Suffering in the Arms of the Savior

0:45They were dealing with division and a host of other problems. But as we saw through the course of our study last year, while the church at Corinth was a messy church, the fact is every church is messy because every church is comprised of sinners. But we also learned that God can take that messy church and transform it into a beautiful display of his own glory. If you're new to New Life, I want to welcome you this morning. Thanks for coming out. As you'll discover this morning and if you return again, our practice at New Life on Sunday mornings is to preach verse by verse through books of the Bible.

1:29And we do that. So that we can learn God's Word in its context, so that we can dive deeply into it and understand what it says and what it means and how it applies to our life. Because we don't want you to be dependent on a preacher, a teacher, an author, anyone else to tell you what the Bible says. We want to equip you to study God's Word for yourself so that you can know it and apply it to your life. And so today we're picking up this series, Messy Church, but we're starting the book of 2 Corinthians now. And I want to, as we jump into this book, briefly review the background to the church at Corinth.

2:10Now, if you look on the screen, you'll see a map which has the ancient city of Corinth circled in red. It was an important trade city that was known for business and immorality, not like many other large cities today. Located on a narrow isthmus in southern Greece, it facilitated both north and south land trade and east and west sea trade. So if you had first pick in Settlers of Catan, this is where you want to place your little settlement.

2:41You're going to be getting that two-to-one deal all day here. So this is a very important place. Paul came to this city on his second missionary journey, and he stayed there for about 18 months preaching and teaching and then establishing the church. And after he left, he wrote a letter to them, which has been lost to history, but it's referred to in 1 Corinthians. Corinthians. And after that first letter, some people from the church came to him and reported that they were experiencing a number of problems. And so to help them understand how to think about and deal with those problems, he wrote the letter that we call 1 Corinthians. Well, after that time, he visited the church, and this visit was a very painful visit. In fact, in 2 Corinthians, he refers to it as his painful visit to them. And it was so painful, apparently, because they seemed to reject him, the man who had planted the church and the man who had loved and served them so faithfully and well. And so he wrote another letter, also lost to history, that he calls in 2 Corinthians his severe letter. And it seems in this letter he was rebuking them for turning away from the gospel, for the way they were not living in love towards others and towards him. And so he thought about visiting them again, but instead he thought it best to first write another letter to clarify anything that was misunderstood.

3:58And that letter is what we know as 2 Corinthians. This letter defends his apostleship, his ministry, and his message. It's a highly emotional letter because Paul was being questioned and attacked by people that he had given so much to and had served so faithfully. And so today we're going to cover the introduction to what we call 2 Corinthians. And in this section, these first 11 verses, what Paul is going to do is he's going to introduce one of the key. Key themes in the letter, which is how to understand and endure suffering through the power of God and the ministry of the church.

4:42So let's pick up here in verse 1 and begin our study. Paul opens the letter in this way: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. Now, I want you, if you were here over the summer, or if you've read Philippians before, to contrast this introduction with how he introduces himself in the letter to the Philippians. Look at what he says in Philippians 1: Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus.

5:16He doesn't lead off with the fact that he is an apostle there because his apostleship wasn't under question or attack, but he does so here in 2 Corinthians. He clearly identifies himself as an apostle, and that word means a special messenger or one who is sent. He wasn't just any messenger. Paul was a messenger sent by God himself. And you see, a messenger doesn't go to deliver good advice. A messenger is sent to deliver a message. And the message that Paul was sent to deliver is the gospel, the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection for sinners like us.

6:01And I want you to see how Paul served as an apostle. Look at the introduction again, verse 1. An apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Paul didn't wake up one day and say, you know, I've been doing this Jewish Pharisee thing for a while. I think I'm ready for a career change. I wonder if the Christians have any job openings. As we saw in Philippians 3 this summer, Paul was zealous for Judaism. He was zealous for the law. He was a zealous persecutor of the church. So if it were up to Paul, he would have never left Judaism. He would have stayed right where he was.

