Discerning the Lord's Body, Part 1

Good morning again. Wonderful to see everyone, and I'm just very thankful to be able to be here.

I have to say that I've had a lot of time over the last few weeks to think about healing. Now, it's something that I do think about pretty commonly, in that I get calls every week for people who would like to be anointed. So I tend to think about healing a good amount, but whenever you are individually facing a trial that's health-related, then you tend to think about it a lot more. And I know what I've told you up to this point. I did not anticipate needing the type of surgery that I did go ahead and have.

Although I did think, probably, heredityarily, a good chance that there would be some need at some point in my life that I'd need some type of heart help. But I certainly didn't anticipate, because I didn't feel bad in fainting once. That's not a big deal. At least it got me checking. It got me checking, and I was able to at least find out more about what's needed. But I didn't anticipate, when I had this catheterization, that they would break off the test to stop and send him back to the room. Now, the reason for that was just because of what they found. And that, well, we can't really fix this with stents. Because I thought, well, they might need to use a stent. And I kind of had looked up a little bit about that, and they might need to do that. And if they did, that this is the way you do it. And this might be a helpful thing. But as I found, and as my cardiologist and then the heart surgeon came in, both of them came in to talk to me, they said, well, what we found, you know, we need to do bypass surgery to fix. And I thought, oh, that's far worse than I thought. And what they showed me was that, well, it's not so much, you know, they find, usually with this type of test, they find that there's a need for some help in, you know, almost everyone. I mean, there is some help. Well, not that everyone needs something, but that many people who have gotten to a point of doing this test, you know, they're going to need some type of help. And I thought, well, why is it that this is, you know, just automatically kicked into the category of needing an open heart? Because to me, that sounded like almost the worst thing you could have. I mean, kind of the most extreme thing. The other things were seemingly lesser. And yet, as they described it, and as they showed me later, well, it's really just a matter of where. Where the blockage is. Because if it's in certain areas, then they can do things to help that, and a stan sometimes helps that. But if there's blockage in a certain location of the left main artery that feeds the heart, and if there's blockage in a certain location of the left descending artery, then we can't do that other than bypassing. And he said, actually, we normally don't really even see this kind of pattern. Because normally, if someone has this and it becomes a problem, then they have a heart attack, and they say, we call this the widow-maker.

And, you know, that they might live for 15 or 20 minutes and usually not survive. So we see this in autopsies more than we see this in live patients. And so what they told me was that this is what we feel like you need. You don't have to have it today, but you know, you're already here, so you might as well go ahead and do this. And then later yesterday, I was asking him a little more, and he was saying, well, you know, the reason why we told you that was that, you know, that's what we saw as what we would recommend and think that you should do.

And whether you did it immediately or whether you did it, you know, you would continue to think about it until you actually did something. But he said, because of your youthful age, I thought, oh, I like this guy! He understands that. And, you know, he said a lot of times in someone older, you know, they may choose to do something differently. But he says, you have a potential of living, you know, a good long while. And of course, I'm only 65.

And I'm thankful that this was found at this point. And it reminded me, and I want to start the sermon with Isaiah 38, where Hezekiah was very close to dying, and he appealed to God. Hezekiah, of course, was one of the kings of Judah. He was one of the better kings, one you might say would be a good king, although he wasn't a perfect king. Of course, you can say David was a good king, but he certainly wasn't a perfect king. And Hezekiah wasn't perfect, do you see that recorded in other aspects?

I'm reading in Isaiah about this, but in 2 Kings and in 2 Chronicles, you have an account where Hezekiah got puffed up about how good things were for him, and God caused him to see that's wrong. And I want you to get away from that, and it appears that he did. But in this account, in Isaiah 38, it describes Hezekiah appealing to God, in a sense begging God for mercy. And even though God had told Isaiah, tell him you're going to die.

He's already told you that. After Hezekiah appealed to God, he again sent a message through Isaiah saying, well, I'm going to add, let's see, it's in verse 5 here, he told Isaiah, go to Hezekiah, that says, the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, I've heard your prayer, I've seen your tears, I will add 15 years to your life. And I hope that that's what I can say. I would love for God to add 15 years, I don't know that He will.

