By The Will Of God

So this morning we're going to be starting a new book of the Bible. We've been maybe two months, well I guess it's been longer than that. We had a whole marriage series, so it's probably been four months since we stopped with, since we finished with 1 Timothy. We were in that book for about a year and a half, maybe two. And I've wondered what we should do, and I've thought since before we finished that, that what we should do is just continue on in 2 Timothy. And so that is what I've chosen to do. And you might wonder, well, why 2 Timothy? And I thought, well, there's a couple of reasons. One is, maybe the most prominent one, at least to me, is that it's a very pastoral letter. I don't know if you know what I mean by pastoral letter, so I'll tell you. It's a very fatherly letter. It's a letter that we're getting to peer over the shoulder almost of a father writing his final instructions to his son.

And so this letter is, as we're going to see this morning, written right at the end of Paul's life. And he's writing to his son. And you understand that when life is hard and when life is difficult, when it's coming to an end, the things that are most burdensome to us are the things that concern us the most as we move from this life to the next. And so that's what this letter is. It's a very sweet letter, very... loving letter that Paul writes. It's meant to help Timothy in his work of continuing to press on even at the loss of his father in the faith, Paul. I also chose this book because of some of the themes that Paul returns to time and again. One of those themes throughout the book of 2 Timothy is how to be faithful in the face of hardship and persecution. Even as Paul's facing consequences for his good work for the gospel, He writes to Timothy not to shrink back, not to recoil, but to press on, to trust God. And I think that this will be a helpful topic to us so that we don't grow weary or lose heart ourselves. This morning our text is the salutation or the greeting, the first few verses of Paul's letter. And Paul says a lot of the same stuff at the beginning of all of his letters, and it can be sort of redundant if you read his letters. They go something like,

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the will of God. Grace to you and peace and mercy to whoever I'm writing to. It's a very similar thing. And I was observing a conversation between some pastors recently online, and they asked this question. They said, when you start one of these epistles, because Paul always says pretty much the same thing, should you preach on it? And that might seem like a strange question to you, but... It's not a strange question if you're a pastor, because really you're not asking, should you preach on it? You're saying, what should I say? I'm not sure what to say, because this is a common, it's a repetitive thing that shows up in Scripture. So what do you say? Well, when Paul gives his greetings in his letters, there are very common things that he says, and sometimes there's unique things. This morning we're going to be focusing on the most common thing that Paul says as he relates to Timothy.

Our text this morning is 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So as I mentioned just a minute ago, I want to flesh out a little bit more for you. is writing this letter as he's in prison in Rome, awaiting what he believes to be his execution. At the end of this book, he tells us as much. In chapter 4, verses 6 and 7, Paul says, And so Paul knew that his life was drawing to an end. And for many of us, when our lives draw to an end, it's because of old age or it's because of some sickness. In God's kindness, I don't know that any of us have or have known people whose lives have abruptly drawn to an end because of the gospel, who've awaited death, as Paul is, for his work. This wasn't news to Paul. He wasn't surprised at this work.

When he met with the Ephesian elders way back in Acts 20, one of his missionary journeys, he's traveling about and as he's going, he lands in a place called Miletus and he sends to the Ephesian elders, the men who had been raised up in Ephesus to lead and to govern the church, and he says, I want to talk to you guys. And so they come out to him and he greets them, he exhorts them to do their work and to be faithful, tells them that it's going to be... exceedingly difficult and hard because after his departure, he anticipates that there's going to be increased conflict, increased division within their church. And he tells them in that time, he says, I'm never going to see you again. This is our final goodbye. And then there's a sweet exchange of affection between them. It says that they fell on his neck weeping and kissing him.

It's because of the affection and the love that they had with one another and that they were saying, we're not going to see our brother again, not in this life. But even at that time, Paul did this because he knew that his ministry was taking a turn for the worst, perhaps. He knew that prison was coming for him. One of the things he told them... In Acts 20, 22, and 23, as he said, Now Paul wasn't afraid of this happening. If you were to study Paul's life, you would see there are times in which bonds and afflictions are awaiting him, and the people of God are saying, Paul, don't go in there. Don't do that. Go away. Run away. And Paul says, no, no, no.

