2nd Corinthians chapter 1 and let's begin reading in verse 3 as Paul begins his Thanksgiving prayer here Blessed be God even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Jesus Christ. We've introduced this book with the theme, it's a pretty long theme, but with the theme of Cruciform ministry worthy of boasting and approved service of Christ or in Christ and so what the Paul is Battling here is the carnality that is there in the church at Corinth He has battled it through several epistles one that we have first Corinthians in which Paul says that he is destroying the wisdom of the wise and so why would you want to Think like the world. Why would you want to act like the world? Why in the world would you want to conduct yourself in a way that is appealing to the world and the world would pat you on the back and you would have the riches and the prosperity and the standing within the community there? Why would you want to go that way? Because all that does is generate pride. Paul says to that church, you are What's the King James wording? You are puffed up. Paul says this several, several times. The church as a whole responded to those letters, and yet there was a remnant, a strong vocal faction within that church that was the root of the problems that was going on. Paul calls them super apostles, and we'll see that when we get to chapter 12. He calls them super apostles because they were bragging about themselves. And they were bragging about their strengths. They were saying, now look, our ministry is approved of God, and here's how you know that it is approved of God. We are successful. We do not suffer like who? Like Paul. We conduct ourselves with great oratory. We're good preachers. Not like who? Not like Paul. And so they go through all of these things that are there, and one of the major things that they're using to discredit Paul's ministry is the fact that Paul suffered. And we're going to look at that. And we too do the same thing, brethren. When we look for where is the hand of the Lord? Who's got the hand of the Lord on them? What do we look for? Well, we want to look that they're successful, we want to look at maybe the numbers of people they quote led to the Lord, we want to look at how their ministries are doing, we want to look at how many buildings they have, how much money is in the bank, what are their plans, are they expanding themselves. We look at all those things and Paul says all of that is worldly carnal thinking. So let's let that sink in just for a second. And so those false super apostles were having an inroad because the Corinthians themselves knew of the afflictions and they knew of the trials that Paul himself was going through. So Paul combats this carnality by giving, really, two ways. And he's not giving them a choice. He's saying, go this way. And one of those ways is the worldly, fleshy, carnal, prideful way that the Corinthians had embraced. Paul speaks of this in the first four chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians. And the other way is Paul's way, right? He sends Timothy back to that church, 1 Corinthians chapter 4, to remind them, Paul had taught them this way, to remind them of his ways. What was his ways? It was the ways of Calvary. It was the way of the what? The cross. It was a cross-shaped way, and that's where we get the word cruciform from. Cruciform, a cross-shaped service, one to another. to lost people that is worthy of boasting in Christ Jesus. So Paul presents this way to them. He commands them to walk in that way, not in the way of the world. Folks, we have two ways that we can look at this. Let me ask you, how do you look when you look at Paul? I don't mean the image of Paul that you have in your mind of him going into a city and thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people make profession of faith in Christ. Paul's ministry was not that way. In fact, Paul had to defend his lack of converts in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 in the first few verses there. His super-apostle said, if his gospel is so right and his gospel is so glorious, why doesn't he have more converts? And Paul answers, because they're blind. The God of this world has blinded their eyes. How do we look at the apostle Paul? Well, we can look at it two ways, I think. We can look at it and pity him. We can almost have a rise in our heart, I'm so sorry for you, Paul. And then the thought arises in our heart that I'm so glad that he had to go through that and not me. I get to live in America. I get to have all my things and money and comforts. You can look at Paul that way, right? And I'm only telling you that you can look at Paul that way because I've had those feelings arise in my own mind. Paul doesn't look at it that way. He starts out in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3, the first three words. What's Paul's perspective on his trials and tribulations and sufferings? He says, blessed be who? Blessed be God. Paul is thankful. And that's the other way that we can look upon his ministry, instead of pitying him and thinking, well, I'm so glad you had to go through that because you're some super apostle with super faith. Paul says, no, no, no, we have a like faith. My faith is nothing more or less than what your faith is. We believe the same thing, the same gospel. Instead of looking at him and pitying him, we can look back and say, thanks be to God, because of what God did in the apostle's life. And I've mentioned this before, I've looked at the apostle's life and meditated on it to some degree, and I walk away saying, how could you do this, Paul? I would have quit. I'm just telling you right off. I would have quit. I would have sat in a prison cell and gotten so depressed, I probably would have wanted to take my life. And Paul experienced those same depressions, and yet he walks out of that prison cell, thanked be to God. What's he thanking God for? For God's power. For God's grace of endurance in the midst of the trials. For God's grace to strengthen him so that he can go down from Berea after they had chased him out, a ruly, unmobbed crowd had chased him all