Amen, amen. How many of you have had to deliver a message that you didn't want to deliver? Seems like more Sunday school classes. No, I'm kidding. Anyway, no, not quite. But my younger brother, when it comes to delivering messages, I know I can remember this vividly. There were several opportunities where he took joy in delivering a message. Generally, it was a message in, man, mom and dad want to see you. He loved delivering those. I wasn't so good of a message. For me, those particular messages he enjoyed. Now, to deliver a message that the audience that you're going to have to deliver it to may or may not receive that well, that's a little more difficult. They don't get a whole lot of joy in that. When we get to not only 1 Corinthians, but more importantly in 2 Corinthians, Paul is having to deliver a message that I'm sure he would have rather not have had to deliver. Does anyone know specifically In 1 Corinthians, what was the main thrust, the main message in that letter to the church of Corinth? What was it that was delivered to them? What were some of the issues that that church was having? Any ideas? What were some of the struggles that that church was facing? Yes? They were selfish. There was a large number of people in that church that were selfish. Probably in many ways, you could almost view them as being... I've got a teenager down in my house. Wow, that's a whole new world. Younger boys, they can be selfish, but at different times, and a lot of times, teens may not even realize that they are being selfish, but they are. We are just as prone to the same thing. Now, we might be older, but we struggle with the same things. My ideas, what's important to me, what I want, what I want to hear, what I want to see, what I want to do, those things are what's important to me. And a lot of times what this church was facing is I had individuals who lived in a very, just like we do, in a very carnal world, and they wanted to live it up as much as they possibly could, but still receive the blessings of God. Okay? They went to church, they were being taught in church, they were being instructed in church on how they were to worship God and live for God. But many of them, the problem that they had was, I still want to grab a hold of what I can in the world and then incorporate that into my worship and how I serve God. So obviously, this goes on for a process. Paul in 1 Corinthians confronts them with it, saying, look, all of these things, all of these things that you feel are so important, God is saying, this isn't right. I don't want this to be part of your worship. I don't want this to be part of your life. I want you to be blessed, and I'm going to have to withhold some of the blessing that I would love to impart on you, but I can't because they're sin. because there's arrogance, because there's pride, selfishness, all these things that needed to be dealt with. So he delivers that message in 1 Corinthians. Sure, it wasn't easy. He spent the better part of a year and a half planting that church. When Beck and I moved to this area in 2002, we were coming to take part in a church plant up in Queensborough. And from 02 to basically, I think it was about 11-ish, We were part of a church plant. I've shared with Brother Josh a lot of the stories that surround that. My wife has said what we probably should have done, or even if we could have gone back now, I don't know, gone back and actually wrote down a lot of the things that happened. The highs, the lows, all of the different things that we experienced in being part of that church plant. Church planting is different. And I can see how when Paul wrote this letter, there was probably a lot of tears. This wouldn't have been an easy message for him to deliver. He knew a lot of these people by their first name. He'd spent over a year and a half with them. A year and a half into your wedding when you guys were married. You should know a whole lot more after a year and a half than you did maybe on your wedding day. I'm going to gather you probably did. Could be good, could be bad. Some of the good, some of the bad, and some of the ugly moments too. We're full aware of this. As we get to know people, in his case, he had a year and a half to get to know this church, knew everything about them, what made them tick, some of the things that they struggle with, some of the things that they were victorious in. You get to 2 Corinthians. Now he's having to deliver a message that he honestly hoped he never would have had to deliver to that church. There's a small faction in that church that is looking to personally attack Paul. Primarily because they did not want to listen to the message that was delivered in 1 Corinthians. What do we generally do when we hear a message from somebody that we don't want to hear? Maybe ignore that person. Turn a deaf ear. You're not going to tell me what to do. You deal with this all the time as parents dealing with kids. They are having to listen on a daily basis to mom and dad sharing with them, trying to impart to them what God's Word says, what God's authority is, who God should actually be in their lives. A lot of times they don't want to hear it. Paul delivers the message to this group of people. They're being confronted by what is their, the sin that it is, that it is obviously destroying them from the inside out. They don't want to hear it. It's like, wait a minute, why do I have to give this up? I've been saved by grace, I can live however I want. We have a lot of church members that take that same philosophy today. God has redeemed me. God has saved me. Now I can live. I have freedom to knowing