Oh, all right. What's that? I might have a good single. You know, it's funny you said that, Leon, because as I was praying and reading the passage this morning, I couldn't get the song out of my head by Chumba Wumba.
I did my best Irish accent, but I get knocked down, and I get up again. Have you ever heard that song? I feel like we ought to key that thing up. It's a little Chumba Wumba, Christian version.
I drink a whiskey drink, I drink a vodka drink. I'm gonna take that part out, right? Hey, if you're new here, welcome. If this is your first time, welcome to Chumba Wumba Church.
So good to be here. How many were here? One, two, or three of the last three nights, we had three nights of fire. So good.
We had just honored to have Carlos and Diane Ray as the evangelist that had been running a ministry, built a ministry in Cumberland for 39 years, and they wanted to partner with us and do a three night event. It was super good. Carlos preached the first night. He gave us testimony in the Pastor Lighting from the Dry State Ministry Center.
It was Friday. It was just super good. So different. Each night was really good.
I was so blessed by it. So I guess today, I wrote a few things down that Pastor Seth said last week. Do you guys take notes ever? Okay, so I take notes when I'm not preaching.
I think taking notes is good. He said a couple things last week. He says we can have triumph in the midst of adversity. We can have triumph in the midst of adversity.
He had two messages on walking from victory, not for it. The victory is the position we start from. He said most of us are focused on what's not in you. But do you know what's in you?
God will strip away things. We're going to need to say that in a few minutes. God will strip away things that we put trust in to get to us to a place where we can only trust in him. He gave an example of Gideon's army that was reduced from 32,000 down to 10,000, eventually down to 300.
They defeated the Midian Army, Bible describes the Midian Army as they were numerous as locusts and camels were as of the sand of the seashore. An innumerable number of people were defeated by 300. It was somewhat inspired last week that I wanted to preach a little bit out of that text in Judges 7, but that will be later in the message. We're going to look at two different passages today.
2 Corinthians 4, if you have your Bibles, you just want to make 2 Corinthians 4. We'll get there in a few minutes. And then also, Judges 7. We'll try to tie those two together.
The title of my message today is, You Were Created for Glory. When God created you, He obviously created you for a purpose. We all want to live out our purpose. But there's one thing that is unique that we all were created for the same thing.
And that's glory. I don't want you to think of it in this aspect, although this is not wrong. It's 100% right that we were created to bring God glory. And that's true.
But today we want to talk about that we were created to possess and carry glory. That God actually in eternity passed designed us and uniquely created us and purposed us to carry the very glory, the chakines, as we call it in the Old Testament, the chakines glory cloud in the temple. To carry that very glory, His presence in us. And today I want to talk about the manifestation of glory.
One of my points will be about that. But here's what I want to tell you today is that so often we limit the manifestation of God's glory to the miraculous. And that's not wrong. I love miracles.
I love seeing people getting saved. I love seeing people getting healed, delivered, set free, all those things. But there's a dimension of God's glory that can only be manifest as you go through trials and difficulties of life. So often we think, I can't do miracles.
Well, you can. That's not the purpose of today's message. You can. If you're saved and filled with Holy Spirit, God desires to do all those things through you.
And you can do that. But I think what makes us all the same in this is that I don't know anybody that's right now not going through something. If you're not going through something right now, you're either lying or you're ignoring it. Jeff would be out of a job.
Because you're either going to a counselor or you're complaining. You're doing something to deal with what you're going through. And here's what I know is that as you go through difficulties in life, it's through that thing that the glory of God manifests through you. And that you bring a dimension of glory to the world.
Like they may not see you lay hands on the sick and see them recover. They may not see you cast out a demon. But the way that you walk through difficult situations with grace is actually the manifestation of God's glory. You ever know somebody that like, how do they walk through it and keep their head up?
How do they walk through it? They're not depressed. How do they walk through that and continue to give thanks to God? Because when it hits me, I just want to like ball like a baby.
I want to complain. I want to get on Facebook and wear somebody out. Like there's all those things that we initially go to. But when you do those things, you're not allowing the glory of God to manifest through.
You're actually manifesting your own flesh. And so I really want to encourage you today that I want you to look at whatever thing you're facing right now. The thing you're in right now. The thing that's maybe it's ripping you apart right now inside.
That very thing, when you look at it from an eternal perspective, that thing God will actually flow his glory out of you and people will see it. There's a couple verses. I'm not sure maybe Lord wants me to mention these. I just thought of it as Isaiah 60.