the way to Berea, and yet those in Berea were a better mind. They searched the Scriptures to see if those things were really so, and Paul's being chased from Thessalonica to Berea, all down from Philippi. He's being chased around by a rebel crowd. He got beat, didn't he? So that by the time he got to Corinth in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, he says, I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. How do you go on with that type of reaction from your sinful body? How can you go on? The grace of God. Amen? The grace of God. And that's what he's thanking God for. He's not necessarily thanking for the trial, but he understands what the trial and the weaknesses are for. They're to show God's power so that he gets the glory and you don't get any pride about what a good Christian you are. It drives me up the wall. Down south, they'll say, well, he was just a good Christian. That's like taking your nails on a chalkboard and going, to me. There is no such thing. There's only a good God and a good Christ who's in that person's vessel if they know him. Amen? It's his strength, his power, his knowledge, his goodness. So let me ask you, do you thank God for Paul and his sufferings? In this Thanksgiving prayer, which is introducing to us, verses 3 through 7, it's introducing to us the whole theme of the rest of the book. Paul speaks of afflictions. Look at verse 4 when he says, God comforts us in all our tribulation. In verse 4, he uses the word trouble, when in any trouble. In verse 5, he uses this phrase that we looked at last week, the sufferings of Christ. The exact same sufferings that Christ endured when he was on this earth. In verse 6, you see the word afflicted. In verse 6, you got the word, the same sufferings. In verse 7, you got being partakers of the sufferings. Paul talks more about sufferings than any other apostle. And he also talks more about comfort than any other apostle. And in this first 7 verses, what we have here is the afflictions and the tribulations, and folks, when he's talking about those tribulations he is referring to both external and internal trial. What kind of things would be external? Beatings, mobs, stoning, hunger, churches. I figured you weren't going to say that one. churches, those external troubles that are there. What kind of distresses that are there? They're both external and they are internal. Now, please hold this in your mind, because as soon as we define all this, we're going to, we're going to go through this section. You'll see exactly what Paul is trying to communicate to us. He has internal distresses. These are troubles that arise inside of us, sometimes because of external circumstances, sometimes they're just there. These are internal troubles that cause anxiety, they cause fretting, they cause perplexity, they cause distress, they cause pressure. And folks, every one of us walks around every day with those kinds of things, don't we? And Paul calls these tribulations, these afflictions, these troubles, Paul calls them, verse 5, the sufferings of Christ. That's a perspective, brethren, that will ease our burden. The sufferings of Christ, the exact same sufferings that Christ endured when he walked on the earth. And so I ask myself this question, have you ever gone into your Bible and listed the sufferings Christ went through? Because that category, if you are suffering the same sufferings, that category you will begin to see happen in your own life. He was tempted in all points, brethren, like as we are yet without what? Without sin. He experienced external anxieties, he experienced internal distresses, and we know that. All we have to do is look at the Garden of Gethsemane. The Gospels are not entirely explicit on all the sufferings that Jesus went through, but Paul understood and he knew Jesus was a man, wasn't he, brethren? He was a man. The nail through his hands caused internal anxiety, just like it does or would with us. These are the sufferings of Christ and here in this book we could actually make a list. Let me help you with the list. We're just going to confine ourselves within 2 Corinthians. Go to chapter 4 and let's just look at some of these inner and external and outward distresses. He says in verse 7 of 2 Corinthians, we have this treasure, that is, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Well, why did God put it in a weak vessel? So that the excellency of the power may be of us may be of God and not of us. He's troubled on every side, yet not distressed perplexed, but not in despair persecuted, but not forsaken cast down, but not destroyed folks on every Avenue of Paul's life. His life was surrounded with trouble. I bet your life. Isn't that surrounded? In every area of his life, he was perplexed. He didn't always know what to do, brethren. He didn't always know what the will of God. He didn't always understand why things were happening. And it was in that perplexity, we're going to get the comfort that he's going to give to us. Good came out of the perplexity, didn't it? Good came out of the weakness, the weakness of his perplexity, the weaknesses of his response to trouble, the persecution that came when he felt forsaken. You ever felt forsaken? Paul felt forsaken. He felt distress. He felt despair. Paul got depressed, just like you and I get depressed. And he says in verse 10 that he was always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our body. And folks, what we learn is this, is that whatever your catalog of weaknesses are on that sheet, it is those very things that God has left in your life so that His power might be seen if you will yield to His Spirit in it. The life of Christ comes out of us in the midst of our distresses, our anxieties, our perplexities, our doubts, our struggles, our agonies. The New Testament speaks of. You ever prayed for the power of God in your life? You ever prayed for it to be on the church? And then God brings trouble. He's answering your prayer. You say, well, I would just rather things be comfortable. Yeah, and then you take credit for it. Right? You take credit. You hold seminars on how to get a big church. You