that I'm not going to be separated from God. So I can live however I want. Paul wants to address it. He says, no, I don't think so. How do you expect that community that you live in to be responsive to the Word of God if they see no difference in your life? There's no contrast. They lived in a church at Corinth. The area there had roughly half a million people at that time when this was written. It was a very affluent area. It was a kind of a crossroads where a lot of trade came through. These people had everything they could have probably ever wanted, a lot of these Christian believers. So there was no real dependency on God. We can get to the same point. We say, well, you know, I don't have a ton of money, but am I daily dependent on God? That's what Paul's trying to address here. These individuals, they heard the message that needed to be said, but they basically closed their heart and closed their mind to that, and instead of actually directing that anger and frustration towards God, who do they direct it towards? The messenger. Think of Jeremiah. Some of the prophets that we know of in the Old Testament. Jeremiah popped into my mind earlier when I was studying this. When he delivered some of his messages, some of the hardest messages he had to deliver to the king, what was the result of that message that he gave him? Did he put him up in a five-star hotel, said, thank you for giving me that message? Where did he put him? In a pit, where there was mud. It was disgusting. I'm sure there was a lot of disease. His message was not received well. And because of that, he was basically thrown into a prison, in this case, a pit. Paul delivers this message to this church. And instead of them repenting and realizing, you know what, you're right, man. There's a lot of things I need to deal with in my heart. I am very carnal minded. I am very selfish. What do they do? Well, I'm going to go attack his character. I don't like the message that he's saying. I don't like what God is telling me to do. So instead of really shaking my fist so much at God and yelling at God, who can I take it out on? I'm going to take it out on the messenger. I'm going to take it out on Paul. What do they end up doing? Attack his character. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. There were approximately... I don't have time to get into all of... He was attacked by... They had several different arguments, I guess, that they used to try to attack his character. They claimed that Paul was being authoritarian. In other words, what the message that he was delivering to him, well, that's just because you think you're better than the rest of us, and you're grabbing authority that really isn't yours. Wasn't the case. He's delivering a message that God specifically told him to give to that church. They needed to hear it. They went after him. They attacked him because of his fickleness. They attacked him. They claimed he had cowardice. One of the major issues that they went after, they said, I'm not going to listen to your teaching because I am questioning your credentials. How would they do that? Well, you weren't one of the original disciples. So what you're preaching to us, that's invalid. It doesn't matter. We have a pastor here that preaches in our church. Is he one of the original disciples? I mean, he'd be really old, but is he one of the original disciples? No. But the message that he delivers on a weekly basis to us comes from the Word of God. Paul was commissioned directly by God. When he was confronted and understood that he was a sinner, that he was actually persecuting the church, what he was doing was actually doing more harm than good. When he was confronted by God, what was his reaction? Got on his knees and confessed. Then he ends up delivering the messages to these churches that they absolutely needed to hear. They went after his, questioned his credentials. They said he was an individual who had fleshliness. How many of us struggle with sin of the flesh? Probably every one of us in here, to some degree or another. We know it is that sin that we struggle with. Paul wouldn't have been necessarily innocent of that. Who of us is? So instead of actually listening to the message that was being delivered, this is years down the road, they said, forget this, I don't care what that message was, I'm not going to listen to that message, I'm going to go attack this man's character and get him out of here. You have no bearing in my life, I don't have to listen to what you have to say. The problem is they're rejecting God or rejecting the Word of God. Church members can get to this point where they have stopped listening to what God has to say. They're stopped listening to what the Word of God has to say. They're more interested in what I want. So how does this play out? I reject your authority. I no longer will listen to what the pastor's preaching. I'm no longer going to listen to maybe what's being discussed in Sunday school. I'm not going to listen to those things where the Word of God is saying, you need to change. Because I don't want to change. That's where the problem is. They also attacked him on, they said he had a failure to maintain proper clerical dignity. There's a group, there's a list of about eight things all together. We're not going to get into all those today and specifically go after those. Paul has later deals in second Corinthians and he addresses some of these issues and he's saying, well, here's something I want you to understand. You have corrupted the Word. And he goes into details of how this group of people have corrupted the Word of God. They've kind of