It starts out as it says, a rise shine for the glory of the Lord has come upon you. Like when the glory of God comes upon you, it's time to stand up not to like fall down and cry about it. He says, a rise shine, the glory of God has risen upon you. It says that the Gentiles, now this was written to Jews, but I'm going to make application to us.
It says the Gentiles will come at the brightness of your glory. I want to encourage you with this, that when you're going through something, the glory of God is in you. When it begins to manifest through you, it's actually going to attract unsaved people. Like people are going to see God in you by the way you handle the situation you're in.
Let's get started. Three points today. I'm back on my three points. You guys ready?
Here's three aspects of God's glory as it pertains to me and as it pertains to you. It's internal, one, because he's in us. It's external because it flows from the inside out and it's eternal. Internal, external, and eternal.
We're going to read through 2 Corinthians 4 to get started. We're going to highlight just a couple verses in there to make those three points. If you have your Bibles, if not, we're on the screen behind us. Let me get there.
Here we go. I want to start with a verse. I say, 43, 6, and 7. I forgot.
It's probably what's up there. It says this. It says, my son's from afar and my daughter's from the ends of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, who I have created for my glory.
I have formed him. Yes, I have made him. When we read that sometimes, we think that God made me to bring glory to himself. In a measure that's true.
We bring glory to God. Not that he needs any, but we do reflect and bring him glory. There's a greater point to that verse is that in creation, when God created you, his creative purpose for you was to create you in such a way that you could actually carry his glory on the inside. Unfortunately, Curtis talked about the garden earlier.
Adam fell from what God intended him. Jesus came as a man. He came as the last Adam and gained back everything that the first Adam lost. And so because of Jesus, we can now carry God's glory in us.
2 Corinthians chapter 4 says this with starting at verse 6. It says, it is the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We're hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed.
We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.
And since we have received the same spirit of faith, I love this because Kim said this. I feel like Whitney said something from my message, Curtis said something, and Kim said something. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what is spoken, I believe, and therefore I spoke. Kim said, healing is here, you need to speak it out.
It doesn't say that I spoke and therefore I believe. Don't try to talk yourself into it. I'm like, oh, you know, fake it till you make it and all that stuff. No, this says I believe and therefore I spoke.
Because of Jesus, because of what he said, because my confidence in his word, because I trust him completely, I can literally speak things that appear that they don't appear in the natural, but because he said them, I can confidently say them because I believe his word. It says I believe and therefore spoke. We also believe and therefore speak. Knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you, for all things are for your sakes that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.
Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, or the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Father, I pray that you will make the message clear today. Father, we'll look at trials differently that will look at the seasons and the difficulties of life as an opportunity to put your glory on display for a dying world in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, number one, internal.
It says this in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7, it says, It is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. So you remember in creation, it says that the world was avoidant without form and darkness was on the face of the deep. And what did God do? It was the first thing he did in creation.
And God said, let there be light, and there was light, right? So the same God that spoke into darkness. When he spoke and he said, let there be light, actually if you read it in Hebrew, it says light that be in me be. The light that actually existed in God, he releases through his spoken word.
It says, the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So when you were unsaved, or if you're here today and you've never made Jesus the Lord of your life, that you're living in darkness. See, it says in Colossians, it says that God, when you accept Jesus, it says that God transfers us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his son. You actually switch kingdoms.
But before you're saved, it says that when you get saved, God literally speaks into the darkness of your heart. He speaks light into you. And the same God that said, let there be light, and there was light, and it was good. It says, let you be new.
Let you be whole. Let you be born again. It says that he speaks light in you, that the knowledge of the glory of God can be seen in the face of Jesus. It says, but we have this treasure in earth and vessel, we have this treasure in earth and vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
So here's what Paul says, he says, that thing, the thing that God spoke into you, the light of Jesus Christ, he calls it a treasure. He says that it's something valuable, it's something precious. Think of hidden treasure. Anybody like use these little, zzzzzzz, zzz, zzz.
I'm out of detector, right, if I had one, and I'd be like this, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. No. We don't want to have to give it to our heart attack. But no, it's like a treasure in you, it's valuable, it's Jesus Christ himself.
Like, it'd be like when Kristin gets that stud finder out in the house. But then when she puts it here and it goes, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. All right. He says, we have this thing that's so precious, but it's in an earthen vessel.