hold seminars on how to do it. You say, how do you do it? People don't like this answer. God. God. And they walk away like the rich young ruler with great sadness in their heart. Because they're looking for a program, they're looking for a method, and it's the way of the cross that brings the power of God. So how'd you do it? Weakness? Agony? Shame? Reproach? Oh, I don't want that kind of ministry. Well, if you don't want that kind of ministry, if you don't want that kind of serving one another, then you're building with wood, hay, and stubble. It's gonna burn away. And you will experience regret at the beam of judgment of Christ. Right, brethren? This is the area. You say, well, I can't speak. Well, look, here I am, here, raised up as a boy. What was your major characteristic for Frank Jones? I was shy, I was a loner, I definitely did not want to stand up in front of people and speak. Look at me! You say, well, you went to school, you got taught homiletics and hermeneutics and got taught pulpit speech and, you know. Well, you just got to give credit to man, don't you? Folks, God makes strength out of weakness. Somebody asked me last week, said, do you still get nervous where you preach? And the answer to that is yes, it's never gone away. And so Paul is, thanking God for this. Look in chapter 6 and look at verse 4. This is amazing. Paul's giving a further list of his hardships, his credentials. In fact, in verse 4, he says, now in every area of my life, I am demonstrating, I'm approving myself as a minister of God. So you want to know what it is to be a servant of God? Here it is. You will have in your life the need of patience meaning things are going to bear down on you that are going to press on you that are going to Be heavy to bear that you might even say to yourself. I'm not sure I can go on another step You're going to be afflicted. You're going to have necessities in your life. You're going to go without you're going to be full of anxiety You may be beat with stripes. You may have limitations in your life Imprisonments you may have upsetness in your family or your extended family or in the community you're going to work Folks, if you're going to serve Christ, it's going to take exhaustive labor to do so. Because everything under the sun is against you doing that. It's going to take labors, it's going to take being up late at night, it's going to take involuntary fastings. And folks, what you're going to do in the midst of all those things is you're going to exhibit the life of Christ. There'll be verse 6, purity. You're going to learn about Christ, knowledge. You're going to endure long-suffering. You're going to respond in kindness. You're going to have the power of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of love. Your love to other people will be sincere. You will both love to give your life for them and grieve because of their rejection of it at the same time. You're going to know and wield the word of truth. You're going to have in your vessel the power of God. You're going to have on the armor a protection of His righteousness. On the right hand and on the left. What a wonderful thing that is, isn't it? And what's going to happen is you're going to have a service for Jesus Christ as a believer, and I'm going to have a service for Jesus Christ as a minister of God. I'm going to have a service that is not going to be understood by people. What's going to happen is verse 8, that when I'm in the church and the remnant within that church, the genuine believers are going to give great honor because they see the power of God and the work of God in that earthen vessel. And yet there'll be those who will say, see, I told you, I told you he was weak and he's got these weaknesses. I told you that. And they're going to bring you dishonor. Those are genuinely saved are going to have a good report. They're going to speak of God's goodness. They're going to speak of God's knowledge as is communicated. They're going to thank God that you came and visited them in the hospital. They're going to thank God that you took of your own monies over a meal or you gave them what they needed as Christians. They're going to thank God for you. And yet there's other people and they will whisper behind your back. They'll say, well, I know the reason why he took food over to that house is because they were just wanting them to invite them back over. They will twist your motives. They will count you as a deceiver and yet you are true. You will be one of the most unknown people on the face of this earth. You probably will not make the papers. You will not be invited to the White House. You will not be asked for your counsel by Congress. Your editorials will not be printed, and if they are, they will be edited, so it does not say what you wanted it to say. You will be unknown, and yet among the remnant of God's people, you will be well known, because of the aroma of the knowledge of Christ that you bring to them. You will be poor. And yet you have the most exceeding treasure that you cannot value in your earthen vessel, Christ. And folks, as you go and give Christ to lost people, you're offering them a wealth that they cannot get their mind about, around, and neither can you. Amen? the wealth of that knowledge, and as you go to fellow believers, and as it were, you wash their feet, and you give them encouraging words, and you give them the words and knowledge of Christ so that they might be strengthened in the things of Christ, that they might be encouraged in the things of the Lord. You're building them up. They'll thank God for you. You'll make them rich, more wealth than they had before you came. And in verse 10 he says, look, I have, what's the word? I have, I have nothing. And yet I have what? I got everything. Folks, the meat shall inherit the earth. The earth is all whose? It's all Christ and we're in Christ. It's all ours. Can't you just wait 20 years before you have it forever? I don't have to grab all the gusto I can now. I don't have to grab all the pleasures of the world. I have the pleasures of the next world. Paul speaks of these things, he says, having