wrapped things around to a way that they wanted the Word of God preached. Maybe in a way that wasn't convicting to them. This is the message that we want to deliver. Not what you have to say. This is how we see the Word of God. They were being very deceptive. They were looking to stir up problems, cause other people to tell lies directed at Paul to get other people on their side. They were very domineering. It was their way or the highway. This sounds like a lot of love going on here. This group of people, It just kind of steamrolled. They were very bold. And not in a good way. Not being bold in witness. They were being bold at whatever they had to say. I don't care who gets hurt. I'm going to deliver it anyway. The message isn't being delivered in love. We have a pastor here. We have, I would say, evangelists that come through these doors that may preach a lot of difficult things that we don't want to hear. But if it's done with a heart of love, we respect that kind of boldness. That's what we need to hear. Their kind of boldness was self-serving. It was being very selfish, arrogant, prideful. One of the things that Paul also addresses with them is he's saying, you lack the spiritual courage to start your own ministries. When I was involved in this church plant, there were a lot of programs that they would have, and we would have loved to have had a way to do that. I mean, Beck and I were involved in teaching Sunday school. We had teens, so we were involved in a small youth group they had. There was a lot of little programs that we got involved in, and it's very difficult in that small work to have everything run the way you'd like to. It's just not easy. One of the ways that people end up when they're confronted about their sin, but they don't really want to deal with it, it's much easier for them to just simply attack what's being done around them. Well, this isn't done the way that it should be done. I don't see your hand in the air. I'm not seeing you going out and being involved in that ministry. I'm not seeing you help. And what Paul is trying to address here is saying, You lack the spiritual courage to actually be obedient to the Word of God and go out and do these things. Are you going to do those perfect? Probably not. I learned very quickly in that church plan. There's a lot of stuff that I didn't know. I've been saved over a long period of time. I had gone to Bible school and had gotten my undergraduate degree was in Bible Christian training. I should know about the Word of God. I did to a point, but there's a lot of things that you think you know that you don't really know until you get in the middle of it. Getting married. There's a lot of things that I thought I knew. Marriage has a way, kids have a way of fleshing out those selfish things that are in our heart that really need to be dealt with. That we don't think are really a problem. If I were to put my wife on the stand today and thank the Lord, I'm not going to do that. But if I were to put her on the stand or my boys on the stand, they'll tell you exactly who dad is. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Not always pleasant like I would rather it is. There's a lot of things that I do that are wrong. I am a Christian who also struggles in the flesh. We all can identify with that. These individuals we're looking to, I don't care about God's message, I'm going to attack this guy regardless. I can get him out of here. I don't have to listen to what he's telling me to do. I don't have to listen to the Word of God. I can find someone to come in here and tickle my ears and preach what I want to hear. That's the problem that he's addressing here. What was holding back the church from being blessed fully by God? Sin. Pride. What is the same thing that holds back most churches today? Pride. Your needs are not as important as mine. One of the things that I learned, and I've shared this with Josh, and even pastors as well, when I was involved in that church plant, we didn't have much. We were in five different buildings over the period of like between eight and nine years. Five. The last four-ish, four, four and a half years or whatever, we're at a funeral home. Now, that's great. I mean, granted, generally, we always had somebody that we could use as an illustration, because they're hanging out in the coffin behind the curtain. That's not really an uplifting environment to have people come and worship God. It's not. But what you learn very quickly was, why am I serving here? Why am I ministering here? Why am I getting involved here? Because I love God. More importantly, or just as important as that, once I get that part right, I'm serving because I love God. I'm serving because of these people. Not the building. It's not the stuff. We didn't have a lot of programs. We did what we could. Why was it important to us? Because I knew the needs of those people. I knew that they needed the Word of God. I knew that they needed teaching and instruction. I knew that they needed to be discipled. The way that I kind of started to learn to view My service, especially in that case, if you served in the military, one of the things that you find out very quickly with individuals that are at the war front, you need somebody to set up a tent that would be kind of like a mass unit. Why is that necessary? People are being hurt. People are being injured. People are being wounded in unbelievable ways. When dealing with people, and if I have a heart of love for those people, one of the things that becomes very clear very quickly, they got a lot of wounds. They've been injured. Maybe they got a broken home, broken