For most people, the heaviest thing they have ever endured in their life has involved suffering. The loss of a loved one, the betrayal of a friend, the rebellion of a child, or perhaps the death of a dream, but here Paul describes the heaviest suffering you can imagine as light. How can Paul possibly say that with a clear conscience? That is one of the questions we will consider in this passage.

 What compels us to persevere in loving hard-to-love people and to share the gospel with people who openly resist it? The Apostle Paul was compelled to preach the gospel and proclaim the praises of God in the presence of others, and his motivation for doing so is found in our passage today. May we also be a people who cry out with the Apostle Paul, "We also believe, and so we also speak!"  

Shame flows from the feeling that we are not enough. It finds its power in the fear that our flaws will be exposed and inevitably lead others to abandon us. In this message we will consider the antidote to shame and to help us do that we will look at Peter and they way the risen Jesus rescued him from his shame.

In this second sermon on beholding Christ's beauty, we will contemplate how that beauty leads to a changed life. Using Paul's statement in 3:18, we will look at Revelation 1-3 through that lens. Listen and hear how Christ's beauty transofrmed churches in the first century and continues to do so today. 

 In this passage, Paul reminds us just how serious a thing it is to dwell among immortals and seek to point them to Jesus. But who is sufficient for such a massive calling? Paul helps us answer this question by exposing some of the false places we look for confidence and then showing us where it is that our ultimate sufficiency is to be found.