nothing and yet possessing all things. Go over to chapter 11, and he continues another catalog when he says here in chapter 11 and verse 23, he says, look, are these super apostles, are they claiming to be servants of Christ? Well, I'm speaking as a fool because he's going to talk about himself. And just remember that if you talk about yourself, you're speaking as a fool. He says, I'm more verse 23. I just want you to know that I do labor more abundantly than all of them. When they're in their easy chair, I'm laboring. When they're sleeping, I'm making tents. for the sustenance of my ministry for myself and for those that travel with me. I have stripes above measure. I've been in prisons more frequently and in deaths more often. Folks, Paul knew this, didn't he? Paul thought about this. He said to himself, look, I am laboring more than them all. I've been in prison this many times. They've been in prison not that many times. He says, I was beat with rods. Do you know what it's like to be beat with a rod? I remember years ago in the newspaper, the uproar among the international community when Singapore gave a thrashing to somebody that had broke one of their laws. I don't remember exactly how many hits with the rod he got. I think there was somewhere between 7 to 10, somewhere in there. And the guy said, he said, I've never experienced more pain than I've ever experienced with just one lash. This was a trained man who knew exactly how to weld that rod to inflict the maximum amount of what? Of pain. Three times he was beaten with rods once he was stoned. How would that feel? Three times he suffered shipwreck. You almost be afraid to be on a ship with the apostle, right? A night and a day he's floating around in the Mediterranean, with waves coming over his head, threatening to have him go down unto death. He's always taking trips, verse 26, and he's not in an airplane, in a cushy seat where stewardesses come and offer you a drink. And it doesn't matter when he woke up, he was in dangers. When he was on the water, it didn't matter what geographical area he was in, he was in dangers by robbers. He was always in danger of being robbed. He was in danger by his own Jewish countrymen who were chasing him all around Asia Minor. He was in danger by the heathen who didn't understand what he was doing. Like in Ephesus, he was in dangers when the city, he was in dangers in the country. There was nowhere he could go for a vacation. Verse 27, he was always tired. Certainly good to give encouragement. There's nothing wrong with people telling you they're tired or they're busy. But nobody's approached the busyness of the apostle Paul. Nobody's approached the tiredness of the apostle Paul. The only person that exceeds that is Jesus Christ. You think Jesus woke up every morning, sprang out of bed, said, hallelujah, what a day? The Bible says he was so distressed and people were so mobbing around him all the time, clamoring, persecuting, asking him questions, tempting him that his own parents interrupted his sermon one time and said, we need to talk to you about this because you're acting like a madman. And then we come back from a vacation. I've done this, you've done this. I've come back from a vacation and said to the person next to me, you know I'm tired. In weariness, Paul had a painful body. His body was racked with pain and yours would be too if you'd been disfigured by the rods and the stoning and the shipwreck and the lashings. He went without food. Would God allow his own children to go without food? The answer to that is yes, so that his power might be made known. This is involuntary hunger and thirst. In fastings often, Paul went without clothes. He sat in prison cells in different locations and shivered. He didn't live in a 70 degree air conditioning heat environment. And he didn't have the clothes to wear. To keep him cold, keep him warm. He told Timothy in that second epistle to that faithful man, he said, bring me the books and please bring the cloak. He was cold. He just asked for a blanket, as it were. And he said, beside all those things, verse 28, those things that are without, Paul says, you know, that's really nothing, but what about those things that come on me every day, the care of all the churches? I think sometimes the struggles that I have just caring for this little flock, and what if I had a whole lot of churches to take care of? and was really concerned about their state. Folks, people today don't want to be shepherded. They just want to go to a church with programs. You start shepherding them, they go running off to some other place that has the programs. Paul was concerned. Folks, Christ is concerned about you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you. And when you violate the Scripture, when you're not in the services, when you're not giving yourself to attendance to those things that he tells us, Christ grieves. And so do servants of Jesus Christ. Paul says in verse 29, who is weak? And I don't experience the very same weaknesses. I think the correct estimation is that Paul was not a strong man. He was a weak man that had in his vessel the power of God. Amen. That's how we ought to talk about him because that's how he talked about himself. And I want to tell you, brethren, just as a footnote, just in application, as we go back to the beginning of the second Corinthians, Folks, this isn't the type of man that churches look for. They don't look for men who acknowledge their weaknesses. I'll never forget having a fellow pastor, a prominent name in fundamentalism, tell me that they would never, ever confess to their congregation any weakness on their part. That the confession of weakness was a sign of bad leadership. And as I sat there and I heard that, I didn't do it to their face, but I walked away inside shaking my head. But that's the case, then everybody within that congregation has to feel like they need to be strong, too. Instead of thanking God for his power in the midst of every one of our weaknesses that are there. And so Paul lists his hardships. Would you like to be an apostle? Can you walk now and say, thanks be to God? Or