6:45But Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, and his life was permanently transformed. And what God said to him was, I'm going to send you, the man with perhaps the greatest Jewish pedigree of all time, I'm going to send you to be an apostle to the Gentiles. God's ways are not our ways. So the opening line, a line that maybe we would just read quickly or skim over, it's actually a very important line because it contains such a strong defense of his apostleship. Paul brought the gospel to Corinth because God sent him there as his messenger. Now, who was Paul writing to? Look at how he continues.

7:31He's writing to the church of God that is at Corinth with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. So, this letter is addressed to the church in this large, influential city. Corinth had about 750,000 people at this time. That's a large city by today's standards, but in the first century, that was a megacity. That's like a Beijing, a Tokyo, a London, a Rio. It is that large by first century standards. But he's not just writing to this church in this large and influential city. Who else is he writing to? To the saints who are in the whole of Achaia.

8:09These are the people who are living in the region of southern Greece around Corinth. So they're living out in the burbs surrounding the big city. And Paul is also writing to them. And what I want you to see here is what he calls them. He calls them saints. Now, if you grew up in the Catholic Church, or if you grew up maybe in a mainline denomination that sometimes talked about saints, then you might have this picture in your mind of what a saint is. And a lot of people think of saints as an unusually holy person, a person that meets a standard that you and I, as everyday ordinary followers of Jesus, we could never hope to meet. But you see, in Scripture, saints is the most common description for everyday, ordinary Christians.

8:57It's just a synonym for Christian. And this word is so important for us to embrace and understand because it highlights our identity and our calling. First, the word saints highlights our identity. See, in God's eyes, we are holy people. That is who we are. And that's not because of anything that we've done, but it's because through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, His righteousness, His holiness, His goodness, that has been credited to us because of our faith. So our identity is saints. We are holy people in God's eyes.

9:40But it also reminds us of our calling. We are commanded to be holy people in terms of the way that we live our lives. Though we have been declared holy and righteous by God, all of us know that we are still works in process. We haven't arrived there yet. We still have to fight against the flesh. We still have to fight against sin. We are still making headway and progress against all of those areas of our lives that don't conform to the will of God. And so our identity is saints, holy people, but our calling is also to pursue holiness, to become holy people. So that's how we need to think of ourselves.

10:22And Paul closes this little introductory statement with his customary greeting. He uses this in many letters. Extends grace and peace from God to the believers. Anyone who has received Christ has received the grace of God, and when we receive the grace of God, what comes with that is the peace of God. And that's very important for us to understand because we're about to launch into the body of this letter and the main content of the letter where Paul is going to teach and talk about in an extended way suffering.

11:01And so the grace and peace of God are important to us because we're about to go into this extended meditation on suffering. And at the risk of overstatement, I think that probably no generation in history is less equipped to deal with suffering than us. We've experienced so many advances in technology and medicine and every other area that we have come to expect and even in some cases to demand lives of comfort and convenience. We do not expect suffering and we do not handle it well when it comes.

11:42And so this is going to be an extended teaching on suffering, which is so relevant for the time period that we're living in right now. So let's jump in and let's learn to think about suffering as followers of Jesus. Let's pick up in verse 3. In these natural Next few verses, what Paul is going to do is he's going to give us the foundation for what we need to endure suffering well. And to do that, he's going to explain here in verse 3 who God is, what he does, and why he does it. Look at what he starts off with. He reminds us who God is. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.

12:26So the first thing that he says is that God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's important because in the first century and at Corinth, the deity of Christ was under attack all the time. There were teachers coming in saying that Jesus wasn't really God, he wasn't really the Son of God. There's no reason to believe that. And today, we have the exact same thing. You've got many people that will say Jesus was a great teacher, Jesus was a good man, but he wasn't really God. He wasn't really the Son of God. Look at 1 John chapter 5 on the screen. The Apostle John writes, And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

13:16Jesus Himself said that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. So either you have Jesus, and you have the Father and eternal life. Or you don't have Jesus, and you don't have the Father and eternal life. So that's the first thing that he leads off with: who Jesus is and who God is. But secondly, look at what he points out: God is the Father of mercies. We often get grace and mercy mixed up in our minds. Grace is getting what we don't deserve, mercy is not getting what we do deserve. And so, God is the father of mercies in the sense that he has not treated us as our sins deserve, he has not meted out the punishment, the discipline that we deserve as Christians. Instead, he has poured out his grace upon us.