I have to go and I have to do all that the Lord has given me to do. Even in the face of knowing that what it would produce in his life was suffering. And so this is Paul's final letter. He's seen it coming on the horizon. And he writes his son, Timothy, to encourage him, to strengthen him, to do his work. Knowing that this, until they're joined together in glory, they won't have any more talks. And so in that sense, it's a very... sober letter, and it's also a very, can be a heavy letter, but it's also a very sweet letter. And what we see in this very beginning is, in this salutation, we see Paul teaching Timothy about his work as a Christian. Paul was not surprised at the suffering that he was going to endure. He was not opposed to it. He didn't try to escape it. He wasn't angry at God for it. He trusted God, and he He testified to God's goodness even as he was about to die. And so it's a very personal and helpful letter to us because it teaches us and lays out for us what our aim ought to be as Christians in the face of adversity and hardship. How easy is it for us when we see suffering, when we see sacrifice, to say, I don't know if I want to pay that price. I don't know if I'm willing to go without that. But Paul, even as he's facing death,

He testifies that it has been worth it. I read to you that he says, I fought the good fight. I finished the course. I've kept the faith. But he goes on to say, to speak of his anticipation of the reward and the glory that he's about to receive and that he's anticipating and looking forward to it. His words at the end of this book are in line with what he said in Philippians where he says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And as for me, I don't know which is better. I don't know which to choose. He earnestly desired to be with the Lord, which didn't mean that he didn't love those around him or that he didn't seek to turn a profit for the Lord. He did more so than I think many of us do. But he did it because he was sure that when he stood before God, he wanted to receive a blessing. He wanted to receive the benediction of his father and ours. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master. And so he worked hard.

He suffered a lot. And he suffered not in ignorance, but he suffered with knowledge, knowing that his life was to be spent in service of God and building up his kingdom. And is that different for you or for me? No. And so we, like Paul, are called to serve God in whatever... place he calls us to be. And whatever calling he places on our lives, many of us could look at our lives and say, my calling is difficult. It's hard. It's uncertain. It's unknown. Suffering attends me. Loneliness, grief, pain. These are the things that mark my days and my weeks and my years. How much more so the Apostle Paul.

As we read this letter and study it, he's going to recount some of his sorrows. And his sorrows, in part, were the people that he administered to who had abandoned the faith and who'd walked away, who'd not borne fruit of his labor. And so this is a very sweet letter. Paul serves God in the place in which he's called. Now, what was Paul called to do? Well, he tells us. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, he tells us what his work is, what he's supposed to do. How did Paul become an apostle? Well, it wasn't by the appointing Galatians. He says it wasn't according to the will of man or the appointment of man, but by God. And you remember that after Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, tried to give the money back, couldn't make peace in his conscience, he went out and he hung himself, killed himself. And so they were shorter an apostle. And in the early pages of the book of Acts, the apostles get together and they say, we need another apostle. We need someone to replace.

Judas. And so they gather together, they cast lots, and they identify a man, Matthias, to replace Judas. At that time, Paul, who at the time was called Saul, was not a friend of Christians. He was a zealous Jew who was bent on serving God by putting down this Christian rebellion. And so his job was to go around seeking out Christians, dragging them back, to face trial and to be put to death for their faith. Saul, Paul, stood in attendance and was the coat bearer, if you will, at the first martyr's death, at Stephen's death. Paul stood there in hearty agreement with what was going on here. And so as Paul's out and he's doing this work, he's on the way to a city called Damascus. And the men that he's with are walking. All of a sudden, this bright light shines down on him. And he's going, what's going on? Where are you, Lord?

And the Lord comes to him. Jesus comes to him and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And it's at that time that Paul sees the truth and comes to understand it and believes it. He does an about face, a 180, where he was heading to Damascus to drag off and to see the Christians put to death. He now becomes one of them because God saved him and appointed him to this work of the apostleship. Now, you can understand that if... You had lived at that time, and there was a man like Paul walking around with a reputation that he had. If you were a Christian, there's one thing you could be certain you would do, and that would be to avoid Paul, right? If he came, you'd go. To preserve your own life, you would not want to see this man. And so this happens. Paul is converted miraculously, dramatically on the road to Damascus, and he goes away for a time. He's blind.