And He didn't tell me that you would give me 15 years, but I'm anticipating, you know, that I may be good for another 15 years. And that would be wonderful. That would be absolutely fabulous. And yet, what I really want to point out, I may make this description as far as to try to help us see what is being recorded, what Hezekiah's thinking was.

Because you see, through the most of the rest of the chapter, from verse 9 to the end, you see what it was that Hezekiah wrote about this experience. And of course, I've not even mentioned the sun moving back. You know, that was also an impressive sign that God did in this regard. But see, Hezekiah was moved. He was moved! And of course, what God says, I have seen, I have heard your prayers, I have seen your tears.

He was obviously appealing to God in a way that was more extensive than perhaps that He had up to that point. And what I want to point out is in verse 16, He says in the latter part of that, restore me to health again, and let me live or make me live.

See, that was a part of Hezekiah's appeal. And He even said, as He writes here in verse 17, surely it was for my welfare that I've had this great bitterness. Surely it was for my benefit that I am facing this trial, and you are actually delivering me from this trial.

And He goes on to say, but you have held back my life from a pit of destruction, you have kept me from dying, and you have cast all my sins behind your back. That's an interesting statement because Hezekiah is connecting God's mercy toward Him, and God's blessing of Him, he is connecting that with His healing and His sins.

See, whenever we're sick, we need to think about our sins. Not that those sins directly cause our sickness because that is not the case. You can prove that through different verses where Jesus Himself says, that is not the case, but there is a certain connection to sin that I want to be able to point out today. And yet, in verse 18, Hezekiah is contrasting being dead to being what? He says, if you're dead, as Mr. Jackson pointed out, you're in the grave. You're awaiting a resurrection. You are not in heaven floating around on the cloud. You are awaiting. God's causing you to rise from the ground. Jesus made this very clear in John 5. He says, all who are in the graves are going to rise. They're going to come up in a resurrection. He even talks about several resurrections there. But Hezekiah's contrast is in verse 18. In the grave, nobody can thank you. See, this is very, I think, important in verse 18. He says, once we're dead, we don't have any thanking of God that we can do. He goes on to say, death in death, we cannot praise God like we were doing in song. And I thank all of you for your participation in the song service. And I guess we've got the orchestral backup and singers with us today. I don't know that we always do that, but at least it was nice to have that today. Certainly nice to have these beautiful flowers here as well. So I hope that those are Holy Day related and we can be joyously looking forward to the Holy Days. But He says, in the grave, you can't thank God. Once you're dead, you cannot praise God. And actually, those who go down into the pit, again, He uses kind of different descriptions of their dying, those who go down into the pit, cannot hope in your faithfulness. See, He points out, and of course He goes on to say in verse 19, it's the living. The living, those of us who are still alive, they're the ones who thank you as I do this day. He says, fathers make known to their children your faithfulness. See, being able to thank God is a privilege. Being able to praise God and worship God is a delight to be able to do that. And see, a lot of people would never even consider that option.

I know all of us do. We want to do that or we want to be encouraged to do that. But see, to thank God and to praise God and to have hope. See, we have hope not only in this life, because God is with us and He's helping us and in spite of what He allows us to go through, which He does, He's still with us. See, what it says is you hope in the faithfulness of God, not in my faithfulness, but in the faithfulness. God can be absolutely relied upon. God is absolutely reliable, incredibly reliable. And that's why we have hope, not only in this life, but hope in the world to come. Hope in the resurrection and hope in being given the spirit body and being given eternal life. You know, we can, you know, it's wonderful, you know, this had to be impressed upon Hezekiah's mind that when he thought, you know, I'm dead. God's gonna allow me to die. And then when God added 15 years to his life, he, you know, he came to see things that he hadn't seen before. And no matter what any of us have seen up to this point, I would say any of us, including me, could greatly learn more about what God wants us to know.

