What's Your Prognosis?

I sense a lot of fear among today’s Christians. We worry about our freedoms when the political winds change. Will Joe Biden and the Democrats clamp down on Christian freedom and condemn Biblical doctrines as hate speech? Or will we be able to maintain our freedoms to worship? Will Covid-19 continue to wreak havoc on our society and claim more and more lives? What will happen to the faith of our children and grandchildren as our educational systems become more and more proactive in pushing an immoral sexual agenda? Will Trinity be able to survive another fifty years? Or will we have to close our doors some day? Are you filled with a prognosis of doom and gloom for our future?

Paul had to face a Roman government that ultimately put him to death and locked many of his fellow Christians up, taking away a lot of their property. But Paul didn’t worry about what persecution would do to the Corinthians. Why? Because He knew that God would work through them and for them! He believed God’s grace would save the day! He had confidence that they had every gift they needed to stay strong to the end. If anything, that suffering would only make them stronger, because God had given them powerful gifts.

What were those gifts? The same gifts that we have. They had the Word. They had baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The Holy Spirit had worked through the Word to bring them from unbelief to faith. This is the same Word that created the world. It’s the same Word that became flesh and died on the cross. It’s the same Word that rose from the dead. The same God who had brought them to faith could keep them in the faith and enable them to resist temptation, despair and unbelief throughout the rest of their lives. Yes, life would be difficult. Yes, they would lose battles. But God is faithful, so the prognosis is good.

It’s such a simple term. It sounds so basic. God is faithful. But when you think about it, it means everything. It means that if God promises to do something, He’ll do it. Think about what Paul said that God did for the Corinthians. God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Fellowship means to partner together with someone, to share something with them. When they were baptized into Christ, they became one with Jesus. His righteousness was theirs. His Holy Spirit was theirs. His angels were theirs. His love was theirs. His grace and mercy were theirs. His forgiveness covers all sins. His patience goes far beyond any human patience. The Corinthians had all of Jesus and everything that Jesus brings, and we do too! And if God is for us, who can be against us?

Paul witnessed this first hand within himself. When God called Paul to the ministry he was told that he would have to suffer a lot in serving the Lord. And suffer he did! He had to go through beatings and torture, jail and shipwrecks. When talking about all of the problems he went through along with the other apostles he wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” There was no reason why Paul should have been able to survive all of the suffering and pressure he went through without suffering a mental breakdown or denying his faith. But when all was said and done, only by God’s grace, he survived.