and he goes away for a time, and he's praying, and the Lord comes to a man named Ananias and says, Ananias, you need to go to Paul. And Ananias says what you or I would say. You want me to do what? I'm not going to see that guy. He wants to kill us. And the Lord says to Ananias, go. He, speaking of Paul, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings. And so Ananias goes to him. But you see, even from the very beginning of Paul's ministry and his calling of an apostle, suffering is front and center. God says, I'm going to show him how much he'll suffer. And Paul never understood his suffering as a consequence of his sin. Oh, I did all these bad things, so now I have to have all these hard things. He understood it to be the cost of doing business and building God's kingdom.

that there would be suffering. And so God says his work is to take the Lord's name to bear witness before the Gentiles. And Paul is known as the apostle of the Gentiles. He goes out on his missionary journeys and he plants churches in places where there are not any of God's people. And so he goes to Ephesus and he goes to Colossae and he goes to Thessalonica and he goes to these places where there aren't Christians. He goes among the unbelievers and he establishes churches and sees people converted. God uses him to build his church. He's also made to go before kings. And the book of Acts records for us the sorts of things that Paul says and does when he's before kings. Sometimes he makes a defense. Sometimes he appeals to his Roman citizenship. Sometimes he gets the Pharisees and Sadducees fighting with each other so that the spotlight's off of him. But he bore witness. And among the sons of Israel, the Judaizers, as you will.

The whole book of Galatians is aimed at the Jews and their misuse, misunderstanding of the law of God, saying that people had to be circumcised to become Christians. They had to become Jews first, and so Paul bears witness to them. And in the midst of all of this, in all this work, wherever he's at and wherever he's going, suffering attends him. At the end of one of his letters, he says, Very simply, don't give me any more trouble for I bear in my body the brand marks, the wounds of Jesus Christ. I've been shipwrecked, I've been beaten, I've been starved, I've been stoned, I've been left for dead. Paul's life was a life of suffering. And I think it's very common for us that when we think of lives that are attended by suffering, we think these are not good lives. This is not how Christians ought to live.

But this is how Paul lived. And in the midst of his sufferings, he had joy. He had faith and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ that was sufficient to bear him through the hardships that he suffered in his life. And we have to see that so much of the suffering that Paul endured was because of the particular calling God had placed on his life. So do you have suffering in your life that's a particular result of the calling that God's placed on you? Sure you do. How easy is it to look around at other people's lives and callings and think, oh, well, it's better for them. They have it easier. They don't have to suffer the way I do. And it may be true. They may not have to suffer the way you do. They may have to suffer the way that they do. But many times the suffering that we face in our lives is directly related to the calling that God places on his life. And so when Paul says these simple words, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, in that little phrase he's saying, everything that my life has amounted to, everything that I've endured and gone through is related to and flows out of the calling that God has placed on my life. Now he could have been unfaithful to his calling in an effort to avoid his suffering, but then he'd be no good example for us.

And so as Paul wrote this letter, as he awaited his death, which he understood to be part of God's plan for his life, we can observe two things. First, that Paul didn't reject his calling when the cost was high or when it was painful. When the sacrifices became real, when the bill had to be paid. He was committed to the Lord's work, no matter where it led him. Now in the course of his life, there certainly were opportunities for him to Pull in his horns a little bit, if you will. There were opportunities for him to back off just a little bit and avoid some of the hardship and the suffering. Perhaps even save his life if he would just trim off the edges of his faithfulness. But instead of that, he served God wherever he was and whatever the circumstance was. And so we have before us this sweet letter of encouragement to be faithful to the Lord, even in life's darkest corners. Paul's not writing to us in this letter.

as someone who's got a theoretical lesson for us about how we ought to live our lives. What we have before us is the testimony of one of God's faithful men who's gone and who's before us and who's paved a way and who's endured many hardships. And at this point, he's anticipating his own death. And he's faithful to the end. Can you think in your own lives, if you found yourself suffering and about to be put to death for the sake of the gospel, what the temptations would be to recant, to turn aside and to say, no, no, no, no, no, I'll stop. But Paul doesn't set us that example. He's not one who shrinks back to destruction, but he's one who perseveres to the salvation of his souls. And he makes a way for us to do the same. The second thing we can learn from this is that serving God is not a...