But I thought verse 18 is just impressive because, you know, thanking God and praising God, that makes up much of our prayer. It should make up much of our prayer. A lot of times we're thinking about, I need this and I need that. And yes, we do need those things and God knows it. But thanking God and praising God and knowing He is faithful and therefore giving me hope, giving me encouragement, giving me the ability to be uplifted. That is impressive. I want to go back to 1 Corinthians 11, and I'm going to assume that you all have read some of this here in the last few weeks. And certainly if you haven't, we've read them in the past. But in 1 Corinthians 11, you see the description that Paul gives about the upcoming Passover. The Passover service that clearly the Corinthian church was needing to learn about. What we find here in 1 Corinthians 11, in verse 23 through 26, is what Paul said, well, this is what Jesus told me. And this is what Jesus did with the disciples when He designated the bread and He designated the wine to be symbols that would memorialize His death. He didn't really talk about His resurrection here. As most everybody does around Easter, it's all about the resurrection. And clearly that's important and greatly significant and a part of even what we celebrate during the days of Unleavened Bread. But see, He says this bread and this wine involves an understanding of the death of Jesus, of how important that is to me personally. And He tells us to come to that table in a respectful and irreverent manner. By examining ourselves, and only then do we eat the bread and drink the cup. For in verse 29 and 30, this is what I want to focus on, all who eat and drink without discerning the body of the Lord. So here He makes some very pointed instruction to the Corinthians. And see, they clearly were off base.

You can read the book of Corinthians and wonder, are these Christians? You know, you have to wonder. Although Paul said, yes, you are. You don't seem to realize it. You don't seem to realize that God has given you the Holy Spirit.

You can do better than this, is what he was really telling the people in Corinth, who in many ways were trying to come out of some pretty corrupt practices. And they were lagging. Paul wasn't there all the time. He had been there a long time to begin with, as the church was initiated. But as he was gone, they fell into a lot of disruption. But here in chapter 11, he says, you know, he who eats and drinks without discerning the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment against himself. And for this reason, many of you are sick. Many of you are weak and ill. And some of you have died.

I mean, he makes that statement, and we've often, I know we've read this before, and we've connected these verses to show that they are dealing with healing. And the part of the sacrifice of Christ that involves his suffering. But I want to point out that it's really my belief that each of us can grow in our understanding of what this is talking about, why this is connected to the Passover, why it's connected to the bread and the wine, and how we are to approach that, and what we are to do in discerning the body, properly discerning the body of the Lord.

See, now I think you could say, you know, as we send out every week, and we have a number of people who are part of our church, part of our organization who are sick. You know, there are numerous people and in every congregation we usually have somebody. It's rare that we have everybody here. It's often that there is someone ailing. And yet Paul makes this a very pointed statement that, well, I want you to properly discern the body of the Lord. And so what does that mean?

Well, I think you could say, you know, that it certainly means two different things. One of them would be connected with the suffering that Jesus did go through when he was bruised, when he was wounded, when he endured stripes before he was ever put to death, before he died. His blood was shed for us. And so, you know, I think in many ways we've all understood that to a degree. I think I've probably wrongly tied that together with a certain, maybe misunderstanding about sin and about what kind of sin is this talking about? Is it talking about how I eat? Is it talking about how I exercise? Is it talking about what I do or don't do?

Well, there are a lot of things we can do that would help us. But is that really what it's talking about? See, I'm pretty sure that it is talking about and certainly wants us to properly discern what Jesus suffered and endured for us. And it's also, I think another aspect of this would be properly discerning the body of the Lord would be properly thinking about the members of the church. See, that clearly is a connection that, you know, the body of Christ is called the church. And it talks about the church in many different passages here. And I'm not intending to go through that today because I want to focus simply on what it says about Christ enduring the suffering that He did so that the benefit of healing is made available. Now, if we turn over to Psalm 103, and all of us are, I know, familiar with almost all of these verses, but in Psalm 103, you see the statement here.

In Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Verse 2, bless the Lord. Don't forget all of His benefits. See, this is a directive to us to remember what God makes available to us.

And of course, He then begins to enumerate some of those benefits.

