Arthur Fox
Those of you who know me may say about my struggles and grief over retirement from full time pastoral ministry, "Why so dull of heart and understanding?", and you are justified in your thinking. I miss the full time work. But this past week I finally heard (metaphorically speaking, we do not verbally hear him speak), "Now my son, you have misunderstood what I have done. I have different work for you to do. sent you out to do good in the three churches you served and elsewhere. But now it is time to use these finely honed skills to serve the church differently. You have books that will expound Scripture in practical ways to help your fellow believers grow. Stop grieving and do that work. You have at least 2 books I want you to write (no, I who write this note on the platform, am not going to tell you what they are. I need you to pray for me to get it done in the time I have left on this earth), therefore my son, get busy and be prayerfully diligent. Use the time you have left to serve me in this way and so bless those who need what I will teach you." Thank you to all who have prayed for me. Please continue to do so!

It is inevitable that we face times of difficulty and impossible that we escape them altogether. To be born is to suffer and to live is to endure all manner of trouble and trial. Just as none of us escapes death, none of us escapes all hardships. And when we face such hardships, we invariably long to overcome them. We want to get past them, through them, over them, around them—whatever it takes for them to come to as quick an end as possible. Yet it does not take us long in the Christian life to learn that God means for us to get something from our hardships—he wants us to gain something precious and obtain something valuable. And sometimes this means the hardships will persist for a long time or even for the rest of our days on earth. One of the pearls of wisdom that has served me well in life and that has been both challenging and comforting is this: Suffering always comes bearing a gift. It comes bearing a gift of God’s blessing if only we will seek for it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure. We can believe suffering comes bearing a gift because it does not come apart from God’s will, and his will for us is always good. There is nothing in the will of God that is ultimately to the detriment of his children and so there is nothing in the providence of God that is ultimately to our harm. To the contrary, he has promised that all things—even very difficult things—are in some way working for our good (Rom 8:28). This being the case, we can receive our suffering with a sense of reverence and expectation. We can receive it even with a heart of welcome and begin to look for the blessing it will bring to us. This is not to say we revel in our hurts or celebrate our trials, but it is to say that we can “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Suffering is fertile soil in which character grows and trials are dark skies and heavy rains that cause the Spirit’s fruit to burst into life. In so many ways we become who and what we long to be not apart from suffering but through it. The reason many Christians find so little comfort in their trials is that they do not accept them as coming from God and therefore do not expect to receive any blessing from them. They wish only to be released from their sorrows and healed from their wounds as soon as possible. But those who receive them with a heart of welcome—even a heart-broken heart of welcome—and those who search diligently for God’s gift in them—even through eyes glazed with tears—will find that God has placed his richest blessings within our deepest wounds. As we entrust our sorrows to him, we find that he has first entrusted them to us. He has assigned to us these sorrows so we can in turn consecrate them to him. He means for us to faithfully steward them, confident that they will guide us into deeper submission to his purposes and deeper conformity to his Son.

On newhopehanford.org/sermons sorry only morning one available
April 14th, 2024
Morning Service Prepare for Battle
Speaker: Pastor Arthur Fox
Ephesians 6:10-24

Sermons posted Newhopehanford.org/sermons
April 7th, 2024
Morning Service Christlikeness in Work & Service
Speaker: Pastor Arthur Fox
Ephesians 6:5-9
April 7th, 2024
Evening Service Faith Defined
Speaker: Pastor Arthur Fox
Hebrews 11:1-12

Sermons on newhopehandford.org/sermons
March 24th, 2024
Morning Service Raising Children
Speaker: Pastor Arthur Fox
Ephesians 6:1-4
March 24th, 2024
Evening Service The New Covenant
Speaker: Pastor Arthur Fox
Hebrews 10:19-31