-Transcript-
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Amen, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with you.
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Wrapping up a series here on having faith in times of trouble. Believer, have faith in times of trouble. And beyond having faith, you know, there’s some steps we can take to really live for God in times of trouble. I want you to remember Jeremiah 29:11, a very familiar verse here.
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For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. God loves us. He loves us so much he gave us, he’s only begotten to die on the cross for us. I can’t imagine how hard that was for God and yet it pleased him. The Bible says that it pleased Him to do that so that we could be saved. And if that’s what he did with his only begotten, His
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beloved Jesus, do you think we are spared from hardship and trouble? We are not. You know, Jesus went through a very difficult time to get to where he is now, which is highly exalted king of all kings. Every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and below the earth. So why have us go through hard times? It’s to compel us to have more faith.
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That’s where we grow the most. The prosperity preacher says, God loves you so much, you can live rich and easy. That preacher really hadn’t been in their Bible very much. Because the Bible preacher would say, God loves you so much, you’re gonna go through hard times.
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And that’s what’s gonna make you grow. Think about the times you’ve grown the most as a person. Has it not been the most uncomfortable, hard, difficult, challenging times? It always is, amen. So we are to trust God in hardship.
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And the underlying theme here, this whole week, all, this is the fifth episode in a five-part series here. The whole theme here is, it is better to be obedient than to offer some big sacrifice. So as we go through hard times, don’t think about how do I just go and try to do something
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big to get off of God’s bad list. That’s not it. Just be obedient and trust that God’s doing something. 1 Samuel 15:22, and Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Here the prophet Samuel is telling us very clearly, the Lord delights in our obedience
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more than our sacrifice, and listening more than the fat of rams, so it would be a good sacrifice. He delights more in us just listening and being obedient. And we’ve talked about this week, expecting turbulence, not panicking, and countering obstacles and seeking God, as we gave Paul an example there. And here today, we’re talking about trusting the Lord’s plan
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that’s for our own good. And part of the Lord’s plan almost always will involve other brothers and sisters in Christ. It’ll involve other brothers, sisters in Christ. God will put brothers and sisters in Christ in your life to help you through these difficult times.
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And, you know, if you were to look back on the hardest times in your life, many of those times will involve brothers and sisters in Christ. And when we are brokenhearted, God knows it. I can think of many times, and for the sake of time I won’t go into those times, but I can think of many times going through challenging trials and the Lord putting Christians in my life that were there and helpful.
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And I would like to think that there were others that have gone through trials that the Lord allowed me to be part of to help them. God has a plan to make us more like Him. And who is God? Is He not love? Is He not goodness?
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Is He not lovely? Is He not perfect? How do we become more like Him? How do we become more lovely and full of goodness and perfect? Ask my teenager. I don’t think you say, teenager, what do you think of Pastor Clark here?
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I’m sure he would say, oh, no, no, no, Oh no, Or He would say he’s lovely and good, perfect , how we become more like that. We’re living in this flesh are we? I believe we become more like God and this is base on the bible, simply put through adversity, God has a plan for us to make us better. and that where some a verse like Romans 8:28 comes in, and we know that all things work together for good
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to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. So Romans 8:28 is telling us, you love God, you’re called according to his purpose, right? There’s, you love the Lord and you’re serving God.
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All things work together for your good.
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And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. I guess someone could interpret good as a larger good, and I would agree with that as well. But I’ll say for our good, you know, because this is mentioning the individual. And so how can you say that if you’re going through a hard time?
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Well, Scripture tells us God’s calling aligns with suffering, which is for our own good. Suffering is only for a season, by the way. Jesus approaches this topic in John 16:33. “‘These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but’—big but here—’be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’”
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And so we start thinking of heaven. We start thinking of our heavenly Father. We start thinking of Jesus and what He did on the cross. We start thinking about the finished work of the cross. Then we no longer have to worry so much about these light and momentary trials that will soon pass away, because we can realize that our eternity is not on this broken earth.
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We are promised a heavenly home, and we’re promised that heaven is a beautiful place where sin cannot enter, where worry cannot enter, where anxiety does not exist, where people cannot lie, where there is no theft and there is no stealing, Amen, where we are no longer in these fleshly mortal bodies, but that we have a new resurrected body. We’re in a place where there is no darkness. There is no night.