are you saying, glad that's not me? I know what you're thinking, because that's what I think. That's not helpful. As we go back to 2 Corinthians 1, we see in verse 3 that Paul begins this benediction, Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the same One who sent His only begotten Son. Thanks be unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Did the Father show mercy to His Son? The answer is yes. Did God comfort His Son? The answer to that is yes. And the Father, the same Father who comforted His Son is the same Father who is the God of mercies and the God of all comfort who is going to comfort you and I. And He says it in verse 4, doesn't He? He says, who, that is God the Father, comforts us in all our tribulation. This word comfort comes from the same root word. There's two words for comforting and strength that is used here in these passages. Just let me show those to you. You'll see there in verse 3, you got the word comfort. In verse 4, you got the verb comforted in our King James translation. You got it again in verse 4, you got the word comfort. Again, at the end of verse 4, you've got the word twice comforted. So in verse 4, you've got the same root word used in two different words that means similarly there four times. In verse 5, you've got consolation. That's the same Greek term for comfort. In verse 6, you have consolation. In verse 6, you've got comforted and consolation. In verse 7, you have consolation. Folks, in those five verses, what do you think the point is? He comforts, doesn't he? Now folks, that comfort is not like you think comfort is. When you think of comfort, you think of flowery beds of ease. The word comfort, one of these great terms that is used here, it's actually used seven times in these verses, means to lift up one's spirit. And folks, in order for our spirit to be lifted up, it means that our spirit is depressed. I remember a Christian telling me one time, said, Christians should never get depressed. But don't tell the Lord Jesus that. Don't tell the Apostle Paul that. The Bible says he was exceedingly sorrowful. He was grieved to the nth degree. He was depressed in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had to handle that. Did God strengthen him? Did God lift up his spirit? The answer to that is yes. The second great term that is used here means to grant courage and encouragement by coming alongside of us. So God is not distant from us. He's not far away. We may feel like he's far away, but if we know what the signs of when he's near, then we'll know he's there. That word is used three times in verse four, three times and in verse six. And the result of both of these is Thanksgiving. Blessed be God. So folks, here's what we know from verse 4. Now I'm beginning to go into the actual truths here. Here's what we know. That God the Father lifts up the downcast, and he comes alongside to grant courageous encouragement by Christ in all our troubles. Do you see that in verse 4? Who comforts us in all our what? Is there any trouble? Is there any tribulation? Is there any anxiety? Is there any agony, both whether it's external or internal, that God will not lift up our spirit and give us courageous encouragement? The answer to that is no. There is no such thing in which He will not come alongside of us to do that. Folks, that truth you need in your list of weaknesses. Here's the second thing that we note. Folks, God comforts us in the tribulation, in the trouble, in the trial. He doesn't always remove it, does He? In fact, you have weaknesses that have been there all your life. You were created with the weakness. You say, well, God must not have known what He was doing. No, He knew exactly what He was doing. He created the weakness in your life so that He can courageously encourage you as a believer and lift up your heart so that you will give thanks to God for His power and not say, I'm a good Christian. Everybody with me? Because tomorrow you might get hit. And you'll forget this. He doesn't always remove the trouble. In fact, when you pray for the comfort and you lift your heart up for that strengthening, if you ask Him to come alongside of you and give you that, He might actually increase the trouble. I've had that happen. You might feel more pressure. more frustration, more sinfulness coming out of this earthen vessel. You think God was taken by surprise? Folks, he saved you by grace, not because you're good. He doesn't always remove the trouble that is causing your inner stress, your inner anxieties, your pain, the crushing pressure that you feel because of life, or the depression that you might wake up in the morning, you might go to bed happy and might wake up in the morning absolutely depressed. You say, have you ever felt any of those, pastor? My wife's laughing. He might not remove the trouble, He might increase the trouble, but brethren, I can guarantee you this, it is a promise of God. He will always comfort you in it. Amen? Amen. You can say, well, I don't like that. Well, the trouble is still coming. And you can respond in a way that causes you to brag about yourself and how disciplined you are, and what a great person you are, and that all you have to do is tell the people all your disciplines, and if they would implement this, then they would be like you. Well, we're not being conformed to you. We're being conformed to Christ. Amen? But that's what happens. Man has two traps. Both of them are eternally Threatening. First trap is sensuality. That's a dangerous trap, isn't it? The second trap is pride. And there's a narrow way right in between those two Grand Canyon cavities called the way of the cross. The cross, you will not glory in your feelings. And the cross, you will not glory in your strength. And folks, this is always true. God will always lift your spirit. He always will give you relief. He comforts us in all of our trouble. Amen? You know this, don't you? That was God in your life. He's the God of mercy and the God of how much comfort? All kinds of comfort. Whatever comfort you need, He's the only one that can give it to you. And He may give it to you directly, or He may give