14:18And then, third and finally, he says that he is the God of all comfort. And that word comfort translates the Greek word para kaleo. It's very closely related to the word that Jesus uses in John chapter 14 for the Holy Spirit, the para kletas. He is the helper, the comforter, the encourager. That's who God is. By his nature and by his loving choice, he is our helper, our encourager, our comforter. And that's great news because in this sinful and broken world that we live in, we need help. We need encouragement. We need comfort. All the time.

15:02We need those things sometimes because of our own sin, sometimes because of the sins of others, and sometimes simply because we live in this broken and fallen world. And so, if you think back to your literature units, maybe in high school or some in college, and you think about studying the Greek and the Roman gods and goddesses, they were indifferent to human suffering. They didn't care whether people lived or died or suffered or anything else. But the God of the Bible is different. He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

15:41See, knowing who God is, that's the foundation for understanding what He does and why He does it. Many of our problems can be traced back to a wrong understanding of who God is. So many people are confused and hurt and disappointed and worried and afraid. And a lot of times, that's because they either don't know who God is or they're failing to believe the truth about who God is. So, friends, we have to start there with who God is before we ever try to make sense of this world, especially its trials and its sufferings and its difficulties. And so, Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians of who God is.

16:28And then next, he moves on. To what God does. What does he do? He comforts us in all our affliction. So, if we think back to John 16:33, that same section where Jesus is talking about the person of the Holy Spirit, look at what he says: I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Contrary to what a lot of pastors and teachers and authors will say, God never promises Christians a comfortable, healthy, wealthy life.

17:18In fact, Jesus and the apostles taught us to expect just the opposite. Jesus said that in this world we're going to have trouble, we're going to have difficulty, we're going to have persecution. We are not promised an easy and carefree life. So, if you come to Jesus and you start following Him, thinking that that is what God is offering you, then you're going to be bewildered and angry and eventually disillusioned when you encounter life's inevitable trials and suffering. Whether those are academic setbacks, career disappointments, Financial insecurity, health scares, relational failures, or just persecution from following Jesus.

18:10Jesus really drives this point home in the parable of the four soils. And in this parable, he's talking about the word of God being scattered out there and different people in their hearts and how they receive it. And I want you to look on the screen at what he says about the rocky soil. He says, as for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

18:51Now, does that not describe people that you have known in your life? People who seem to start following Jesus, people who seem to be excited about their faith, but then they hit some trials, some difficulty, maybe some persecution, and they fell away. They quit following Jesus. You see, if you think that following Jesus is going to make your life easier, better, more comfortable, then you're going to think God lied to you when you encountered difficulty and trial and persecution. And the truth is, somebody may have lied to you, but it wasn't God.

19:32The promise that God makes to us isn't an easy life. It's not a comfortable life. The promise that God makes to us is that whenever we do encounter trials and suffering and persecution, He will be there to comfort us in all our affliction. That's the promise that our good God makes to us. And then finally, Paul explains why God comforts us. Look at the back end of verse 4: so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

20:16The Bible offends the modern person for a number of different reasons. But one of the primary reasons the Bible offends the modern person is that the Bible is not about us. The Bible is primarily about God and what He has done for us. And secondarily, it's about others and how we are called to love and serve our neighbor. So, what's our natural response when bad things happen to us? Our natural response is to ask, why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?

