grace, but you live in this world of pain and loss, the dark realities of every human being's life. I'm going to say this again to you, but I need you to hear what I'm saying. That world of pain and loss, you haven't been given a ticket out of, just because you're a believer. And what's important about facing that is, when life doesn't make sense, oh, please hear what I'm about to say to you. When life doesn't make sense, you'll always preach to yourself some kind of gospel. You'll preach yourself the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of God's love and his presence and his willingness to unleash his power for your disposal. You will preach the true gospel to yourself or you will preach some kind of false gospel. Misshapen, distorted gospel, that makes you even willing to bring God into the court of your judgment and question his goodness and his faithfulness and love. Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. I say this a lot. There's a preacher that you listen to more than any preacher who will ever be on the stage and that preacher is you. Everybody in this room is a philosopher, everybody in this room is a theologian, everybody in this room is an archeologist and you'll dig through the mound of your existence to make sense out of your life. And the reason I'm excited about our conversation this morning... I guess it's not a conversation, I'm the only one talking. Luella says that to me a lot. Paul, you talked, I didn't. But I'm supposed to do it here. The reason I'm excited about this conversation is, there's another thing I want you to get early, suffering is never neutral. Suffering is never a neutral experience. You always bring something to your suffering, and what you bring to your suffering, shapes the way you suffer. I'm about to hurt your feelings. But for most of us, we don't just suffer the thing that we suffer, we suffer the way that we suffer the thing that we suffer. I'm going to say that again. For most of us, you don't just suffer the thing that you're suffering. You also suffer the way that you're suffering the thing that you're suffering. We have a huge ability to trouble our own trouble. And the things we say to ourselves about ourselves, about life, about God, in these moments of suffering, deepen the burden, deepen the despondency, deepen the fear, deepen the discouragement, because what we're preaching to us is something less than what the Bible actually says is true. It's so easy to fall into those patterns. No one's more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do. People always laugh when I say that, but it's actually quite true. You're in a constant conversation with yourself. And I would advise you when you're in that conversation with yourself, don't move your lips, and surely don't take, trade places. They'll put you away. But you never stop talking to you. I don't know if you're aware of that. You're always talking to yourself, you're always in a conversation with yourself, you're always counseling yourself, you're always preaching to yourself, you're always analyzing to yourself. You do it constantly. Now, that's God's goodness to you. That ability to think, the ability to analyze, the ability to interpret, is all things that God has given us, so we can know him, we can know his revelation, we can think our way through the beauty of his truth. But it's got a dark side to it, because you just don't stop. You don't leave your life alone, you're always picking it up again, you're always picking through it, you're always trying to make sense out of it. And sometimes your dear pastors have a hard time breaking through the massive amount of conversation you've had in between the two moments where he's had you, because between Sunday and Sunday, you'll never stop talking. You just never quit. And you're not even silent when the poor guy is talking, because your mind is thinking. I mean, if you haven't argued with your pastor, while he's preaching, you're dead. It's never neutral. And so, you are shaping your suffering in some way. It's inescapably true. Now, I want to share with you one more story. No, it's not a Paul Tripp story this time. This is an Abraham story. This is from Genesis 22. And if you're keeping notes and you want to look back at this passage, it's verses one through eight. You know the Abraham story. This dear man had staked his entire life on one single promise of God. You remember that? It's a promise that God would give him a son and through that son, there would be a great nation and through that nation, all of the nations of earth would be blessed. Embedded in that you know is a promise of Jesus, because the seed of Abraham is Jesus. And those who are in Christ are the inheritors of all the promises to Abraham. That's us.
Transcript: Session 1
GOSPEL HOPE
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