Our world is weary…

Marriages under tension, broken relationships, adultery, cheating brothers, crimes against women, refugees, murder, idol worship, wicked leaders…and that’s just in the family tree of Jesus.

In Matthew 1 we see a thrill of hope that our world has waited ages for.

Of all the people in the universe, who is the one who prayed three times that the cup of God’s wrath, that the pain and sufferings should not be for him?

Of all the people in the universe, who understands, pleads in prayer and felt your experience of pain and suffering in this life?

Of all the people in the universe, it is Jesus who experienced our weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

And those things were external to Jesus, he didn’t deserve them, but he experienced them for you.

Friends, it’s time to go to Jesus…because only he is literally more than super.

Knowing Christ helped Paul’s heart when others compared him, and it liberates us from living for people’s approval, or dying inside from people’s devaluing of who’s we are.

The same God who gave you saving grace, is the same God who is able to give you what you need. God is able to give to you so that you have sufficiency to serve him by generous to others, in every good work. Do you believe that? Do you believe him?

We’re in the middle part of this whole section of this letter to the Corinthians where Paul writes, and God speaks in Scripture, to the gravity, the importance of The Hands of Generosity ~ the “how” of handling money by Christians and by the church and why it matters.

It’s not just a matter of the number of workers, but a matter of our ministry of prayer flowing out of that same compassion and cries out to God.

Giving without the power of grace, turns us into grudgers.

We might do a whole bunch of stuff as a church. But if someone was to see our daily, weekly and seasonally ministry - it would be all about making disciple-makers.

We can be allergic to beautiful things, even things like God's commandments to love.

What do you regret? From the stuff we have said, emotions we have emptied onto others, to the deeds we have done. What do you regret, moreover, what can we do with regret?

The motivation for holiness as we live in this world, is an out of this world joy. Because the joy of relationship with God is out of this world, God who came into this world.

Our society, in ever increasing doses, searches for the prescriptions, the remedies, the formulas and fixes that bring that new change which people long for.

Our longing to be with the Lord Jesus leads us to be unsatisfied with what this world has to offer, and so fills our life now as one of making life count for Christ.

We all go through times and seasons that really cause us to lose heart. So that's why we hear God's gospel word preached to our hearts each week, and it's at these times of focus lost that we need these words from 2nd Corinthians 4:16-18.

The Corinthians see Paul’s suffering as a Christian, as a Christian Leader - and they question whether God is with Paul, and why he is not like the celebrity leaders they would like to follow.

It's so easy to lose heart, for anyone, and somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it’s easy to lose heart for us who are Christians.

One of the big threats to the Christian life is our losing heart by discouragement.

The heart deflating discouragement we get as Christians comes at us with one disappointment after another, it's what someone has once described as – death to the Christian life by 1000 little cuts. 

We become what we behold. When we behold the glory of Christ He transforms us.

Who is sufficient for these things? See how our sufficiency comes from Christ.