 60, 70. They got the trophies, and they're absolutely shocked that it doesn't touch their inner man at all. I remember meeting a guy. He was one of my childhood heroes in football. And he was voted into the Hall of Fame. And for those of you that don't know what that is, it's the best of the best of the pro football players. And they went to wherever they go to get inducted in the Hall of Fame. And it was all over the news and TV. I mean, because very few guys are in the Hall of Fame. He had the Super Bowl rings and all the awards, player of the year, five or ten times, whatever. And there was a note. So-and-so wants to talk to you. And he got inducted in the Hall of Fame on a Sunday. And it's the notes on like a Wednesday. So I meet with him. And he says, I go, real big, strong, powerful man. Accomplished everything. All American, all pro, all everything. And he's looking down. He's nervous. And his mouth is dry. And he's really uncomfortable. He says, can I tell you what I think you're going to tell me? He goes, yeah, I'd like that. He goes, you know, I played football. I didn't have to talk, you know. And I said, you dreamed your whole life about being the greatest. He goes, that's right. And I said, last Sunday, a couple of days ago, they made you. They thousands voted you in and called you one of the greatest. He goes, that's right. And I said, and you're empty now, yea, more empty than you was 20 years ago. He goes, that's exactly right. And you want to know what you're supposed to do about that. He goes, that's right. He goes, thank you. He goes, that's what I'm trying to say. I said, you know what? There is nothing you can build. There is nothing you can gain. There is nothing you can do in this age that's going to satisfy the cry in your spirit. I know more guys with mega ministries. I don't want to overstate that. I know 10 or 15 of them with real mega ministries. I mean, millions follow them and they have not at all is what's in their spirit satisfied by their ministries. I'll just say it that way. I met one man, knew him real well. A household named The Body of Christ. Had crowds and stadiums. And he talked to me once, real serious. And he says, you know what my biggest problem is? I go, what? He goes, I am dying of spiritual boredom. I go, what do you mean? He goes, I don't have any, I really don't have community with God. Not really. Because I love God. He goes, and when I'm on the stage and there's thousands, they're getting healed. I am bored watching it waiting for the meeting to get over. To go to a hotel room where I have nothing to do that's profitable. And then I wake up ashamed and angry and this just never ends. This guy tells me this. He's got one of the biggest ministries in the western world. I said, certainly not ministry, is it? He goes, no. He goes, ah. He wasn't asking me for counsel. He was just pouring his heart out. I just kind of said, wow. I was a bit younger and just thought I better shut up. Verse 17. Our light affliction. I'm gonna have the worship team go ahead and come on up. Is working for us a far greater exceeding weight of glory. You know what the weight of glory is? It's our assignment in the age to come with the nearness of God a resurrected body and an assignment. It's not just a resurrected body. It's an assignment of authority and meaning with a physical body and a physical earth. It's called the weight of glory. It's working to get you ready for your thousand year assignment. Verse 18. Paul said, here's the key. Verse 18, he's gonna quote the principle of verse 13 and 14. When he said, I have the spirit of faith because I know I'm gonna be raised from the dead. Verse 18, he goes, I'm not looking at unseen things. I'm looking at eternal things. And beloved, eternal things don't mean just spiritual things. You see, some people think Paul's looking at eternal things, which means spiritual. Beloved, the eternal things are spiritual, but they're material too. Don't think that he denied the material. He didn't deny the material. What he did is he postponed it from now to then. Beloved, when we go for the eternal, we don't deny the material. We just postpone the fullness of it to the resurrected days. I want a big material blessing. When I dream of the future, it's fully material with the anointing of the spirit of the age to come. Amen. Let's stand.