marriage, had a horrible relationship with their mom or dad when they were a kid, and that has stuck with them up till now. They may be using it as an excuse or whatever, but they've got a lot of baggage. They got a lot of stuff. It's not something that is very easily remedied. One of the things that I, the reason that I look at it and say, well, serving in a church is almost like being in part of a mass unit. I can see those injuries. I can see those needs. I can see those wounds that these people have, and I can help to address those. I can help to comfort them. I can help to encourage them, but the only real, The permanent solution there is how God Almighty gets a hold of their heart through the Word of God, and He's the one that heals them from the inside out. I can kind of deal with superficial wounds, but I've got to understand that God is the one that perfectly heals them, not me. A lot of times you can kind of take things personally, and you've been working with somebody for a while, and we saw this. We saw families come and go. God didn't call me there. He didn't call the pastor there. He didn't call my wife in there to serve there. to take everything personally. These people had needs. They were confronted about those needs. They were maybe dressed up their wounds a little bit. We tried to help them where we could. But when sometimes it came down to areas of obedience to the Word of God, I was saying, well, I don't want to let that go. Man, you don't know the family structure I've got. You don't know what happened to me ever since I was maybe three years old on, the physical abuse or the verbal abuse or even the sexual abuse that happened to me back here. You're right, I don't. God does. And it was difficult to see some of those families leave. A lot came in, a lot went. The number one thing that I had to get right in my mind is these people, above all, needed to know that I loved them. I could give them the Word of God. I could come down bold. I could come down and basically challenge them to put away those things that they're struggling with. Put away that sin. God's got a better way, obviously. But if I don't do that in a way where there's humility and love, that's just words, man. They care less. And a lot of them, I don't know, going out the door. Not because we didn't love them. They were rejecting God. This group of people that he's dealing with in 2 Corinthians 1 here, they knew what the Word of God said. But instead of listening to what the Word of God said, they said, now my ideas are better. I don't care what God thinks. I'm going to live however I want. This is who Paul's dealing with. The lesson today deals with being a channel of comfort. I wanted to kind of go give you a little bit of background here because you have an individual who's being personally attacked, but he still wants to deliver a message of hope that needed to be delivered to this church. He could have very easily just said, fine, man, you're on your own. You guys figure it out. What's he end up doing? He said, no, no, no, no, no. I know these people. Granted, it might have only been a year and a half that he had gotten to know these, but they were important to him. Why are they important to him? Because they were brothers and sisters in Christ. They had value. They were blessings. Paul looked at all these individuals that had gotten saved because of his ministry and he said, every single one of you is a blessing by God. Every single one of you has value. One of the things that tears our churches apart today is we don't look at the person across the aisle from us and the seat next to us as being a blessing by God. We don't see their needs. We don't see the fact that they still need to be encouraged and loved regardless of who they are. We may not know their backstory, all of it, but we need to be happy they're here. We need to encourage them. Strengthen them. Find ways to gently disciple them. Not with a hammer over their head. Gently discipling them. Loving on them. How does he begin this? 2 Corinthians 1-3 We read, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth. Will all the saints, which are at Achaia, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. We also suffer, or, I'm sorry. Wow, I skipped ahead. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort. Paul could have very easily, in the first part of this letter, lashed out. What does he deliver? Two words there. Two words that have been very significant. A lot of times we gloss over, oh, that's just, man, that's just an intro to a letter. That's something that a lot of people writing a letter at that point in time would have said, these two words, and they really didn't mean anything. Use the words grace and peace. Anyone know what grace is? Those of you who are saved know exactly what grace is, right? What is grace? Undeserved favor. By who? By God. How many of us in this room would say, I deserve to be saved because I am such a wonderful person? Hey, look at your spouse. They got to extend grace on a daily basis and an hourly basis just to live with you. Do we deserve grace today? No. But we're given it nonetheless by God. He wants to point out to them. Now grace was something that was a lot of times in conversation when a lot of the Gentiles would converse to each other, they might use that word grace or something that was very similar to it. What Paul's alluding to here is he's saying, how many of you deserve grace? Instead of going at immediately what needs to be addressed in this church, I want you to go back to why you're here to begin with. Why are you even in church here? Because God