It says He forgives all of our sins. He forgives our iniquity. Sometimes we even labor with that, because we, it's not that we don't believe that, because we believe that He would forgive our iniquities, but we also see that, well, they're quite plentiful, and we wonder, can He be that merciful? Can He really be willing to forgive always? You know, sometimes we struggle with that. Sometimes we labor with that. But this is, this is just telling us, don't forget the benefits of God, one of which is an incredible and almost inunderstandable mercy and grace and desire for us to succeed. He wants us to succeed in growing in His divine nature. But He says one of the benefits that He forgives our sins, another benefit is He heals our diseases. So there's no doubt God is able to do that. No doubt that Jesus did that when He was here. No doubt that God does that still today. But there may be a lot of factors, a lot of factors that are brought into play regarding that. He also says He redeems your life from death. He crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. He satisfies you with good as long as you live and so that your youth is renewed like an eagle's. See, being called so young at 65, I feel my youth is being revived. I feel like I'm 25. I wish. I actually thought I was 25 until about 20 years ago. I always thought, you know, 25, that's a great age. You're on top of your game there. You feel very good, usually. And whenever I was 30, I thought I was 25. When I was 35, I thought I was 25. When I was 40, I thought I was 25. When I was 45, I thought I was 25. When I was 46, I was 46. I felt like, oh, I'm older than I used to be. And of course, you know, there are a lot of factors that go into that. But what this reminds us of is that we don't want to forget the benefits that God clearly extends to us. Now, does that say that healing is a right for us? Does it say it's a demand that we can make of God, or that it's an obligation that God has to give that to us if we ask? No, it just says it's a benefit. A benefit that we want to appreciate. In Matthew 8 and 8 and 9 are remarkable chapters because when you read through here, and it's just the way it actually breaks down, in Matthew 8 and 9 you've got many instances of Jesus healing people. And what I want to read is in verse 14, Jesus entered Peter's house and he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. She actually had a high fever, according to Luke. And he simply touched her hand and the fever was gone. And she got up and began to serve him. You know, that's incredible. That is absolutely remarkable. And I know all of us read that. We believe it. We know that God is able to do that, but we also know that doesn't always seem to work out for me. That doesn't always seem to be the case with everybody. And clearly that is not the case. And that is not God's intent either. But he does want us to remember his benefits. You even go on to see it says others were brought to Jesus and those who had been sick were healed. And in verse 17 it says this is to fulfill what has been spoken through the prophet Isaiah that he took our infirmities and he bore our diseases.

So that's to say that God's able to take away any illness. And that Jesus actually suffered. We see this in Peter, 1 Peter chapter 2. Maybe we could go over and take a look at that.

These are both references from Isaiah 53. 1 Peter chapter 2. This is actually talking about in many ways much of what Peter is writing in 1 Peter has to do with suffering.

It has to do with even certain things that Christians are going to suffer.

And I'm not going to take time to go through. You could go over to chapter 4 verse 12. He said, Well brethren, don't be surprised at the fiery trials that take place among you as though some strange thing happened to you. That's what he's really talking about. And what he points out in chapter 2 is that, verse 21, to this you've been called, that Christ suffered for you.

See, now it looks to me as I read the life of Jesus that he had a lot of good times. I don't know exactly how his life was all the time, but in many ways it would appear he might have had a relatively comfortable life through 30 years. I don't know. I mean, it doesn't really say much about it. He says he actually knew what he was doing when he was 12. He knew he was here to do the will of the Father. He knew he was here to be about the Father's business. He knew all along what his purpose was, what God's plan was, what they had designed before he ever came to the earth, what he was need to fulfill.

But it says here in verse 21 that he suffered. Now, we can see very clearly when he was beaten, when he was scourged, when he was bruised, or when he suffered stripes, which seems to be a horrible mutilation prior to actually dying.

Whenever you see this written about in Isaiah 53, as we'll cover here in a second, but it's very clear from this statement that Jesus suffered leaving an example that we would probably suffer some too. That's what this says. So we should follow in his steps.

But of course, he committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. He didn't deserve any of it. But in some ways, we probably think because of some things we do, we deserve a little suffering. I don't know that that's necessarily the case because often circumstances are far more the case with our suffering than something we directly do or don't do.

But he says in verse 23 when Jesus was abused, he didn't return the abuse. When he suffered, he didn't threaten those who were beating him or spitting in his face.

It sounds appalling, but that's written in the pages of the Bible for a reason.

Because that's the way people treat God. They don't respect God. They don't appreciate God. They certainly didn't appreciate the Son of God. They didn't understand Him. They had no clue about who He was, even. But it says when he suffered, he didn't threaten. He simply entrusted himself to the one who judges righteously. He entrusted himself to the Father. And so, it was really about his relationship with God that he was able to suffer with purpose.