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There is a light, and the light is beautiful. The light is not the sun. The light is Jesus Christ. We’re in a place where we have a heavenly home, amen, a mansion, amen. We will see loved ones, I believe that, Amen. And God took Paul to heaven for a season, and Paul said it wasn’t lawful that he would
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speak about what he saw. Oh, what Paul saw. I would love to know what Paul saw in heaven. It’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place. And that’s our eternal home. And so what we’re dealing with here, God’s not saying endure this for an eternity, though
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it may feel like it. He’s not telling us that. He’s telling us endure it for a season. And that while we go through these hard times, and while we realize it’s for our good to make us grow in faith and knowledge of Christ, we are to work with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Anywhere in the Bible, I think I can say this, pretty much anywhere in the Bible, you see an individual in a situation, they’re oftentimes
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given brothers and sisters in Christ to work with them. I mean, Paul had Barnabas, John, Mark, Luke, of course, Timothy, and many others. That’s just Paul as the example. But think about all the other Christians. Moses had Aaron, Amen, and others. You think of King David, right? He had others there, including his children, including Solomon, amen, on and on and on.
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You can think of really any Christian in the Bible, most of them had someone or many people to work with and I gave examples earlier in the week in a previous episode about DL Moody and How he had Iris Anki as his song leader and how they used a bunch of hymns from Fanny Crosby, right? brothers and sisters in Christ working together for revivals and Who helped shield God’s chosen people his heritage?
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Amen the Jewish people from Nazis that were trying to kill them and that she herself ended up in a prison camp and that she was working with her own parents and family Amen and many of them were killed But she was given brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen on and on there’s many contemporary examples as well. Amen that God puts people in our lives to work together Proverbs 27:16 iron sharpeneth iron so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend
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It’s so true. We become better for Christ when we work together We’re more effective for the cause of Christ when we work together Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, 2 are better than 1 because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat.
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But how can one be warm alone? If one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” And so God calls us to work together with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And you know, if you have been given a ministry, the Lord has put it on your heart and called you to it, and the Lord has put people in your path, thank God for putting people in your path along the way to help you in that ministry.
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Praise the Lord. And conversely, if you are working alone, pray that God will provide you some help. And at the same token, maybe God wants you to step up if you’re not in this particular ministry now or maybe whatever it may be to help others and to be that one that comes alongside another. Amen. We have a mission visiting next weekend from the Philippines and staying at our house. We’re so excited to host this family. Amen. I view our role as beyond supporting the mission, I view our role as helping that brother and that family, that brother in Christ
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and that family, to let them know that they’re not alone in what they’re trying to do and that we can bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. And this is how God would have it. Another example would be the radio ministry and participating in the share-a-thons like at WHBY, where we sit down and we compel the listeners to help give to fund the radio station to keep it open and alive And it’s we just get together to help one another. Amen. I could go on and on with examples but remember the point is God put brothers and sisters of Christ in our life so that we could work together and so that when we
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Have trouble times come our way. We should remember number one to have faith, have faith, expect turbulence, and don’t panic. Okay, don’t panic. Think about that. Something sudden happens, oftentimes we want to panic. Don’t panic. God’s still in control. He’s still on the throne. Amen. There’s no emergency meeting in heaven as Adrian Rogers used to say. Encounter obstacles. You know, we encounter obstacles. We are to seek God. We are to look at someone like Paul who encountered many, many obstacles but was still used mightily by God and was able to persevere through those obstacles
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until the Lord called him home. And we should trust the Lord’s plan that it’s for our good. And while we go through hard times and even in good times, we should work with our brothers and sisters in Christ, helping to do what God’s called us to do, being a light in this dark world and being loving, having that sacrificial love, that agape love, the idea that we are helping our brothers and sisters in Christ in a way that we don’t expect to gain anything from it,
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that we’re just happy, that we are, the Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver. And that doesn’t just mean money, it can mean time, it could mean giving of your ear and listening, it could mean giving of your resources, it could mean giving of your heart and caring could mean giving time to prayer for that individual. Oh, how we need prayer. Pray for me, amen. If you have no one to pray for, pray for Clark Covington, pastor of KJV Cafe radio program
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and Heartland Ministries. I’ll take your prayers. We love the Lord here today and there are so many ways that we can get involved and that we need to work together. And so we solely and independently turn to God in all things, having faith and in prayer, and then look around and say,
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where would God have us to serve? Where would God have us to be as we go through good times and bad? And how would he have us to help our brothers and sisters in Christ in these last days when so much has changed?
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Just one person can make a huge impact. I’ll say this and I’ll be done. I was thinking of the high school, Kings Mountain High School, where our oldest goes, and I was thinking, you know, one person in that high school, one young man or woman got on fire for God, what they could do, just one, just one, what God could do through them. Oh, let’s inspire each other. Let’s love on each other.
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Let’s turn to the Lord now while we still are in this body, in this world. Let’s turn to Him and let’s do what He would have us to do. I thank you so much for listening today.
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Again check us out online at kjvcafe.com or facebook.com-KJVCafe. Take care, God bless and Amen.