extended His grace to you, and you accepted that gift of salvation, and you're saved. It's nothing that you did. It's nothing that I can raise my hand and let everybody know, man, I'm such a wonderful person. I got grace from God Almighty because I'm such a wonderful person. No way. No way. Paul knows above anybody else that he was experiencing grace on a daily basis. Paul was persecuting the church. He was one of the individuals that last week Pastor mentioned, and he helped in the stoning. of one of the deacons of the early church, Stephen. If anybody, he looks at him, man, I don't deserve grace at all. Some of the stuff that I can look at back in my past, no, I don't deserve grace. He wants to remind this church of why they're there to begin with. It's not because they're such wonderful people. It's not because they're so morally good and wonderful. It's because they experienced grace on behalf of God Almighty. He's the one that brought it into their life. Undeserved favor. Peace. Peace. We hear this word a lot. When we think of peace, we think of the Jewish people, it was something like shalom would be the word that they would use. A lot of times when we may see some Jewish people and they meet each other, they might use that word shalom. And a lot of times, oh, okay, it just means peace. Paul is trying to address what's significant about that peace. When it comes to salvation, prior to salvation, where were we positionally with God? At odds. And I'm doing that lightly. We're at enmity between us and God. We were enemies! That word peace was only available because of grace. What is it that Christ did on the cross for us? Took my sin, took your sin, undeserved punishment that was placed on Him because of us, That peace, that grace, was only there because of Him. Paul wants to take this church and bring them back to the very beginning and say, come on here, listen up children, grow up. The peace that you have by God Almighty is only there because of His grace. A lot of times we... We get lazy, I think, in our Christianity, and we start grumbling and getting maybe upset about certain things that we would like maybe done differently in the church that we're ministering in, or maybe just in dealing with brothers and sisters in Christ in general. And we get upset, and we get kind of cantankerous, and we kind of just have a rotten attitude. And the problem in most cases is because my pride has reared its ugly head. I no longer am remembering the peace and grace that have been given to me by God Almighty. I'm more worried about my needs, what's important to me. I've completely forgotten about the fact that I deserve hell. I deserve eternal separation from God. I don't deserve anything good. Nothing. Peace and grace. Shalom in Hebrew is the word for peace. has a much richer meaning than our English word. While we typically equate peace with an absence of conflict, for the Jews, it referred to the wholeness and prosperity, especially in a spiritual sense. Our church, inside our church, and inside churches across America, we want peace. We want unity. But at what cost? We can have the absence, if you will, of conflict, as long as everybody's doing what maybe one or two individuals want. What he's trying to address here is he's saying, look, we cannot move forward, this church cannot move forward spiritually and see all the blessing that God has for this church if there's strife here. And the strife is here because of your arrogance and your pride. It needs to be fleshed out, it needs to be dealt with. Not squashed, not just kind of, okay, those individuals that are trying to serve God, and they're bringing this up, and they're bringing this letter up that Paul had written in 1 Corinthians saying, you guys need to read this and listen to the Word of God. They were being squashed and a few individuals were kind of running the show. That's where the problem is. They might have in their minds said, okay, we're going to have peace. We're going to have no conflict because I'm going to squash it and put it down. The peace that he wanted this church experience was one of spiritual wholeness, that I understand who I am in the presence of God. I understand the sinner that I really am. He wanted them to experience the fullness of their salvation, not just, okay, this happened once, and I'm still gonna go and live however I want. In my marriage, one of the things that I learned very early on, if mama's not happy, nobody's happy. Thank you. And I learned very early on that as much as was within me, if I can become less selfish and sacrifice more for my wife and communicate to her in a loving way of how important she is to me, my life's going to be a whole lot better. My marriage is going to be a whole lot better. My family is going to be a whole lot stronger. Why? Because she has value, and I'm communicating to her the fact that she has value to me. on a daily basis. I can operate and say it's my way or the highway, and I can still be married, but what kind of marriage is that? Not a fun one, man. I've got to sleep with one eye open. I have no idea what's going to be flying on my head next. That doesn't sound peaceful. That is definitely not the absence of conflict. This is what he's trying to address here. In verse 3, in verse 3, blessed be the God Even the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Paul wants to get them back to the fact that they understand where does comfort, where does true comfort come from? Couple of years, about a year ago-ish, we got another mattress. I tell you what, man, at least for a little while, man, that was comfortable. Over time, mattresses