And he says in verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that free from sin we might live for righteousness because by his stripes, by his wounds, you have been healed. See, now, it's clear that there's a connection that relates to Christians and our faith in God and our response to God and our discerning of the Lord's body and how that ties together with healing. See, now, we desperately want to be healed. I certainly want Ted and continue to want to be healed. And I believe God is making progress with that, as He almost always does. He helps us over a period of time.

And yet, there's very clear connection. And maybe verse 25 helps us understand a little more about if I'm discerning the body of the Lord, I'm not just simply thinking about, well, what is it that happened to Him? How was it that He was wounded and bruised and He received those stripes?

Well, maybe more importantly, what was His relationship with the Father while He was going through that? What was His rapport? It says in verse 25, you have all gone astray. You have all sinned like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and the guardian of your soul.

See, Peter was telling people who were, and he was writing this in general to the church and not to any particular congregation and to all of us, says you're all in need of a relationship with God. You're all in need to appreciate His benefits. You're all in need of creating a rapport with God that is sound, that is solid, that is uplifting, that is encouraging. And even if you suffer, as Jesus did, well, then you have an example of how to do that. So I think it's incredible. And again, I'm not going to go to Isaiah 53 because my time's getting away here, although I said we might be late today. But Isaiah 53, verse 4 and 5, you can write that down if you wish, this was predicted by Jesus through Isaiah about what He would go through, that He would be despised, that He would bear our sins and our burdens and our grief and our sorrow. Did He do that so that we wouldn't have to?

Did He die for us so that we wouldn't have to die? No. Yeah, I know many people who have died.

But see, they're going to be resurrected because of the bread of life, because of what He did for us. But I want us to go back to Matthew 8 and 9 because I think you find that there are a number of factors. See, if we're going to remember the benefits of God and remember that He clearly is able to heal, if we're going to remember that, then we want to remember what you see revealed in these chapters about even how it was that Jesus described healing. Here in Matthew 8 and Matthew 9, those two chapters, as I said, they have a number of examples of Jesus going here and there and almost always He healed people. And yet, what we see recorded about those healings is important for us to keep in mind. The first thing I want to mention here is in chapter 9, verse 28. As Jesus interacted with the blind men who came to Him, He says, do you believe that I can do this?

Do you believe that God is able to heal? Now, there are a lot of things that might get in people's way if they're talking about or thinking about divine healing. A lot of things that can get in people's way to keep them from believing that.

But I think all of us believe that. I know I believe that. I don't always focus on the fact that I believe that. But it's important for me, and this is a part of what we see here regarding this in verse 28 of chapter 9. When Jesus came to these blind men, He said, do you believe I can do it?

And so certainly belief. They said yes, belief is an aspect of receiving that benefit from God.

Another thing that I know we always focus on because it's very clear in James 5 that it says the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise them up. You know, we realize that faith is an aspect. And that it's not the only aspect. There are other aspects that we're going to read about. There is belief. If we back up to chapter...

Well, we could back up just here in chapter 9 to verse 22. The woman who had been suffering in verse 20 from hemorrhages for 12 years came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His garment. And she said to herself, if I just touch His garment, I'll be well. And what Jesus said in verse 22 is, take heart. He turned and He said to her, take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well. And so not only could we see in this one chapter that belief in God's ability is needed, but also faith is needed. Faith that God is working in our lives. Faith that He will provide us the help and the assistance that we need.

Now, too many times we think that's the only thing. A lot of times we think if we're not healed, then we must not have enough faith. But that's not the case. We want to have faith, even as this woman. And she said, if I can just touch Jesus or His garment or anywhere close to Him. And of course, you see the power of God went out from Him to provide mercy, to provide healing. See, that's actually another thing that we see here in chapter 9, verse 27.

In chapter 9, verse 27, this again is with the blind men.

Jesus was going along and two blind men followed Him. And what did they cry out? What did they want?