20:58Without minimizing The very real pain and suffering that all of us go through. Bad things happen to us because we are sinners, who are surrounded by sinners, living in a world that has been broken and cursed because of sin. So, when you think of it that way, the question almost goes from: why do bad things happen to me to how come more bad things don't happen to me? God doesn't allow a single thing to happen in our lives without a good and holy purpose, and that includes all of the pain and the suffering that we experience in this life.

21:47So many people, including plenty of believers in local churches, are suffering alone. And Paul explains here that when we suffer, we are comforted so that we will be able in part to comfort others in all of their affliction. And so, today I want to challenge you to ask God to open your eyes to see the people who are suffering and hurting around you in the local church and at school and in class and at your job. Ask God to open your eyes to see those people and then ask God, How might you be calling me to comfort them?

22:27See, a lot of times we get so wrapped up in our own. Problems, our own trials, our own suffering, that we miss those who are hurting right around us. And in addition to missing those opportunities to serve, we also miss out on the opportunity for God to minister to us through that service. When we take the focus off of ourselves and our problems and we put it back on to God and other people, He often uses that to minister to us and our own hurt. And so you might be in a place this morning where the very thing that you need to take the next step in your life is to see who around you needs your ministry of comfort. See who around you needs your prayers and your support and your words of encouragement and your presence.

23:20That's why God comforts us. In part so that we can be the hands and feet of Christ to minister to others in their suffering. And friends, we have to remember, and we see this in verse 5, we have to remember that as we suffer, that Jesus also endured suffering. And he endured that suffering for our eternal good. In verse 5, we're reminded here that when we suffer, especially when we suffer for our faith, what's happening? We abundantly share in Christ's suffering so that through him we share abundantly in comfort too.

24:00It's not like we have a Savior who calls us to endure suffering and even comforts us in it, but he has no real actual experience with suffering himself. No, we have a Savior who not only suffered, but who suffered unjustly in our place and for our sins. So when we suffer, we have to remember that he suffered too. And after he suffered, he was comforted permanently by being exalted to the right hand of God the Father in a new and perfect body, the same new and perfect bodies that we will receive one day when Christ returns. So, friends, that's our hope. No matter how much we suffer in this life or from following Christ, that we will be comforted permanently and perfectly when Jesus returns. If we share his suffering, we will also share in his comfort.

24:58And so, Paul wraps up this section by saying, listen, no matter if I suffer, no matter if you suffer, I am still filled with hope. Look at this phrase in verse 7: Our hope for you is unshaken. I just love that phrase. Our hope for you is unshaken. Does it not seem like every time there's bad news released, something bad happens in our world, everybody's hope is shaken? Shaken to the core. We are convinced that the next election, the next natural disaster, the next economic downturn is just going to be the end of all things. Everyone seems to lose hope. And yet, here's Paul saying that his hope for them in the midst of the persecution and suffering that he's experiencing and that they're experiencing, that his hope is unshaken. How can he have that unshakable hope?

25:56Look at what Paul wrote to his disciple, Timothy. He's talking in this verse about his faithful preaching, and he says, This, which is why I suffer as I do for faithfully preaching. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. See, that is a man with unshakable hope, and he has that unshakable hope. Why? Not because he's got a great series of coping mechanisms that he learned, but because he knows in whom he has believed. He personally knows the father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

26:49And friends, we can have that same unshakable hope if we know the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. But that doesn't mean. That going through suffering is going to be easy. And in the next section, Paul is straightforward about just how bad suffering can get. So let's pick up now in verse 8. Paul says, For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

27:33Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. Paul and his companions had been through some very difficult times when they were in Asia. And we don't know because Paul doesn't tell us directly where exactly he was or what exactly had happened. But if you go back and you study the book of Acts, it's likely that what he's referring to happened in Ephesus. Paul spent three years ministering, preaching, teaching, and establishing a church in that city. And what happened was there was such fruitfulness from his ministry that all kinds of magicians and idolaters and all kinds of other people, they started turning to faith in Christ, which means they left their old lives behind. They started burning their magic books. They started getting rid of their statues and their idols.