The consequences of it are not a mysterious thing. It's not a wonder what will become of us if we believe the gospel and live as though it's true. I was talking with a young man one time. He was talking about being at school. And he said, I have friends and they used to be, you know, we together would just... mock and make fun of everybody in the class, the teacher, the other students. If anybody said anything wrong or did something or looked funny or whatever, it was just our habit to make fun of them. And the young man says, I don't want that to be, I don't want to do that anymore. It was him confessing his sins and wanting to repent. But he was afraid to. He had apprehension about it. Why would he have apprehension about it?

Because he knew that if he wanted to serve God in this small way, but significant in his life, if he wanted to repent of his sins and serve God, he knew that he was going to suffer. He knew that he was now going to become the object of their mockery. And he says, they're going to make fun of me for acting and behaving like a Christian. These are the words they'll use. You're just acting like a Christian. What should we say to him? That's right. Good. And what do you do when they say to you, well, you used to do this stuff too. I did. Paul says, yeah, me, I was a persecutor of the church. You know, I'm the least of all the apostles. One who is untimely born. There's no man more guilty before God than me for the things that I've done. But no more. And so all the suffering that Paul endured and all the suffering that we endure, if it's related not to our own sins but to our witness of the gospel and our love for him,

We ought not to shrink back from it, brothers and sisters. Even as Paul faced death, his concern was for how God's kingdom would grow. And his concern was that Timothy would persevere and not grow weary. Paul was bearing fruit as he approached death. And the reason that he was bearing fruit and had these concerns at the end of his life is because he had a track record of these being his concerns. And so we ought to be cultivating in our lives a track record. of bearing fruit for the Lord and being concerned about the things that he loves and holds dear. Paul was content with his lot in life. He accepted it and he loved God for it, which is not to say that it was easy. I think sometimes when we think of contentment in the Christian life, we think that contentment is an outworking of ease in our lives. And contentment's never the outworking of ease in our lives.

Contentment is a spiritual work that God does in us in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in. This is the only place we can find contentment. If we look and we go, my circumstances have to change. My life, my relationships, my money, my health, my kids, my marriage. You'll never find contentment. Not that way. Here Paul sets before us an example of great suffering and hardship with contentment and acceptance and peace with God's will in his life. Now, I've said that Paul is content. How do you know that Paul is content? I think because he adds these very simple words, by the will of God. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. His apostleship and everything that came with it, including the suffering and now his death, were by the will of God. These aren't the words of a man who's grumbling, who's being kept in...

In bondage against his will and against his own desires. These are the words of the man who embodied what he said in Philippians 4, which is, I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances I'm in. He knew that his suffering came from God's hand. It was clear to him. He could draw straight lines as we ought to be able to and say that our suffering, if it's for sin, then you ought not to delight in it. You know, he who suffers as a thief is, you know, what credit is that to him? But he who suffers as Paul does here for serving God. And you might think, well, how am I supposed to serve God? What am I supposed to do in my life? And I go, that young man I was talking to, the way he wanted to serve God and the way he wanted to be faithful was by saying, I'm not going to make fun of my classmates anymore and be a disruption to my teacher. And I'm going to encourage other kids not to do the things that I was doing not too long ago. That was his faithfulness. It was little.

we can look at it and go, oh, well, I mean big faithfulness about me. And I say, pay attention to the little things, to the simple, mundane areas of faithfulness that God calls you to. Be faithful there. It won't seem to you from the inside that what you're doing is significant or moving the needle at all. And that's in part because of our own blindness and our own impatience. Many of us would much rather do one big thing that's faithful to God and be done with it instead of bearing with the tension and the hardship of failing sometimes and having to repent and having to do the everyday building and growing of a Christian life. And so when you look at Paul, you say, well, he's dying for the faith. You know, I hope that I would be willing to die for the faith. Chances are, pretty slim, that you're not going to face that.

But if you are to face that, you ought to prepare for it the same way that Paul prepared for it, which was by living a life of faithfulness in the little things that God called him to each day. When Paul was talking to those Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he says, I didn't shrink back from declaring to you anything that I thought was profitable. Which is, in other words, him saying, I meddled in every area of your life where I thought you needed to grow in godliness. And they loved him for it. And so Paul accepted his suffering as coming from the hand of God. And the reason I draw our attention to this is that we often think that our suffering doesn't, it's somehow God is either impotent or unwilling or unable to do anything about it. But Paul, this is one of the most common things he says in all of his introductions to his letters. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God or according to the will of God. He regularly tells people, the things I've endured, you know how I've lived among you.