See, God actually puts the most valuable thing in the universe in something, let me pause, this is a metaphor, okay, because He calls us earthen vessels which are really insignificant vessels. However, we know that because we're purchased with the blood of Jesus, we're of infinite value. So you know that, right? It's a metaphor that our physical bodies, these earthen vessels, in comparison to the light of the knowledge of the glory of Jesus Christ, like there's no comparison.
So He says that He puts this treasure and He puts it in an earthen vessel. Like wouldn't it be better if He put it into a shiny vessel, a nice vessel? We know why He doesn't? It says so that the excellency of the power may be of God and out of us.
Like if He put it in something really great, like a lot of times, I think, wouldn't it be nice if my body got saved at the same time my spirit did? Wouldn't it be great if my mind got saved when my spirit got saved? That would be great. But if all three parts of us were completely perfect, there wouldn't be any way for the glory of God to manifest through that because it would all be one and the same.
See, it's the reason Paul says this in 1 Corinthians. He says, He chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He chooses the weak things of the world to put to shame the mighty. He chooses the base things of the world, the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are for what?
So that no flesh should glory in his presence. He says, I literally choose to put the most valuable thing in the universe in you in a clay pot of flesh so that nobody can deny that it's me and not you. Isn't God genius? Like, he's smart, he's intelligent.
Like he gives us everything and but he puts it in a clay pot. See, we're going to go later to the story of Gideon's army. We're going to look at it a little bit later. But I just want to tell you this.
Do you remember? That's that last week after God, Gideon goes through all these different challenges. He says, he puts the fleeces down and it's wet on one side. Then he puts it down and the ground's wet and the fleeces dry.
And then he says, everybody that's scared, let them go home and 22,000 of his men go home and he takes them to the water and whoever drinks like a dog and he gets all the dimes at 300 men. And then he says, I thought it was funny. First he says, anybody's scared to go home. And then after he's down to 300, he says, hey, if you're still scared, I want you to go into the enemy camp.
And so it's funny that Gideon, here's Gideon, the man of valor, the man of God that God's using and God says, hey, if you're still scared, I want you to go to the enemy camp. And since he went to the enemy camp, that means he was still scared. But he goes to the enemy camp. He gives the enemy camp.
And here's one guy telling a dream to another. He said, I see this bread rolling down and the loaf of bread is wiping out the entire army. And the other guy interprets the dream and he says that's none other than Gideon, the sword of Gideon. And he's going to actually demolish the entire meeting of the army.
Gideon hears a dream interpreted by his enemy that encourages him to let him know that God's going to use him. Too often we're concerned about what the enemy's saying to us. But if you could literally hear what the enemy says about you, he's scared. If you heard the enemy talking behind closed doors, he'd be like, that Kim?
I'm scared of her. She's going to wipe me out. Whitney, she's going to roll right over us and wipe us out. But all we hear is when they're out telling lies, but behind closed doors, the enemy, you need to hear what he's saying about you.
More than you hear what he's saying to you. But what's Gideon do? So he's encouraged. I'm going to give you three things to go fight.
This meeting I'm going to give you a clay pot. I'm going to give you a torch and I'm going to give you a trumpet. That's the dumbest. Like who?
We're already outnumbered like 300 to a million, but you're going to give me a trumpet, a clay pot and a torch. He says, I want you to put the torch inside the clay pot and I want you to carry the trumpet in your right hand. He says, I'm going to divide you 300 into 100, three groups of 100. And when I give the signal, break the clay pot.
I'm going to give you a hand. You want to have any idea what the light, the torch inside the clay pot represents. It represents that God spoke in the darkness and put the light of the glory, the knowledge of Jesus Christ in you that we have a treasure in an earth and vessel. See, the same way they carried the battle, the torch inside the clay pot is how you're going to battle.
You have a torch in a clay pot. But you think you have nothing, but you've got a torch in a clay pot. Paul says very similar. He says the same thing in a different way when he's writing to the church and church and he says this in Colossians 1, he uses this phrase Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Listen to this, it says the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and generations has now been revealed to his saints. Say that. The mystery has been revealed to me. Right?
Are you a saint? Yeah. So here's the mystery. When we think of mysteries, we think of when we read a mystery novel, the purpose of a mystery novel is to withhold information, right?
The writer's writing it in such a way that you can't figure it out until you get to the last page and you're like, no, why did I not figure that out? But see, not God. God's not hiding things and keeping them mysterious to keep them from you. God hides things for you.
