This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to a look at 2nd Corinthians. This is chapter 1, week 1, day 3,
we're looking at verses 8 to 11 today. We're talking together about how servants
survive despair, a feeling of not knowing where to turn, not knowing what's
next.

And being honest that Paul had that feeling, that God's servants have that
feeling sometimes. The question isn't whether you have that feeling or not. The
question is what do you do with the feeling when it comes?

We saw yesterday that one of the things we realize is that God comforts us. God
comforts us when we feel like we don't know where to turn. So we turn to Him.

When you don't know where to turn, you turn to Him. When you don't know what's
next, you turn to Him. God wants to comfort us, but He also wants to do
something else.

He wants to deliver us. Listen to verses 8 and 9. We do not want you to be
uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.

We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we
despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But
this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the
dead.

In these verses, Paul gives a very insightful description of the feelings we
face in the midst of burdensome trials. The feelings that I'm describing as
despair. He says, "I felt pressure, I felt despair.

I felt this sense of pressure, far beyond my ability to endure. I can't make it
through this one. I don't know what to do next.

" And then he says, "I felt despair. I despaired even of life. I didn't know if
I was going to make it through it.

I didn't know if I was going to even live through this. " Far beyond our ability
to endure. That's what brings that feeling.

There's nothing more frightening than facing something you know you can't
handle. It's like being told you have to wrestle a grizzly bear next week. And
all week long you think about the fact of, "I can't handle that.

" I read a while back that there's a test now to determine if you get a certain
degenerative nerve disease 30 years before you'll get it. Most people are
refusing to take the test. They don't want to know 30 years in advance.

They want to live their life. He wants to live with 30 years of worry about
something. This feeling of despair is the feeling, "I want to give up.

I'm certain of disaster. I'm without hope. " Paul expresses the fact that he
didn't feel like living anymore because of this.

He had a terrible burden. He had some hopeless feelings. He had some feelings of
despair.

What did he do with those feelings? You see, hopeless feelings can end up in
depression or they can end up in dependence. They can end up in depression if I
focus it on myself or they can end up in depending on God when I focus on him.

We all face these feelings to one degree or another. The question isn't whether
you have these feelings or not. The question isn't trying to prevent these
feelings.

Feelings are feelings. You have them. The question is how do you survive them?

We recognize that in those feelings God still offers us a choice. He offers us
the choice to depend on him. And Paul chose to depend on God.

He says, "Out of this, I decided I'm not going to rely on myself. " That's why
God let this happen, he says. I'm not going to rely on myself.

I'm going to rely on God. We can either give up or we can give in to God. It was
Lincoln who said, "I have often been driven to my knees in prayer because I had
nowhere else to go.

" And I like what Warren Wiersbe said about our trials. When God puts his
children into the furnace, he keeps his hand on the thermostat and his eye on
the thermometer. God knows what you're going through and God is there.

God is there as you turn to him. He knows the pressure. He knows the feeling of
despair.

People who have hope can handle tremendous pressure. They can even live with
pressure day after day after day. Now why in the world would God even allow
this?

Why would he allow us to get into situations where we feel despair, where we
feel like giving up? Because he wants us to look to him for strength rather than
just to ourselves. Because those very circumstances that cause us to have
feelings of despair are when we walk into places where we're serving God and
making a difference in ways that are above and beyond our abilities.

And that often causes us to feel hopeless. I can't do this, God. Because he
knows that when we do depend on him, we find a power and a purpose to live for
that's far above and beyond our human hopes and dreams.

Where do you find hope? It's not just trusting in God's comfort. That's half of
it.

We looked at that yesterday. It's trusting in God's comfort, but it's also in
the fact that God delivers. God comforts, but he also delivers.

He's the one, Paul says, who raised the dead. And then verses 10 and 11, listen
to what he says. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will
deliver us.

On him we have set our hope, and he will continue to deliver us as you help us
by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor
granted us, an answer to the prayers of many. Paul says God's going to deliver
us.

Deliverance results in hope. Deliverance means, well, if you take a pizza and
you deliver it, what do you do? You take it from one place to another place.

God's going to deliver you out of this problem. He's going to take you out of
the problem and deliver you into a place of blessing. When will that happen?

Well, I'll tell you, certainly it will happen when we go to heaven. All of our
problems will be delivered from when we get to heaven, and some of our problems
we won't be delivered from until we get to heaven. But that's not the whole
truth, because there are many problems you face in this life.

You'll be delivered from those problems even in this life. The problems of a
temptation in your life, or the problems of a habit that's eating you up in your
life, or the problems of a relationship, or the problems of someone who's
persecuting you, or the problems of a ministry that just can't begin to work,
and you're burdened over that. God will deliver many times in this life.

Here's how Paul said it. He has delivered us, and He will deliver us, and He
will continue to deliver us. Did you notice that in verse 10?

He has, He will, He will continue to. That's where Paul set his hope. Set your
hope on the fact that He will deliver you.

Now, don't miss this. Paul says, "I set my hope on that. " Paul didn't just wait
for hope to happen to him.

He determined to set his hope on the God who delivers. The question isn't, do
you have hopeful circumstances right now? The question is, who are you setting
your hope on right now?

Hope is not in your circumstances. It's in a person. It's in God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's in Jesus. It's in God's Spirit. Where is your hope set?

That's your choice. Hope doesn't accidentally happen to people. Hope is set by
our choosing to depend on Him.

He has, He will, He will continue to deliver. That's where I'm setting my hope.
Deliverance results in hope.

It also results in praise. God doesn't just deliver us for our pleasure. He
delivers us for His glory.

So Paul says in verse 11, "I'm confident that praise will go to God because of
the way we're trusting Him right now. " So the next time circumstances become
burdensome and you wonder, how am I going to get out of this one? How am I going
to make it through this one?

You can legitimately, scripturally say to yourself this prayer to the Lord,
"Well, Lord, you certainly have an opportunity to glorify yourself this time,"
because He does. Jesus, remember, looked at the death of His close friend
Lazarus and said, "It's an opportunity for God's glory. " Now, I can't promise
you, I can't prophesy for you exactly how God's going to deliver you, exactly
the timing in which He's going to deliver you.

I do know it's often in unexpected ways. I do know that God's deliverance often
comes in ways that we have to wait for longer than we would like. But I also
know sometimes it comes quicker than we'd imagine and I know sometimes it's more
miraculous than we could have ever dreamed.

However it comes, whenever it comes, the truth is it will come. God will deliver
you, either now or in heaven, either immediately or someday or that day. He is a
deliverer, that's what He does.

He will deliver you and that's where you set your hope. So let's set our hope
right now. Father, it's so easy to get focused on the circumstances around me.

It's so easy to feel like I'm going under, how am I going to make it through
this one? And even feelings of despair or of loneliness can overwhelm us in ways
that all we think about are the feelings. Lord, help us to lift our eyes above
the circumstances, lift our eyes above our feelings and look at you right now.

You have, you will, you will continue to deliver. You're a God of hope and so we
choose right now. Instead of allowing our feelings to be set by the
circumstances that are around us, we choose in this moment, and we might need to
choose this a thousand times today, we choose in this moment to set our hope on
you, we trust in you, in Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to see what happens when God says yes.