28:30And that was a big problem because you had this guild of silversmiths in the city. And what they did is they made these silver statues, these shrines of the goddess Artemis. And the temple of Artemis, it's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It's still there. The ruins are still there in Ephesus. It was right there in the center of the city. And so they're like, listen, if Paul continues this ministry, we're going to lose all of our income. So they start a riot. They drag some of Paul's companions, Gaius and Aristarchus, into the theater. It was about to turn violent, but in God's providence, the town clerk shows up and he's like, What are y'all doing? This is out of order. Go home. And that takes care of it. It was amazing. But that experience was really bad. It was so bad that if that's what he's referring to, I want you to look at these words again. He says, We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

29:37And friends, I think we just have to remember that the Apostle Paul, godly and holy of a man that he was, was still a man like you and me. He was still a normal human being. And I think that it was starting to set in for him a few years into his journey, into his missionary journeys, that everywhere I go and I preach the word, I'm going to get beaten. And imprisoned, and eventually I'm going to get killed for this.

30:04And when you come to that kind of a realization that following Jesus is going to cost you, maybe everything, maybe your life, that's just a crushing weight upon you. That you can use these words: we're so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. I mean, if you've ever dealt with depression, if you've ever known anybody who's dealt with depression, that's what that sounds like. But as we said before, God has a good and holy purpose for everything that He allows. And that was true in this case as well.

30:42Look at verse 9 again, but let's pick up in the second half. He says, But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. So, God's good purpose in allowing that level of suffering, that level of despair, was to make them rely on God and not on themselves. Friends, starting with the fall of Adam and Eve, mankind has been at war with God, trying to assert our independence from Him. You could rightly say that we are hell-bent on. Maintaining our independence from God.

31:34An American culture certainly does not help us in any way, does it? Because in American culture, we're taught not to rely on anybody else. We're taught to rely on ourselves, to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, to not accept help. And I can say to you that even though I intend to live my daily life in dependence on God, I show through my pride and my prayerlessness and my planning that really what I'm doing most days is depending on myself, my education, my experiences, my gifts and abilities. I'm trying to do what everyone has been trying to do since the fall, and that is maintain my dependence from God.

32:24And what Paul is saying here is that God brings suffering into our lives to bring us to the point where we are broken out of our self-reliance, where we realize there is no hope for us apart from Him, that what Jesus said actually is true. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Paul certainly couldn't do anything in Asia. He despaired even of life itself. But God could do something, and He did. Look at verse 10. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. He says, On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

33:15Paul has that kind of confidence, not because he has great abilities, not because he's got a great education and a great pedigree. Paul has that confidence because he knows God who raises the dead. That's why he has that level of confidence. And so he closes with this in verse 11: you also must help us by prayer. Now, I'm telling you, if that's me, what are you thinking that's coming next in the blank? You must help us by what by coming.

33:54There's only a small group of us that are bringing the message and planting these churches. Come yourself and help. You must help us by sending money or resources. You must help us by recommending a good lawyer to defend us against all the charges that are levied against us in every city that we go to. What are you thinking is going to be in that blank? And what does Paul say? You must help us by prayer, by praying?

34:21I mean, again, I think it just goes to show where we are at as Christians in American culture that we, our first reaction, a lot of the times, at least I can admit that. Mine is like, prayer? We got to do something. Prayer isn't doing something. But that wasn't Paul's perspective at all, was it? He says, you have to help us by prayer. Because who is the only one who can comfort them in their affliction? Who is the only one who can deliver them from the sentence of death? It's God. No human being can do that.

34:56And he also says here in verse 11 that their prayers can become an occasion for others to give thanks to God. Because I think we all know, or many of us know, that whether we're talking about Christians or non-Christians, one of the things that is the greatest witness to the existence and the grace and the power of God is answered prayer. That's a great reason to keep track of what you pray for so that you can be reminded every time a prayer is answered that God exists and He's gracious and He's powerful. And it's a great reason anytime you ask another Christian for prayer, don't forget to follow up and tell them how God answered their prayers so that their faith can be strengthened and they can be reminded that God is real and He does answer our prayers. He is powerful. And so Paul wraps up this introduction by saying, This is how you've got to help us. You've got to help us by going to God in prayer because He is the only one who can comfort us in all of this affliction.