fall apart. What we once had that we thought was comfort and actually having a good night's sleep, when you don't have the right mattress, man, you figure that out really quickly that this isn't comfortable. It's not the kind of comfort I'm talking about. That's comfort that's just what makes me happy. Comfort that he's trying to address here as he's saying, where does the true source of comfort come from? It comes from God Almighty. One of the things that we learn very quickly in our walk as a Christian, There's a lot of junk I've got to get out of this heart. There's a lot of stuff, man, that I've been saving and holding on to that really is not helping me at all. If I want to really experience God's comfort and His wholeness in my heart, I've got to get rid of this junk. And now, okay, I've got that part of it. Now what do I put into it? The Word of God. If God is the source of all true comfort, and this is what He's trying to address to this group of people, What he wants them to understand is that stuff that you're chasing after, that you think is so important, that seems to be so paramount that you have in your life to justify the way you're treating me and the way you're treating your brothers and sisters in Christ, that means nothing. That's just stuff. That's just stuff. Why are we holding on to it? The comfort that he's addressing here is he's saying, you have no idea what tomorrow's going to bring. You have absolutely no idea what God's going to bring into your life next. And you know when you need comfort the most? Man, when you're going through something difficult. Paul is trying to point out to them, and he'll share several examples later in 2 Corinthians, but he's saying, look, I understand God's comfort, because I understand God's testing. I understand God's tribulation. And it's during those times that I really started to understand what God's peace and God's true comfort is. I wouldn't have known it otherwise, because I'm dependent completely on me. When that stuff's removed, And I got no one to hold on to but God Almighty. That's when I really understand what God's comfort is. To be able to lay your head down at night and not be restless over the fact that your eternal destination is heaven, that that's secured. I can't imagine what that's like. I work with several guys that have gone through very difficult divorces. They are not saved. They have no peace. They do not have the peace of God. Their life is a mess. Two of these guys I can think of specifically. They don't sleep much. They don't eat much. There really is not a whole lot of joy or happiness in their life right now. They don't understand the comfort that can happen in a Christian's life because of God Almighty. They don't have any of that. We have that. Why are we not cultivating that more, hanging on to that more, rejoicing in that more? We don't do it. Mercies. Mercy basically means pity. It means compassion. When my wife is going through something that is difficult, having a sensitive heart for those things, you start to learn early on, and I've learned this early on, that at that point in time, she needs compassion. She needs understanding. It's not so much Ben's got to come to the rescue and have some great solution to her problem. What do you learn early on, Farley? It might be better to actually keep the mouth closed. Get the arms open. Give her a hug. Give her some love. Give her some affection. She just wants to be held. She wants to be comforted. Every single one of us knows what that's like. Every single one of us, when it came to salvation, that's what we wanted. My life's a mess, man. And God's going to give me this free gift of salvation that's going to take that stuff away? Yeah, you bet. It's going to be a process. It's going to take some time. But he wanted to wrap his arms around us and let us just sob. There's been a few opportunities in my marriage where that's happened, man, where my wife's gone through something that is tough, something that is difficult. Some of it might've been a result of me. Some of it might've been a result of my boys. She needs to know that she's loved, accepted, okay? This is what Paul's trying to address to this church. Mercies, compassion, pity. What he's trying to get these people to understand is whether you realize that or not, you're hurting. Whether you want to identify this or not, you are actually hurting. They're attacking Him because they're hurting in here. If I'm against what God wants to do, if I'm challenging His authority and I'm going out of my way to attack, in this case, the church is attacking Paul, or I'm looking to attack maybe the leadership that's in the church that I'm in or whatever, the real reason that I'm doing this is because I'm hurting here. And the reason that I'm hurting is because I'm not being submissive to the will of God. I'm not pouring out my heart before God. I'm no longer in a position of humility before God. What Paul wants to address this church is saying, go back to that moment when you were saved. Go back to when you were first saved and brought into this church. That mercy, that comfort, that grace that you experienced, it's still there. But there's some stuff that's kind of got to get dealt with before you're going to get back to that. To have pity, to have concern, to have empathy. One of the things that my mom went through I have a younger sister. And if I read the Word of God and I lay hold of the promises that are in the Word of God, at one point in time, when I get into glory, I'll be able to see my younger sister. She was alive for a couple of hours. I don't know what that's like. I