that have attended my life are by the will of God. They've come to me from him. You think of who could Paul be mad at at this point? Where is his suffering coming from? Well, he could have said, well, it's coming from the Jews. It's coming from the Romans. It's coming from the unbelievers. He's coming from those who've abandoned the faith and left me high and dry. There's no shortage of people that Paul could blame for his suffering and say, they failed and that's why I have it hard. They're sinning, and that's why my life is the way it is. But he always says, by the will of God. He understands our God to be walking alongside of him through these hardships, taking him through these valleys. And he trusts that God will bear him through those things without any failure. And it's very common for us to think, when does it end? I could endure if I knew how long.

But since I don't know how long and it's just this open-ended, unknown hardship, how do I prepare for that? Am I preparing for two months or three months or five years? How do I know? When will it change? When will things shift? And will it get better when they shift or will it get worse when it shifts? These are the sorts of things that plague our minds and keep us from contentment. And Paul sets, as I said, a completely different example. He's accepted that his His calling and all of the suffering that has come with it come to him from the will of God, and he's not angry about it. And that is a particular kindness of God, that he would not be angry at his suffering. Instead of this, what we would say about our own sufferings is, it's not really that bad. My suffering is not that bad. Except for when it gets really bad, and then all of a sudden the floodgates of our discontentment come breaking forth, and it doesn't take something nearly as...

difficult or final as our deaths to tempt us to grumble and complain about God's will in our lives. You remember that Paul warned in Romans that we should not ask the question, why have you made me thus? The question, why have you made me thus, is really a question of why do I have to endure these hardships and face these temptations and live under the guilt of... of committing these particular sins. Why have you made me thus? This is our natural heart's cry out in response to our sufferings and our hardships. Why have you made me thus? And what does Paul say? Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? It's not really an answer to the question. It's a, you better be careful. You're treading on awful thin ice here. By the time you come to asking that question, your anger, at the will of God in your life has risen to such a level that you're about to curse God and be given over. And so instead of answering the question, Paul warns us away from asking the question. And yet it's a common question that we face and have to do battle with daily. Why have you made me thus? Why do I suffer in these ways? We want very particular answers. But Paul was content to work and to labor and for God to cause the growth.

He understood, maybe you could think of it in terms of a salesman. Everyone wants to know, how does a salesman do well? And they talk about their pipeline. What does a salesman have to do if he wants to make sales? He has to fill his pipeline. He has to call people. He has to talk to them. He has to find out what their needs are. He has to meet them. And a lot of that work, it never comes out the other end in sales. But he knows that if you want that result, I have to do this work over here. I can't control every step of the process. I can't control the timing. I can't control the pricing. There are many things that are out of the salesman's control. But he says, the one thing I do know is if I want that to come out the other end, I have to put this in over here. And this is what Scripture teaches us when Paul said in 1 Corinthians, I planted an Apollos water, but God caused the growth.

Paul was content to live and to serve and to be poured out as a drink offering, the way he describes at the end of this book, trusting that God would make it grow in his time and in his way. And so we too ought to be content with this format for our lives. We're not assured of when, you know, will this conversation bear fruit or will this discipline work with our kids? How many parents say, well, I don't want to cause my kids pain if I don't know that it's going to work? Or they say, no, I'm going to discipline my kids and it's going to work and it has to work right now. Then they get frustrated when it doesn't. But what I always say to them is, God will cause the growth in his time and in his way with your work. That's not in your control. It's not in the scope of things your life is to be consumed by. You're to be concerned with training your child up, teaching them, nurturing them, instructing them in the ways of the Lord, disciplining them when they're out of line, leading them to Jesus Christ. That's your part.

When that's going to bear fruit and they're going to come online spiritually and come to know their sins, that's the Lord's work. But how easy is it as parents to say, well, if I don't know how and when the circumstances of what my work's going to produce, then I don't want to do the work. And I say to you, brothers and sisters, the will of God is that you would do that work. And that as you do that work, you trust him to do with it what he wills to do with it. So Paul says, that he's an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, how do you know if something in your life is God's will? Should it change? It's a very big question. We could spend a lot of time talking about it. But for today, what I want to say to you is simply, if it's happening in your life, it's God's will. It's clear that it's his revealed will. Many times we want to know what his secret will is or what his future will is.