Well, they wanted to be healed. They wanted to be able to see. They wanted relief from their blindness. But they said, have mercy on us, O Son of Man, Son of David. See, how much is belief? How much is faith? How much is mercy? Seeking mercy? See, I'm pretty sure Hezekiah was seeking mercy when he was given a reprieve from God. God told him how long it would be. I wonder, when he got 15 years into that, whether he was thinking, I'm going to die pretty quick.

I imagine he was. I don't look forward to living much more than 80. I certainly hope that Christ intervenes before that. But if I get to be 80, I'm not going to think that I need to live a whole lot longer. Now, I'm not able to say that one way or the other. God can say whatever He wants. And He may not allow me to live another year or another month. I don't know.

But He certainly is a very merciful God. And so we can see that faith and belief and mercy are all aspects of healing. We also see here in chapter 9, going back to the first part of chapter 9, in verse 2, just then some people were carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. And Jesus said, and see, He saw their faith and He said to the paralytic, He says, Take heart, son. You were healed? That isn't what He said. He says, Take heart, son. Your sins have been forgiven. See, whenever we're asking for healing, it involves forgiveness. And of course, the whole section here, the Pharisees and the scribes are chiding Jesus, and, you know, who do you think you are? Can anybody heal? Or can anybody forgive sin but God? And of course, Jesus said, Well, what's the difference? If I say, stand up and walk, or if I say your sins are forgiven, because in both cases, your sins are forgiven, and you can receive healing. This is another aspect of the same thing. And I think we need to keep all of these in mind as we are approaching an understanding of the suffering that Jesus endured, the fact of that reality, and how that properly discerning the Lord's body involves understanding what He went through, and understanding what He extends to us as a benefit.

And yet, what we'll see here in chapter 8, it's up to Him as to how He chooses to do that. In chapter 8, verse 1, Jesus came down from the mountain, and great crowds were following Him. And there was a leper who came to Jesus and knelt before Him. I doubt that there were too many other people around the leper. They were usually ostracized. They were usually shunned, but Jesus wasn't afraid of Him. He was fully aware of what the problem was and what He even came for.

And yet, it's clear that this leper respected who Jesus was. I would think he would say he believed and maybe he had faith, although that's not what this is going to say.

I'm sure he was asking for mercy and maybe he was seeking forgiveness.

See, those are all aspects of what we want to think about when we think about the body of the Lord.

But as the leper came to Him and knelt before Him, he said, Lord, if you choose, that's what my translation says. I think the King James says, if you will, if it's your will, if you choose, I think gives me a little different thought on this, if you choose, you can make me clean. What he was saying by that was that I have belief, I have faith, I'm seeking your mercy, doesn't directly say I want to be forgiven.

But what he said was, if you choose, you can make me clean. And he stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I do choose. I choose, I will be made clean. So clearly, it's entirely the prerogative of God as to when and how He chooses to heal us.

He wants us to come to Him with belief and faith and seeking mercy and forgiveness and knowing that we want to be in submission to the will of God. We want to know that this is something we anticipate whenever God chooses to heal. And of course, sometimes we see people die. That doesn't negate what the Word of God says about properly discerning the body and drawing close to the one who makes all these benefits available.

The last verse I want to cover here today is in 2 Corinthians 12. Well, 2 Corinthians 12, you see an example of the apostle Paul.

And clearly, Paul had a unique life and he was taught in a unique way by Jesus for several years. He was struck blind, so I'm sure he was begging for mercy whenever he finally came to see that I'd been out killing the church and I need to change direction. Now, he had a stellar background. But he could be commended in many ways as far as his genealogy, as far as having been an Israelite, having been apparently a scholar, a linguist. He could speak numerous languages.

He had all the pedigree, all the background. He said as being a Pharisee, I'm better than all the rest.

As keeping the law, I do better than everybody else. He had quite a bit to brag about, although he said that's just rubbish. That's what he said, because I need the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. He said that's what I need. But here you find a part of the way that God helped him have that perspective. In 2 Corinthians 12, he said, well, I could brag about all the revelations and visions that I've had. I could brag about my gifts from God, but he said that's so stupid. That's useless. That's not why God would give me any of these gifts.

But he says in the middle of verse 7, therefore to keep me from being too arrogant, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh. So this appears, again, from what the commentaries say, and just from what you read here, it appears to be something that, whether it was his eyesight or whether it was a pain in the neck or a pain in the side or you know a limp or whatever. I can't imagine he wouldn't have at least one limp, having been shipwrecked, having been beaten, having been stoned.