it to you indirectly, but He will give it. Now folks, what happens with this is this. God will comfort you in one of two ways. Here's the first way. He will strengthen you to bear it. Right? Did Christ bear the cross? Don't you glorify God for what He did through His Son? Or, If the trouble is so bad that you are unable to bear it by God's grace, and I speak foolishly when I say that, He will remove it. Example. Death. Is that a strong person? Death did not hold Christ. You can't get any weaker than death. And up from the grave he arose. God the Father didn't give God the Son, the grace to bear it for eternity. He gave God the Son, the grace to be delivered from it. Amen? Those are your two choices, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the majesty on high. That's where you and I are going, right? We're already there, seated in heavenly places, but I've got to get there physically. And folks, we can do that because we know the end. This is what it means, brethren, to be saved. To be saved means to be delivered. We're not just saved from sin and death and hell. We're saved from everything. Everything. Aren't you glad? We're saved from our troubles, our anxieties, our depressions. I can assure you that in the new heaven and new earth, you won't have any depression. You've been saved from it. We're saved from everything that comes with the curse. We're saved from everything that's trying to kill us and slay us and cause us to stop witnessing and confessing Christ. This is what salvation is. We know we're going to be saved, don't you? Then He wants to mature you in it. And He wants to show you in little pieces and in very small ways what it means to be saved from trouble and anxiety and care and fretfulness and mobs and beatings and stripes. He wants to show you all that so that when the day comes and you rest your head on that bed and your moments from going through that door, you can go through it glorifying God by Jesus Christ. And not grasping on to the bedsheets like you don't want to go. Amen? He's maturing us. And if there's one thing that was true of the Messiah, it is that he always trusted his Father. And folks, this comes to us, look at verse 5, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also would. abounds in Christ. And what is true, here's the third truth, is this, is that the comfort that we receive is always proportional to the trouble we're experiencing. Always. Did you hear that? Okay, now here's why you don't feel like it always is. Watch me. You have a balance. Remember those scales? Balance. Okay? Here are the scales. You've got to imagine there's a balance there. Okay? On this side, God puts the weight of trouble. Right? And on this side, He puts the exceeding infinite weight of His comfort. But it doesn't go... What does it do? It's in balance. And that's why you don't feel like it. You're looking for mmm and you're getting justly. Everybody with me? So you always feel like you're just kind of right there. But you're wanting no trouble and the comfort. So the scales just go whoop and flip over. It ain't gonna be. God's not unrighteous, God is just. He always justly gives the discipline, the punishment, the wrath in proportional to the sin. You and I don't do that. When we see somebody suffering, we just like, oh, I just wish I could take this away from them. You won't... You're not seeing what you're supposed to be seeing. Is everybody with me? The comfort, that lifting up of your spirit, that coming alongside to grant courageous encouragement in Christ in the midst of all your troubles, which God has not taken away, and in all your weaknesses, God exactly, proportionally gives to you the measure of His comfort to the measure of the affliction, that it's always true, there's no exceptions. None. Now, lest you walk away and think that it's entirely unscriptural then, if God's power is always seen in my affliction, then it must be unscriptural for me to pray for the affliction to be removed. And we know that's not true. Paul prayed three times for the thorn to be what? To be removed. Folks, what's wrong is after you pray about it in a season, is that you will not accept it. Somewhere along the line, you've got to say what? This is your will. Whatever your weaknesses are, you've got to get to the place where you say, Blessed be God! I thank God that I can't go in a grocery store without buying chocolate. That's a weakness. Aren't there certain things you can't sit at the table and if somebody puts that food in front of you, you're like, you start sweating. I know I shouldn't be eating that. Well, I haven't had it in a while. Is that a weakness? Is your speech a weakness? The way you always blow up at everything? Right? Is it right for God, for you to pray to God and say, God, you know, take away my desire for the chocolate, because if I don't desire it, I won't eat it. I've even asked this, God, could you give me a hatred for the food? You never eat what you hate to eat, unless somebody's over you with a stick. We slip up, we sin, we say things that we shouldn't say that happens over and over and over and over and over again. And the reason for that is because you just haven't learned that when your speech is restrained, you're to give thanks to God because he did it. Folks, we were created to give glory to God. Amen. This is why we're here. I want to conclude with this question. Does God comfort us in all of our tribulation? Yes or no? Yes. Does God always remove the trouble? No. Sometimes He may increase it. Does God always justly give the amount of lifting up of your spirit and the courageous encouragement in the midst of your trouble? Is He just doing right? The answer to that is Yes, and he always does it, doesn't he, brethren? Always. He comforts us. All right, now here's the question. What's the comfort? Don't you want to know? Because if you don't know what it is, you won't be able to see it when it happens. And if you don't see it when it happens, you won't thank God for it. You'll walk around like a grumpy old person. What is the comfort? Well, the answer to that is this, and I'm going to build a case, verse