But I think we ought to constrain ourselves to think of our own lives and the temptations that we face today because it has enough trouble of its own. And we ought to say, is this God's will? Is it God's will that I would be in this place doing this thing, suffering in this way? Provided that your suffering is not the direct result of your own behavior that was sinful, if you want to know if something in your life is God's will, you should look around and see what's happening and go, this is God's will right now. This hardship or this sorrow or this difficulty is his will right now for me. When we kick against his revealed will, we only harm ourselves and those around us. It's true that we endure many sorrows and hardships. And it's also true if you've done it, you know that the longer it takes you to accept it, the more of a mess you're going to have to clean up once you finally do, if you ever do. And so if it's happening, it is God's will.

And our rejection of it only produces more complications, more hardship, more sorrow. You'll never be freed of God's will by being angry about it. You won't find any rest or peace down that path. Even when his will is severe or difficult, you remember that Paul is about to face his death. And he understood it was by the will of God and he was content with it. And so grumbling... and complaining and fighting and kicking against it only compounds our grief. How should you respond to God's will? Because in the course of our lives, there are many things we can say, okay, well, what I'm dealing with right now is God's will, but I'd like relief from it. That's a fair thing to want and to seek after even. But there's a caveat, and it's a really important caveat, in determining how you should respond to God's revealed will.

what you should do about the current circumstances of your life, the first thing that you must do is accept that this is God's will for you right now. Acceptance of God's revealed will is very difficult when it's not something that we've desired, worked for, or we want. We can spend months and years wrestling and fighting against simply accepting the loss, the sorrow, the pain. the new normal. We can manufacture all kinds of reasons why what happened didn't need to happen, shouldn't have happened, and why we won't allow anything like that to ever happen again. None of this is acceptance. And I don't say that we need to accept the will of God as though it's an easy or simple thing. I know it's not. I know it's not in my own life, and I know that it's not in your lives because I've observed and watched and seen our weaknesses.

And yet, we have to accept the will of God. The only other option is to be found fighting against it. And if we don't accept his will in our lives, we will simply end up cursing him and proving that we haven't loved him. When Job lost so much of his wealth and his family, and his wife, who's alone left to be his comforter, says to him, will you now curse God and die? He responds to her and says, you speak as some of the foolish women speak. Shall we indeed accept good from the Lord and not adversity? In all these things, Job didn't sin with his lips. That's the tag at the end of it. Shall we indeed accept the good things from the Lord and kick against the bad things? It's easy. It's natural. It's familiar. We certainly have opportunity to do it.

In fact, many of the people around us in our circumstances encourage us to do it. You don't have to accept that about your life. You can do something about it. How many times when someone in the church comes to you and they say, burden in my life, hardship, pain, sorrow, fear, as soon as you go and you're like, well, here's what you can do to fix it, you're not helping them accept it. It may be that they can fix it. It may be there's something they can do. And I'm not saying that that's not in view. But we have to accept God's will in our lives first. Or all of our efforts to fix it will amount to a rejection of what he's done in our lives, what he's allowed into our lives. And so acceptance does not mean I accept it and therefore I have no desires for it to change. That's not what I mean by accept it. By accept it, I mean that in your heart, you're not grumbling and angry at God because of what he's allowed into your life.

Sorrows, pain, sickness, death. Acceptance is heart work. And you have to do the heart work before you can do the practical work. You might think that, well, if I can get to work doing the practical work, then it will help me accept my circumstances. And I say, what if the practical work doesn't help, doesn't work? What if you commit yourself to doing this thing and it's going to help me be at peace? What happens if it doesn't pan out? then what happens? Are you not in a worse situation than you were before? Because now not only have you got God's revealed will, but you've got your effort to change it not working. And so accepting God's will is paramount. When you look at your life as a Christian, you look at it saying, God is good, he is merciful, and he's loving. He's also just. We also live in a world full of sin, and death is our end. And the thing that comes after death,

is what we would really, really like to have now. And the fact that we don't have it doesn't mean we can somehow pull it into this life in such a way that our sorrows and our hardships will evaporate or be minimized. Accepting God's will in our lives is something we need other people to help us with, which is another way of saying when someone comes to you with a sorrow or burden, a hardship, it is a good start for you to ask them if they're struggling with accepting it. even if they're being really clinical. This is one of the tells I look for. When someone says, yeah, this hard thing's going on in my life and they're completely deadpan about it. And it's like, yeah, this terrible thing happened, but you know, I think, liar, liar, liar. That's not how I respond. And I think I'm normal. I don't accept hard things in life and go, yeah, that's really difficult, but it's okay. No, it's not. If it were that easy and that really is the case, then I would like you to come and tell us how to do it.