36:10Friends, all of us have gone through seasons of suffering. Some of us have suffered more often or more intensely or both. But all of us have suffered. And sometimes we brought that suffering on ourselves through our own sin. Sometimes the suffering was inflicted on us by others in their sin. And sometimes our suffering isn't anyone's fault. You've got two hurricanes bearing down on the Gulf Coast even now, hasn't happened in almost 100 years. That's no one's fault. It's because we live in a broken and sinful world. It's been cursed. And sometimes our suffering is due to that.

37:02And so, in our suffering, let us never forget Jesus, the perfect Son of God, who suffered not for his own sins, but for ours. The God of the Bible, the one who sent his only begotten Son to live perfectly and die in your place and rise again, is not a God that you shake your fist at when bad things happen. He's a God that you run toward with arms outstretched because he is the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. And he is the one who stretched out his arms for you.

37:52When our kids were little, we taught them how to ride bikes and how to swim. And that wasn't fun for all of them. There were skin knees, there were moments where they were feeling like they were going to sink. And sometimes they'd be mad at us. Certain ones were mad most of the time. But that's because they can't see the big picture. Kids who are being taught how to ride a bike or to swim can't see the big picture. If they're going to learn how to ride a bike, if they're going to learn how to swim, then parents have to let go.

38:28But when they did fall, or when they did start to sink, we were right there to scoop them up, to reassure them, to comfort them, and to remind them that we do have a good plan for them, even if they disagree with it. And see, our good father is doing something similar. His plans and his ways and his comfort are all perfect because he's a perfect father. And so I think there are some of you, whether you're already a follower of Jesus or not, there are some of you that you've been mad at God for a while.

39:12And maybe you've never admitted that to anybody. Maybe you've not even admitted that to yourself, but it's true. You've been mad at God for a while. And you're mad at him because of the suffering that he allowed into your life. And I want you to know that there are people out there who will tell you that God has nothing to do with your suffering. That it's just something that happened and that he couldn't do anything about it.

39:44But friends, that kind of a God couldn't help you then and can't help you now because that kind of a God doesn't exist. The God of the Bible is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good all the time. He allowed suffering into your life so that you could learn not to rely on yourself, but to rely on him. And so that by receiving his comfort in your suffering, you could turn around and be his hands and feet, his minister of comfort to other people who need it. He has proven his love for you once and for all in the person and work of Jesus, who loved you and gave himself for you. That you could look forward to an eternity of comfort and joy instead of an eternity of suffering for your sin.

40:40So, if you're already a believer this morning, I want to encourage you to look to Christ afresh today and to see Him for who He is and for who He desires to be in your life, no matter what you've gone through, no matter what you're going through. He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. And if you're here today and you're not yet following Jesus, I want to urge you to receive Him by faith this morning, to place your trust in Him. You have suffered in this life and you are going to suffer even more. That's what you promised. But you must know that Christ suffered for you once and for all, so that you would never suffer again for your sin or anyone else's in eternity. And so, I want to urge you to run to Christ today, the God of all comfort, and receive the forgiveness and reconciliation and salvation that can only be found in Him.

41:46Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are so much greater than any gods the world has created, even than any false idols that we have set up in our hearts and minds. You are the perfect Father, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. And so, Lord, my prayer today is that we would see suffering through the lens of who you are and what you are doing in our lives. That we would no longer respond to suffering as though you don't care about us or you can't do anything about it, but rather that you are bringing it into our lives for your glory and your good purposes and our own good.

43:03Thank you so much that we have your word, which tells us how to understand this life, this world, and all that happens to us. Be glorified in us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to To support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.