And God had to resurrect him from that because I don't think they stoned people to just kind of partially maim. I think the idea was to leave them dead. And you know Paul says he endured all of that. But he says, I've got this one problem that I've sought God to take away.

He says in verse 8 three times, I appealed with the Lord about this, that it would leave me.

See, now did Paul properly discern the body of the Lord?

Well, I think he probably did as well as any one of us could. Did he understand maybe the different aspects of healing or mercy and faith and belief and forgiveness and even knowing I'm subject to the will of the, yeah, I'm sure he understood all of that.

But he says, I've sought the Lord three times to take this away. And the Lord said, my grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. He said, Paul, you're better off being limited in whatever way this limitation was, because you realize you need me. You need my power. And actually, my power working in you is perfected. You need to be perfected as well.

And so Paul says, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness. And so instead of being sad that I've got a limitation, whatever we might find would be a limitation.

You know, whatever that might be, he says, I'm going to boast more gladly of my weakness so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. See, he didn't want the power of Paul.

He didn't want the physical strength of Paul to carry out his job. He wanted the power of Christ to dwell in him. And so therefore, he says, I'm content with weakness. See, I don't like to be content with weakness. I don't know that any of us like to suffer of any type of ailment, but often we do. And Paul just said, well, I brought this to God. He's told me what's going to happen. He told me to get used to it. He told me to like it, because my power is made perfect in weakness. And so Paul says, I'm content with weakness. I'm content being insulted. I'm content with hardship. I'm content with persecution and calamity for the sake of Christ. Because whenever I'm weak, whenever I'm physically limited, whenever I'm physically weak, then I am truly strong. I am spiritually strong. See, I believe that, you know, as we come to understand or as we come to discern the body of the Lord, as we approach the Passover every year, our understanding of what God tells us will increase. I think it will grow. It may grow exponentially as we see what He says and as we ask Him to help us understand it.

I believe I understand it a little more today than I have, and I should have for 40 or 50 years.

But that's okay, because, you know, God's the one who helps us understand, and He's the one who gives us circumstances where we actually suffer a little while, and then He provides relief. Let's go over to 1 Peter. I told you that was the last verse, but it's not.

Over here in 1 Peter, wherever Peter's talking about suffering, and he said, Jesus suffered in our stead. He suffered for us. He suffered to make a benefit of healing available. He wants us to be as close to the Father as He was.

But here, He says toward the end of this book, and He's again writing in general to Christians, it appears in chapter 5 that He's talking to the ministry to begin with, and of course He says, humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. That can be applicable to all of us. He says in verse 7 to cast your anxiety, cast your cares on Him because He cares for you.

He says, resist the devil. And in verse 10, after you have suffered for a while, see, that's what we might expect in this life. Not that we suffer all the time, but there will be times when we do suffer. There will be times when we are weak and we need God's help. We need to draw closer to God. But He says, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Jesus Christ, He will Himself restore, support, settle, strengthen, and establish you unto Him. Be the power forever and forever.

See, He said, God's the one who's able to provide restoration and revive our soul, revive our thoughts, relieve our suffering. And He did that, and He's able to do that through Jesus Christ. So, we want to properly discern the body of the Lord. We want to draw closer and closer to God, to acknowledge His lead in the Church and in our lives, and to thank Him for the privilege to grow, to grow in belief and faith, to know, to ask for mercy and forgiveness, and certainly to know that we're subject to the will of God, and that He provides healing. Some of that is physical, some of that is spiritual. We need to seek that as well. Spiritual healing is a healing of our heart and mind that we also need, and we can ask for that. And so, I hope in going over this, it can be helpful. Like I said, there's another aspect of this that I think is also important as we apply it to the Church, but we'll have to wait for next time to do that. So, I certainly want all of you to look forward to the Passover, you know, this Thursday evening, to take the Passover with a renewed devotion to Jesus Christ. And for His sacrifice that He has given for us, His broken body, His shed blood, has been extended to us so that we have access to the benefits from God, which include healing, which include forgiveness, and which include eternal life.