four. It's not hard once you see it, but you might have trouble getting your mind wrapped around it until you see it. He comforts us in all of our tribulation for this purpose, that we may have the ability to comfort who? Them that are in, not your trouble, but any trouble. So whatever the comfort is for your specific weakness or your specific tribulation or trial, it's the same comfort you give in any trouble. Everybody see that? So put away this stuff that says, well, you can't give me encouragement because you don't know what it feels like to be in the trouble that I'm in. We all have troubles. And we have, he comforts us in all of our tribulations so that we have the ability to comfort them that are in any trouble by the comfort which we got. Amen? Okay, so here, you're having troubles, you're having anxieties, you're depressed in spirit, you're struggling, you're having anxieties. All right, what can I give you? I can give you comfort. That's indirect, God indirectly comforting you through another believer. And what am I going to give you? I'm going to give you the same comfort that I what? That I experience. And you're going to recognize that comfort and then you will be courageously encouraged and lifted up in it. Everybody with me? This is important. So here's the key. The first key, there's four things here. Number one, here's the key. Whatever the comfort is, it's hinted at, and it's developed in this book, and once you see it, it's in all the Pauline epistles, and in the other apostles' writings. You see it by the phrase, verse 5, the sufferings of who? Christ. Here's the second thing. Verse 5, last two words. The comfort is in abundance by who? By Christ. So whatever the comfort is, it can be seen in who? In Christ before His death, burial, and resurrection. And whatever this comfort is, it's going to come through Christ, which means you've got to go to Him. Everybody with me? It's hinted at there. Secondly, I need you to remember something. Folks, I need you to remember that you are in Christ. Everybody with me? By one spirit, we have been all baptized into Christ. So, are you in Christ as a believer? The answer to that is yes. Am I in Christ as a believer? The answer to that is yes. All believers, nobody's outside of that, we're all in Christ. Is Christ in you? Yes. And, are you ready for this? I'm in you, and you're in me. We are one. We are unioned in Christ. So that I know I will be resurrected because he was what he was resurrected So we understand this we have this term sufferings of Christ and by Christ which means we have to See him in some way and we got to remember that we are in Christ We are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 30 So we are in Him, and He is in us, and we are in each other, which means, brethren, that we cannot live our lives in isolation. You may want to, but you can't. What you do, Christ knows. Because you're in Him, amen? What He does, we are to know. And in a church, the way you live affects everything else in the church. Because we're one body. So you may think you're independent, but you're what? You're not. The problem is you do think you're independent, like the Corinthians did. Thirdly, this is a reminder. Our abundant consolation is balanced with the abundance of the sufferings. So it says in verse 5, for as the sufferings of Christ abound. You see that? You say, oh man, I just thought it'd be one. Abound. Abundance. So our consolation is in abundance. Amen? So the sufferings of Christ abounds and the abundance of the consolation abounds. So here's the way I want to read verse 5. I'm going to interject something into the text. I'm not doing violence to the text. I'm doing this for understanding. Whose sufferings are they? Okay, you're muttering it, but you're not saying it. It's Christ. Everybody see that? Alright. Then what type of comfort do you think that it is? Christ. Exactly. It's Christ's comfort in Paul. Are the sufferings of Christ in Paul? The answer to that is, yes, in abundance. Is the comfort in Paul? The answer to that is, in abundance. He knows they're sufferings of Christ because he's seen Christ. And he knows the comfort is the same comfort who received. Christ received. That is critical. What is the comfort? It is the comfort that Christ received from the Father in the midst of His sufferings. That's what the comfort is. How would you know if you had the sufferings of Christ? You look in your Bible and look at His, what? His sufferings. And if you see your sufferings in it, there you go. How would you know if you're comforted? You would go in your Bible, you would look at Christ, and you will look at how he was courageously strengthened, and how his spirit was lifted up as a man. And if that type of comfort is happening in your life, then you're being comforted by who? No, by God the Father through Christ. Remember I told you you had to go to Christ? That's what you're doing. You're opening your Bible and you're saying, ah, look at the sufferings of Christ. They're abundant in me, alright? I want to look, I want to go to Christ, I want to look at my Bible, I want to see the comfort. Ah, yes, it's abundant in me. Folks, the comfort that Christ received was this. This is what he got from God the Father. You may want to jot this down. He got the assurance, the confident expectation, that the Father was committed to deliver him in how many of his troubles, all his troubles, and he was assured of the Father's ability to do that. He just wasn't assured that the Father is committed to deliver Christ. He was assured that God the Father had the ability to deliver Christ in all of His troubles, even unto death, the death of a cross. Everybody see that? It's all in Philippians. Philippians is talking about this exact same thing over and over and over. Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. Paul writes about it in Philippians chapter 3 when he says, oh, that I might know him and the fellowship of his being made conformable to his death because I get the same comfort he got in the midst of that. He was strengthened. Paul was strengthened. He's going to be delivered from death. Paul's being delivered from death. One day, Paul's going to get his head chopped off. The head's coming back together, brethren. He's delivered. And Paul is absolutely convinced about this. And folks, that's the comfort. The comfort is, and I'm quoting a commentator here who worded it just like I would have worded it, What God did for Jesus in His suffering, Paul is confident that God will do for him. He's confident. And that what God did for Paul, God will do for the Corinthian church because they're in trouble. Is that church being troubled? Yes! And they need comfort. They need courageous encouragement, and they need their spirits lifted up after such scathing letters. And Paul says, look, I'm writing 2 Corinthians because I have a comfort that you might not know about, but this is the way. And when I'm in trouble, I get this comfort. I am absolutely assured and I'm growing in my confident expectation that God's going to deliver me out of every one of my troubles. And he actually says that in 2 Timothy. And that confidence is growing and growing and growing, and I just want you to know, Church at Corinth, that I'm going to give you the same comfort. All right. How's he do it? How does Paul give God's comfort to the Corinthians? He wrote the epistle! He wrote the epistle! So when you read the epistle, what do you get? Comfort! Paul says, look, all the troubles that I'm going through, all the perplexity, all the agony, all the frustration, all the depression, it's all for you, church in Corinth. And I'm going to write it down. So that one day in 2013, Faith Memorial, who's going through troubles, is going to read this and they're going to be encouraged to know that God is working in them with this courageous strengthening so that they might grow in the confident expectation that it doesn't matter what troubles come to our church, God's going to deliver us. That's what He wants. Amen? That's great comfort. Because what that does, brethren, is it gives meaning to all your weaknesses. It gives meaning to all your trials. It gives meaning to all your troubles. And it makes you useful. So that you can minister the comfort to other people. You see that? That's the comfort. I want to ask you, are you comforted? And you're going to tell me no, because that's not what you want. You want the trouble to be gone while you're praying for the power of God to be evident in your life. And folks, what this world, what America needs to see is a church of Jesus Christ that is cruciform. They got money, they don't need to see a church with money. They don't need to see a church with all the programs. They don't need to see a church with a rock and roll band or a great music thing. They need to see Christ! Because they can go to work and earn their money, they can invest their money just like you, right? They can get what you're telling them the church offers them their own way. And so in the midst of our troubles, the Spirit of Christ manifests Himself. And when that happens, people see it. They see the glory of Christ in your face. He's going to talk about this in 2 Corinthians 3. Remember, change from glory to what? They'll see it in your face. And you know what? Somebody might just see it and be changed and listen to your gospel. But on the other hand, there will be multitudes and multitudes of people who have been blinded in their minds and they will not see glory in this at all. All they will see is your necessities, your frustrations, your anxieties, Especially if that's all you talk about. Right? And you'll give them the gospel, and you'll say, look, he died, he was buried, rose again for you, you know, and he can save you from your sin. You can be regenerated and have the life of Christ in the soul of man. Is there any greater wealth? And they're going to look at you and say, inside, they're going to say, well, if that means that I'm going to have a life like yours, I'm not interested. You mean go to church on Sunday? Sunday's my family day. Why are you here? Hopefully because you see a glory in it. And it draws you. You see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God as Christ is presented to you. And you're changed. And folks, this is the way it always is. I'm going to quote to you one verse. Listen very carefully. This is a verse that is not by Peter. Excuse me, not by Paul, it's by Peter. You listening? He says the same thing. 1 Peter 2, verses 21 through 23. For even hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again, and when he suffered, he did not what? He did not threaten. Everybody with me? Did he suffer? Is it the way? Is it our example? All right, now what is the example? Well, surely it's not reviling when you're reviled, and surely it's not threatening when you suffer. But that's not the root of what he says that we're to follow. Listen. For even unto where you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving in us an example that we should follow in his steps, and in the midst of his suffering, He, Christ, committed Himself to Him that judges righteously. That's what we're to follow. In the midst of our weaknesses, in the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our anxieties, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to commit ourselves to God. Because He makes right decisions, we don't. And we wait on Him, as it were, for Him to deliver us, either by removing the trouble or giving us the grace to bear in it. That's what we're to follow. And when you do that, you won't revile back. And when you do that, you will not threaten. And when you do that, you will not be pointing out everybody's sins. When you do that, you will have the power of grace and peace. Does God comfort us in all of our trials? Amen. Is it is his comfort the comfort by which you can say thanks be to God? Because now you see what he's doing, and as you think back, you can actually see that comfort come into your life, but you didn't know that that was from him. Because you thought you were just waiting for it to be removed. Then you thank God for it. And folks, Paul is confident that that church at Corinth is going to do exactly that.