And he actually hides them for you to keep them away from the enemy. See, because if they were exposed too soon, then the enemy would know what's going on. Think of it like this. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, he says, we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages get this for our glory.
We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, like God hid it, the hidden wisdom that God ordained before the ages. In eternity past, God said, I have a plan for you. And he said, but until the appropriate time when Jesus comes, I'm going to hide it. He says, but none of the rulers of this world knew for had they known they never would have crucified the Lord of glory.
So God ordained in time past a mystery. And the mystery was for your glory. He said, but the rulers of the world didn't know it. They thought when they crucified Jesus it was the end, but when they crucified Jesus and he rose again, guess what?
We got to participate in that. And by crucifying the Lord of glory, all of a sudden we become vessels in which he can put his glory. But God kept it hid. But Paul says, now it's been revealed.
Like this is, you should know this. He said, it's been revealed to the saints to them. God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. I mean, it's camp here for a minute.
Let's just pick this apart. Say Christ in me, the hope of glory. So let's first of all, I probably should tell you, you know, we talk about glory. It's kind of a nebulous term sometimes.
It's hard to define. But I like simple. I think glory in its simplest form is God expressing himself. Glory is God expressing himself.
Jesus Christ was the greatest expression of the glory of God that's ever happened. He was actually the glory of God personified. It says this, it says in John says, the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt. That word means tabernacled.
The Word of God was made flesh, which is Jesus and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. See when Jesus came to the earth, he was the tabernacle of God on the earth at that time.
And the glory of God was in him. The glory of God was manifested through him. We saw types and shadows of this all through the Old Testament. We had the temple of Moses in the wilderness.
And you remember when they dedicated the temple, it said that the fire God fell and the glory of God filled the temple. And then when Solomon built his temple in Second Chronicles, chapter 7, it said they did the sacrifice, the fire God fell and the glory of God filled the temple again. And when Jesus comes to earth, he tabernacles on earth, God in the flesh, and it says we be held as glory. And then guess what we are today.
We are the temple of God. 1 Corinthians 3 and 16, do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells, tabernacles in you. He's in you. The Christ in me, Christ means anointed one.
It comes from the word that means to smear on or rub on oil. Christ, the anointed one, is where? In me, the one smeared with the oil of the Holy Spirit who carried the fullness of God is in me. It says, He is the hope of glory.
Hope is what? Hope is confident and favorable expectation of a future good. Oh, you guys already got up there. Wow.
Right now down. So hope is this. Hope is having a favorable expectation that something good is going to happen. So when I realized that Christ, the anointed one, the one smeared with the oil of the Holy Spirit, the one who had the Spirit upon him without measure.
Is in me. I can be confident and have a favorable expectation that no matter what I'm going through, whether I can see the result or not, I know that God is going to manifest Himself through me and His glory is going to be released. That's Christ in you, the hope of glory. It's internal.
His glory is in you. But it's also external. So we have an internal glory. But remember a couple weeks ago when I got in the drumcades and said, He's in you, but He wants out.
Right? He wants out. Sometimes the way He comes out is through trials and situations in your life. Like that when you go through something and you think, I just don't even know how to go through this.
Trust the Lord. Like trust God. Because what is in you is greater than anything in the world. Greater is He that is in me and He's in the world.
Everything coming against you. Where's it coming from? The world. It's coming from like, it's not coming from God.
God's for you. So the one that's in you is greater than that. So He says in this, in 2 Corinthians, it says, we're hard pressed on every side yet not cross perplexed, but not disbearer persecuted, but not forsaken struck down, but not destroyed, always caring about the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested. The zoe life of Jesus may be manifested in my physical, mortal body.
Think about this. That's all about eternal perspective. Hard pressed on every side. Hard pressed on every side.
See, I can choose to look at my situation from here and I can see that I'm hard pressed on every side. It used to be boxed in from, you ever felt like you're getting hit from every angle. It's that you're, you're taking one from the left. I got one from the right.
I got a knife in my back and I got a gun in my face. Like, he's coming at me every which way. I'm so boxed in that I can't even see a way out. See when I look at the situation this way, I see that, but when I look at it from the perspective of God's perspective and eternal perspective, I see not hard pressed, but I see that I'm not crushed.
Like, I'm boxed in, but it's not going to, it's not going to crush me. See, how could anything crush you when you have the God of the universe in you? Like the word hard pressed on every side is really the same word they use when they talk about pressing grapes. Like when you press grapes, you get something better.