mean, to me, I never saw her. I don't know what that was like for my mom to go through that. I'm sure it wasn't easy. She had the Word of God, she had some close friends that helped steer her towards the comfort that can only come from God Almighty, from Jesus Christ, from having that relationship with Jesus Christ. But she looks back on it now, and I've had opportunities to talk with her about it. She takes joy in that, not because it was an easy event, but she takes joy in the fact that God has given her something that he hasn't given everybody else. There have been women, In the church that I grew up in, that have experienced the same thing. Now for some of them, that child was around for six months. Even up to a year, they lost that child. She knows what loss is. The comfort that she got came only from God Almighty. Came only from relying on the Word of God. Came only from trusting the promises of God. And she's able to then relay that same message to them. Not an easy proposition, not something that's easily overcome. But what she enjoys on that, when you see the word pity there and you see compassion, she's placing herself in the middle of their struggle, saying, I've gone through this. I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to sit right here and I'm going to go through that difficulty with you. You may not have the answers right now. You're not going to have immediately that comfort that you want right now today. But if you hang on and you let God work in your heart, he's going to bring that into your life. When is the last time? A lot of times we take it very easy. We hear of someone that has a need and we say, well, I'll pray for you. That's good, but it's almost like a cop-out. That's an easy, quick answer. Are we willing to take that extra step? Oh man, all right, this is gonna take some time. Okay. What kind of attitude is that? If I have empathy, if I have compassion for that individual, because of God's love and what He's done for me, I'm willing to sit right next to that person. If it ends up being six months, if it ends up being a year, I'm there every day that I possibly can encourage them. Why? Because I want them to experience the same comfort and joy that I have in Jesus Christ. I have no idea, a lot of times, what some people are going through. And it's very easy to kind of take that easy approach and just say, yeah, I'll be praying for you. That's great. Do we follow up anything with it? Do we actually take and try to place ourselves in the middle of that situation? How would I respond? You may not have the answers, folks. We don't. I mean, we have the Word of God. A lot of times, it's not even so much the verse that we give them. Because a lot of times, we struggle with this. When I go to a funeral, what do I say? There's verses in the Word of God that we can give to them, yes. But above all, a lot of times, they just want someone to listen, someone to hug on them, someone to relate to them. to say, you know what, I don't know what to say right now, but He does. The Holy Spirit does. That's who makes the biggest difference in their life. It's not me, it's not anything that I can really do. Yes, I may have experiences that kind of line up to something that they did, but it's God Almighty that heals. We may try to put the bandage on, or put the salve on to help with that wound, but it's God Almighty that works from the inside out, that helps them through everything. Verses four and five. In verses 4 and 5, "...who comforteth all in his tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted by God. For the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." One of the more difficult things that he mentions here in verses 4 and 5 is, and this is something that's not easy for Christians, if I'm going to be identified with Christ, what does that also mean for me? I'm going to suffer. I'm going to suffer. Did Christ suffer on our behalf? Absolutely. There are going to be times where because I identify with Christ and I take that stand, it's going to cost me something. There's going to be some tribulation. There's going to be some testing. Some things that I really don't want to go through. But if I don't allow myself to be placed in that situation and look to see what it is that God has for me then, I'm going to miss the blessing altogether. going through that church plant. A lot of families came and went. I took a personal. I had invested a lot of time. I invested a lot of energy in trying to encourage them, in trying to disciple them. And when they walked away, it almost felt like a personal affront to me. So then you're kind of going through your mind. Did you say something wrong? Did you do something wrong? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. My job at that point in time was to love them regardless. Let God deal with the other stuff. Tribulation, testing, things that are not difficult to go through. Tribulation is one of those words where, and probably the best way to describe it is, inner pressure because of outside circumstances. Inner pressure because of outside circumstances. I know for my wife, prior to us having the four boys that we have, We had been married for seven, seven and a half years before we were able to have children. And I know for my wife, her number one prayer was to meet an amazing man, and she got that. No. Her number one prayer, her number one thing that she wanted, even as a young girl, was as she got older, was to get married and have children and be a mom. Didn't care about necessarily a career. Didn't care about a lot of that stuff. I mean, if God intervened in a lot of that