And so you watch for people who aren't responding the way that they should to the hardships they have in their lives. They think, well, I'm not supposed to be angry at God. And I go, you're right. You're not supposed to be angry at God. But the fact is, you are. And saying you're not doesn't make it go away. And you say, well, I don't want to be more angry and get more down in the pit about it. And I say, you're digging with both hands by not talking about it. Well, I shouldn't struggle with it. Well, you are. You do. So, we have to do this work of accepting God's will in our lives. And we have to help each other with it. And there's times when we really ought to do what Job's friends did, which was come and sit and be quiet. Not try to fix their problems. They started off good, and it just got worse the more they opened their mouths and talked. There are times in our lives that the things you can do to help people accept the burdens that God's brought into their life is to sit with them.

to listen, to understand what's going on. And they will not say it perfectly because after all, they're struggling. It's not the time for you to say, well, actually you didn't, you know. They know they're not trusting God right now. You ought to be glad that they're telling you. You say, well, they're saying it a big mess. They're not saying it right. The things they're saying mean they have their theology of God's sovereignty all messed up. Isn't that what suffering does to us all? So we have to accept God's revealed will in our lives first. Anything we try to do before that is not going to fix the problem. It's not going to make up for or overcome the fact that we still are angry and unsettled. What I will tell you, though, is as you accept God's will in your life, you then have the freedom that Paul has in his letter when he says, I'm an apostle, and all that that means, by the will of God, you then have freedom to be faithful.

Because you've relinquished your grip on control of your life. And you've entrusted it to the Lord. As you accept God's will in your life and you work toward it, there will be a direct correlation between your ability to serve God and be faithful as Paul was. And so can you seek relief from the burdens and trials that you endure? Yes. You can seek that relief through prayer. When you have trouble relationally with your spouse, your co-worker, with your siblings, wherever it is, and you want relief from it, you're mad, you're angry, you're frustrated, you're at your wit's end and you're ready to be like, I'm done with that. What are you supposed to do? You're supposed to seek relief. You're not supposed to throw the relationship away and be like, eh, well. You're supposed to pray for them. You're supposed to pray for your relationship. You're supposed to ask God to work in such a way as to relieve the mess that sin has made. If there's something tangible you can do, practical, to help,

Sure, do it. Who wouldn't? It's not godly to just, it's not the definition of godliness to have hardship come into our lives and go, I don't want to, it's too much, I'm just not going to do anything about it. It may be that that suffering and that hardship has been brought into your life not to grind you into powder or to dust, but to make you humble, make you come to God, make you grow in your faith, and then make you do the work of trusting God as you seek relief from it. There were many, many times Paul was on the brink of being killed. One of them of note was the time that he snuck out the back door in a basket. He sought relief. He'd went and he'd been faithful. And he wasn't angry that they wanted to kill him, but he didn't want to die. He didn't think his work was done yet. And so he climbed in a basket and they lowered him down the city wall and he got out of there so they couldn't kill him. And so yes, seek relief from the suffering that you face.

Only understand that if the Lord doesn't grant the relief, then your acceptance of that trial or that burden will be exposed. You're free to seek relief while realizing that if you're to be relieved, it's the Lord who will do it. If relief in your mind demands that you set aside the Lord Jesus Christ and his rule in your life, if to have what you want, you have to be angry at God, It's not relief. It's not faithfulness. And it's not born out of accepting his will as Paul did. Much of our lives will be spent learning how to love God in the midst of suffering and trial. The suffering in those trials will be various. Sometimes it'll be acute and it'll be a very particular time and in a few months it's going to be over. And other times our sufferings are going to be chronic and nagging and they're going to stick with us perhaps for our whole lives. Whichever way it is.

The work set before us by the Lord is that we would accept his will in our lives and that we would love him the way Paul did as he wrote this letter, as he faced death. He was ate up with building the kingdom and he looked forward to meeting his God and hearing, well done, well done. And so should we. So let's pray.