It's why. Like, when you're pressed on from every side, the glory of God begins to be released through you. Like, that's way better. See, but what we do, we stand here and we see hard pressed.
We see perplexed. We see persecuted. We see struck down. And it's like this clay pot.
I told Seth, I really had this vision of having this clay pot. And on this side, I'll just give you a mental picture, okay? On this side of the clay pot, I was going to say hard pressed, persecuted, perplexed, and struck down. And on this side of the clay pot, it was going to say not forsaken, not crushed, not into spare, and all the things we see from this perspective.
And then in the clay pot, guess what? It was going to be a torch. But see, depending on what side of the clay pot I'm standing, I'm going to have a different perspective of what's going on. See, if I'm seeing it from God's perspective, I'm seeing that I'm not crushed.
I'm seeing that I don't care that I'm boxed in on every side, that God's word says this. It says, there is no temptation taking you, but such is his common demand. But God is faithful that he will make a way to escape, that you will be able to bear it. It doesn't matter how bad it is, he'll make a way out.
You don't have to give in to what the enemy wants you to do because he's boxed you in. God will give you a way out. See, if I'm saying that I'm perplexed, God, I don't know what decision to make. I could go door A, door B, door C, I feel like I'm playing the prices, or what was that game?
Whatever one where you're like, let's make a deal. I'll take door one. Well, you don't know what's behind door one. You don't know what's behind two or three.
But what you do know is Paul says that we have the mind of Christ, that we actually can tap into what God thinks about things, that we can ask God what to do when I have a situation, and then in the natural I'm completely puzzled on. It doesn't matter if it's your job, it doesn't matter if it's your family, it doesn't, he knows everything. Like you can literally tap into his thoughts, not forsaken, like persecuted. Like there's going to be people that don't like you.
You can literally tap into his thoughts. Like there's going to be people that don't like you. Do you know that? Like there's a lot of people that don't like me.
I'm okay with that. I don't like them either. I don't care. But here's what I know.
Like you know what? You want to go? I'll give you the gift that don't let the door hitch into rear end. God bless you.
You know why? Because my Bible says that my God, Jesus Christ will never leave me nor forsake me. And everybody else goes. He's still there.
I love it. I love you guys. But you know, sometimes you just got to go. That's okay.
That's okay. He says, struck down, not destroyed. Like you might, here's where I got on the chamois. I get knocked down.
I get up again. Right? Right? I get knocked down.
It says a righteous man falls seven times. But he gets up. Like you know, like, oh, it's when they hear cry. No, get off the floor.
Stand up. Look up. It says a rise. Shine.
So glory of the Lord has come upon you. Like nobody's going to see you down there wallowing in the dirt. Get up. You know, I said, you're not going to be destroyed.
It's not the end of the world. It says the thief comes not but to kill, steal and destroy. If destruction's coming, it's not from God. Jesus comes that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
Like it's going to be okay. And all this so that the life of Jesus can be manifest. So imagine this. Imagine this pot with cracks in it.
Right? What do we try to do for the natural? It's like the kid at the, you remember that the pictures of the dam is breaking and you got like your fingers in this hole and your toes and you're trying to plug the cracks. That ain't going to work.
Let the cracks be. You're living a mortal body. The cracks are okay. Because without the cracks, the glory can't escape.
Like it's okay. Like quit trying to plug the dam. You know, when you're over here, you're working in your own strength. You're manifesting your flesh.
But from here, the glory of God's manifesting through you. And then everybody on the outside is like my God, what's he got that I don't got? She's got something that I want. Tell me about what's in you.
Like it'll be an opportunity to preach the gospel. Because people are like, there's no way you can go through what you went through. Yeah. All right.
Here's this. I probably already told a story. So anyway, let's just flip through here. We're going to flip on.
All right. So let's just read this real quick. Let's turn it off here. It says, and so it was when giving her the telling the dream and its interpretation.
He worship returned to the camp of Israel and said, arise will the Lord deliver the camp of a meeting in your hand? Then he divided the 300 men into three companies and put a trumpet into every man's hand with empty pitchers and torches in the pitcher. Say thank God for the torch in the pitcher. You have a torch in a pitcher.
And he said to them, look at me and do likewise watch. And when I come to the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do. When I blow the trumpet and all who are with me that you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp and say the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So Gideon and the 100 men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch just as they had posted the watch.