to happen, so be it. Her number one thing that she prayed earnestly for, night after night, especially, and I didn't know this as much. Guys are clueless. I'll admit it. Guys are clueless. She wanted a child. And every time Mother's Day came around, for those first seven to eight years or roughly that we were married, she'd be very quiet on the ride home. I thought it was something I said the night before. I didn't, you know, I wasn't cool as it must have been. Her heart was broken because of a deep-rooted desire that she had. She wanted to have a child. But she has said to me time and time again that after God eventually answered that prayer, one of the things that we ended up doing, more her than me, I didn't understand it so much at the time, she held on to Samuel. She took an example from the word of God and she said, you know what? I'm gonna identify with Hannah. There is a need that I'm gonna continue to pray about and I'm gonna see God's hand eventually answer that and intercede as only he can. But God, if you, just like Hannah prayed, God, you give me a son, he's yours. We got to a point where that's exactly how we prayed. I've been my oldest. Pray every day that he will eventually submit his life and become a preacher. Why? Because of that promise years ago. I don't know if it'll happen or not. God has to continue to work in that young man's heart. He has a very soft and tender heart, and I'm praying that God eventually will direct him that way in some fashion. But we prayed before he was even ever born that we were gonna give him back to him. He's not ours anyway. We're being entrusted to him for a number of years as God sees fit. He's not ours. And we take joy in him, yes, but he's God's. What this church needed to get a hold of is any testing, any trial, any tribulation that they're going to go through, God gives comfort even in those situations. I don't think God necessarily looks at it and has a big smile on His face when He's allowing something difficult to come into our life. As a parent, I don't want to see my kids suffer. I don't want to see them go through anything as difficult. But when you start to understand that it's in those difficult moments when I have to rely completely on Christ alone for encouragement, for hope, for comfort, those are the things that I learn the most from. So if it means me going through that tribulation, if it means me going through that testing, to have a better understanding of what God's comfort actually involves, then bring it on, Lord. I need more of that. One of the ways that we can provide this comfort, there's two ways. I can either look at that and say, what I'm going through, that comfort that I need, and I'm going to bottle that up and save it for a rainy day. Or I can be a conduit. I can then communicate that love to somebody else. I can communicate that comfort that I received back here. I need to go and encourage whoever it is and say, you know what? I thought it was the end of the world. I thought I was going through a difficult situation that nobody else understood. Well, I'm sitting here next to you. because I know exactly what God is doing. He wants the best for us, folks. He's not a vengeful God. He's not a arrogant God. He's not a God that's just trying to make life difficult for us. He's a God of love. And the only way that he can oftentimes get our attention is to put us through something difficult so we can have concern and empathy for somebody that's sitting next to us. The reason that we're having so many problems in the church in Corinth is people didn't care. There was no love. I want what I want. I don't care about anybody else. My needs are paramount. I don't care about the person sitting next to me. If you're challenging me from the word of God, well, you know what? That's what you get out of the Bible. That's not what I get out of the Bible. There's no love in that. There's no grace in that. There's no mercy in that. Get back to that moment, folks. The challenge I have for you today is get back to the moment of salvation. Appreciate it. Thankful for it. We're coming into a week where, we're coming into a week where, man, we should be even more thankful for our salvation. Don't ignore it. Don't neglect it. Don't just push it off to the side and say, you know, well, that was a highlight back here. Make that an everyday thing. Get up in the morning. And it may not be a fun morning when you get up, because it could have been earlier than you wanted to get up. But be thankful. Get on your knees the first thing when you get out of bed and thank God for giving you another day to live and serve Him. Thank Him for His salvation. Thank You for His mercy. Thank You for His grace. Because we could still be living in that sin. We could still be muddling around, have no clue what's going on. Our life's ravaged with pain. Because we don't understand God's comfort at all. Be thankful for it. Okay? That is how that church is going to get their self back on the road it needs to be on, is if individuals are willing to kind of sacrifice their needs, go across the aisle, do whatever is necessary. If they got to reconcile something that happened, then so be it. If I got to swallow some humble pie to go across the aisle and talk to somebody about something that happened years ago that really has not been dealt with, then so be it. This church God has placed here for a purpose, for a reason. Okay? He wants to bless this church. He wants to see it moving forward. He wants to see it glorifying His name. It can't do that, folks, if we are full of pride. Brother Josh, will you close us in prayer, please? Amen.