(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Bible reads there in verse number one, we then as workers together with them, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. So one of the main themes, one of the main purposes for kind of going over this and starting this passage is, you know, if you're saved, you've received the grace of God, right? Amen. And, but the whole point, and I brought this up last week, is that we need to be workers, right? As preached on being a hard worker and working for the Lord, you know, we don't want to receive the grace of God in vain, basically meaning it's meaningless. Now, obviously it's not meaningless for you to be saved, but the rest of your life and kind of what you do with your life would be vain. It'd be vanity if you don't use it to serve the Lord. If you don't use that grace then to go out and do good work and to be a minister and to help others, it ends up, it's going to end up being a life of vanity. And then he brings up here, salvation verse number two, for he says, I have heard thee in a time accepted in the day of salvation. I have Socrates. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. But then verse number three, I want to focus on a little bit more giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed. So, you know, the way that we present ourselves, the way that we are, the things that we do, you know, the things that we say and how we live our lives, we don't want to give offense in anything because we don't want the ministry to be heard. We don't want the ministry to be blamed for things. We don't want, you know, a bad name being brought on Christianity as a whole, on our church, on Jesus Christ, because of us, because of what we do. So we need to be diligent to make sure that we can live above reproach. We need to make sure that we're not doing things that are going to cause the ministry just to be blamed and to tarnish the good name of God or Jesus Christ. Now there's always going to be people who are going to try to bring down the name of Christ. And if they do that because you're standing on the word of God, because you are teaching good doctrine, you're literally believing the Bible will be true, you know what? That's not a bad name. They may try to bring, you know, try to spin things in a bad light or whatever. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about you doing things of you being guilty, of you being involved in wickedness, of you doing something really sinful, or even just becoming unfaithful, right? And bringing a bad name to the ministry because of something that you actually do, that you should be blamed for, that we don't want that blame to be spread to the ministry. Now I like the way that this passage is kind of separated. We're going to look at the three different types of phrases, if you will, the way these verses are laid out. You've got the ins, the byes, and the ases. So if you notice there are the first few verses, they're starting in verse number four, where you see the in afflictions, in necessities, in the stresses, in stripes, right? Those are all the ins. Then you've got the byes in verse six, by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering. And then you get all the way down to nine, as unknown and yet well known, as dying. Those are the three sections that we're going to look at. So it starts off with the ins. The ins is whatever state you find yourself in while you're serving the Lord. It's in these different times when you're facing this type of persecution or whatever the deal is here. We're looking at all of these various ends, the places that we could find ourselves in. And then the by is how we're supposed to get through that as a minister of God, as someone who's not going to bring blame to the ministry. Here's how we're going to get through these things that we find ourselves in as we serve the Lord. And then how we behave ourselves as, you know, and then it's going to bring up different ways how we ought to be living. So by is kind of what mechanism we're using, and the in is where we find ourselves in. So we're going to start with digging into these various situations we can find ourselves in so we could know how to handle those situations so that we can be approved, an approved minister of God, so that the things we do aren't going to bring blame on the ministry. Because think about it, you know, it's best to be prepared for the various situations you may find yourself in so you can make the most wise decision. You're not caught off guard, off hand when you know in advance, hey, I could find myself in this situation, in this situation, in this situation, you know how to handle it. To not just be making decisions on the fly of just I don't know what to do here and maybe doing something wrong that's going to bring blame or offense.