And they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers and held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in the right were blowing. They cried the sword of the Lord and Gideon. And every man stood in his place around all the camp and the whole army ran and cried and fled.
And when the 300 blew the trumpets, the Lord said every man sword against his companion threw out the whole camp and the army fled to a bunch of names I can't pronounce. But here's the point. He sends them into battle with what seems like nothing. They've got a torch in a pot and they've got a trumpet.
It's right here called your mouth. You need to start declaring God's promises. You need to start praising God for what he's already done. You need to start prophesying things that have been promised to you and start releasing into the earth things that God wants to do.
You need to say the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon and start letting God's glory flow through you. Look at these things differently. You think, oh man, it's so bad. I want to show you this next verse.
Here's the last verse when we close this. So internal, external, and eternal. Let's roll on. We'll finish up.
Alright. It says our light of affliction which is but for a moment. Say that, but for a moment. So here it is.
No matter what you're going through, if I look at it from here, like how long, I bless you, how long is the longest thing you could ever go through? Oh, you heard that joke. Carl has told the other night about the guy that was married for 50 years. He had the choice of going to prison for 50 years or marrying this woman.
He decides to marry the woman and so he's an old man and he sees him crying. What are you sad about? I just realized I could have been out of prison today. I'm still married this woman.
They're like, the worst thing that could ever happen, maybe it lasts your whole life. Worst case, it lasts your whole life. 80 years, 100 years. Alright.
Is that a long time? Yes. If I compare that to eternity, it's nothing. It's insignificant.
It's a blip on the radar. He says our light affliction but for a moment is working for us a more exceeding weight of an eternal weight of glory while we do not look at the things which are seeing but things which are not seen with our sinner temporary but the things which are seen in our journal. I told Pastor Seth this morning, I love the apostle Paul but the apostle Paul is really wordy a lot of times and a lot of times he uses a lot of descriptive words and so sometimes it helps when you're studying the Bible to take some of the phrases out to get the noun and the verb together. So listen to this and now go back.
For our light affliction which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Let's take out which is but for a moment. Listen to this. Our light affliction is working for us.
Our light affliction is working for me. Like so often we think that that thing is against me. No it's working for me. Like it works for me.
It's my servant. Like I'm not working for it. It's working for me. God actually takes what did Joseph say.
The thing that the enemy meant for bad. God used it for good. God actually takes the thing that is working against me, flips it around and now it's working for me. And when it's working for me it's actually increasing and developing an eternal far surpassing weight of glory in me.
See as I walk through difficulties in life and learn to let God's glory pour through me that develops me so the next time oh it's just another one of those. Oh but maybe it's a challenge. That's why it says it says that we all with open face beholding as in a mirror what? The glory of the Lord are transformed into that same image by the spirit of the Lord from one level of glory to another.
See there's a development that takes place that actually increases the glory in you so that actually you can handle greater situation. Man like nothing can come against you. You're literally as I said you're living from victory. All right one more.
Well we got it. Well I'm not going to read that. That's just Paul. That's just Paul to design horn.
He's saying that he was in shit like all these things like we think we got it bad. He did a lot. Let's go in there. Keep going.
There we go. We're going to close with this. The Apostle Paul says this I consider that the sufferings of this world at this present time. Not even worthy to be compared like there's no comparison.
Get this now a lot of translations mess this up. So I really like the King James on this because it's the correct in this case. It's the correct translation my opinion. A lot of translations say that I consider the sufferings of this present time not to be worthy to the glory that will be revealed in us.
A lot of translations say to us to us is obvious. Obviously when we get to heaven we're going to look back and be like oh yeah that wasn't that big of a deal after all. But I think the greater revelation we'll get is when we get the full revelation that we really see what was in us all along. That all along I was carrying the same glory that rested between the cherubim above the mercy seat in the Holy of Holy.
The very cloud that descended into the tabernacle of the temple. The very glory that Jesus carried. Jesus says to his father in John 17 he says the glory that you've given me I've given them. You carry the same glory that Jesus had because he's in you.
Like nothing could come against Jesus unless he allowed it. Nothing. And you got the same ability in you because Christ in you the one that's smeared with the one that's rubbed on with the soil of the Holy Spirit is in you to give you a confident favorable expectation that no matter what you face whether you can see it or not there's a hope and an expectation that God's going to flow through you. And people are going to see that they're going to be drawn to you and ultimately he's going to get the glory that goes back to him.
Isn't that amazing? Let's pray.