 Second Corinthians, chapter one. We're gonna be looking today at verses one through seven as we begin a new series here in the book of Second Corinthians. And what I'm gonna do is I'll read the first seven verses to you. And I hope you have the patience to be able to do this because I'm gonna take you through a lot of layers of introduction to give you some insight into what's taking place in order that you might be able to have a good grasp of what this book is. And so I'll be doing that today, giving you a lot of layers to give you introduction. You'll need to relax and just listen so you'll get it because eventually what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move into practical application which is what I normally do and share with you about God who Paul refers to here in this book as the God of all comfort. And so I'm gonna move you into the last few verses to share with you about the God of all comfort. In order for us to have a graph together as to what that's all about, I'm gonna take time again to lay a foundation for you and go into a lot of little details that you may not think are necessary but in fact really are in order for you to get an understanding of this book. And so I ask for your patience as you listen and then we'll move into and look for application. So I'll begin reading at verse one in Second Corinthians chapter one. I'll read to verse seven. We'll get into our study. The God of all comfort. Second Corinthians chapter one beginning at verse one. Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy, our brother to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are in all Achaia. Grace to you in peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted it is for your consolation and salvation which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer or if we are comforted it is for your consolation and salvation and our hope for you is steadfast because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings so also you will partake of the consolation. This particular letter, second Corinthians has been called Paul's most open-hearted letter and you're gonna see that to be true because he really as he unfolds his heart to the Corinthians at one point he even goes so far as to say I've enlarged my heart towards you I'm simply asking you to enlarge your heart for me meaning I've made my heart wide enough for you to enter in I'm only asking in return that you allow me to enter into your life. He loved these people and he shared many things with them that are very, very tender and it reveals to us quite a bit about his ministry and his love for the Corinthians. When we look at second Corinthians, throughout second Corinthians Paul was forced to defend himself against false accusations. In second Corinthians chapter 12 verse 11 Paul said I have become a fool in boasting and he went on to say you have compelled me I ought to have been commended by you for nothing was I behind the most eminent apostles though I am nothing. He said you have compelled me to have to share with you my credentials, my status. He said you should have understood I'm not behind these super apostles that are referred to as eminent apostles in second Corinthians though I don't see myself as being anything but he had to defend himself against false accusations. As we go through the letter we're gonna see him respond to at least 24 accusations that had been lodged against him. They said things like this. They said well Paul, well he's selfish. He uses innuendo. He changes his mind easily. He's self-appointed. He lords it over the church. He's an unemotional intellect. Paul, well he's legalistic. He insincerely pedals the gospel for profit. He has no letters of recommendation. He's self-righteous. He twists scripture. He preaches himself and not Jesus. He's a mad man. He defrauded the church. He uses guilt to make money. He writes letters that are strong but when people are around him he's really a coward. He works in the flesh. He's untrained in speech. He's even ugly. According to his opponents he was their spiritual inferior. He wasn't worthy of compensation of any kind. They said that he had done nothing to establish his right to minister to them. That he used deceit to entrap them. And in the end they said that Paul was not worth loving because he was a spiritual bully who demeaned them. As we go through this book I'm gonna point out every one of these accusations as we go through the study and you'll see how he responds. He's gonna see Paul's response to attack. See Paul was an apostle. And as an apostle Paul had a tremendous love for the church. When you read 2 Corinthians chapter 11 he lists various things that he endured and these are things that he endured very often on a daily basis. He experienced persecutions and sufferings, physical trials, material needs. But when he spoke of these things and he listed many of them he closed with a revealing insight in 2 Corinthians 11, 28. He said besides the other things what comes upon me daily. My deep concern for all the churches. On top of all of these things that I go through the thing that overrides it all is my love for the church. As an apostle he had a great concern for the churches which included the Corinthians. You see the Corinthian church was especially dear to him. He was their father in the faith. Paul had planted and passed to the church when he was on his second missionary journey. Acts 1811 says that Paul stayed for a year and a half in Corinth and he taught them the word of God. Early in its history problems had developed severe enough for him to write a letter. That letter is called 1 Corinthians. And in the letter Paul said that they were saved, they were spiritually gifted but they lived carnal lives. There was a division through comparisons. There was immorality, marriage problems. They were dealing with idolatry, questions about women's roles, bad communion behavior, questions over spiritual gifts, gross misunderstanding of the resurrection and stewardship questions that had to be addressed. And he was that church's founding pastor. And because he was, he had a great love for the Corinthians. And it was out of this concern that he had written 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 415 he said it like this. He said, though you might have 10,000 instructors in Christ yet you do not have many fathers for in Christ Jesus I have regained you through the gospel. You may have 10,000 people adding to what I laid as a founding minister in your life. You may have 10,000 teachers but you'll still only have one father. He said, I begot you in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He loved those Corinthians. Well, since that letter, false teachers had entered the Corinthian church and they brought false charges against him. And as often as the case, their accusations concerning him were not based on his teachings. They were more personal in nature. The accusations are based on his character or his personality or the lack of entertainment value, his style, his looks and even his love. So as we go through this study we're gonna discover much about those who were lodging these accusations. When you read this and you'll see this I'll be pointing this out as we go through it. We actually find out who these false teachers are. They were intruders according to chapter three verse one. They came from the outside. They were pseudo-intellectuals. They used arguments that lacked substance. We'll see that in chapter 10 verse five. They claimed a superior ministry to Paul. Second Corinthians 11 verse five refers to them as eminent or super apostles because they contrasted themselves with him and in effect were reducing the authority of the apostle Paul. Now the fourth thing is they were mercenaries. They were greedy for gain. They were drawing disciples after themselves. In second Corinthians 11, 7 and 80 says that I commit sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted because I preach the gospel of God to you free of charge. I robbed other churches taking wages from them to minister to you. And the fifth thing they were Jewish possibly attempting to bring believers into bondage of the law of Moses because Paul says in second Corinthians 11, 22 he says are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. And so these super eminent apostles, Jewish legalists were trying to undermine the ministry of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians and bring them under bondage. So throughout the epistle, Paul alludes to the accusations that they have been made against him. It appears that Paul has received a report that false teachers are invading the church. And so upon hearing this, Paul sent one of his sons in the faith of man by the name of Titus to check on the condition of the church. And Titus comes back. We see that in chapter seven and he has an encouraging report in second Corinthians seven verses six and seven. Paul said, but God who comforts a downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern for me so that my joy was greater than ever. So the report prompted him to write and he wrote this letter. So we're gonna be looking now at the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. We'll begin by reading verses one and two. And again, like I said, I'll give you information and start stacking some things. And then we're gonna move into verses three through seven. And hopefully I'll be able to bring some application to all that we're looking at today. So verses one and two, this is his introduction. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Once again, that would be saying, in contrast to the false teachers, they are trying to become something important but that's not by the will of God. Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ. He said, by the will of God, he was an apostle. The word apostle in the original language is apostolos. Apostolos is used some 81 times in total in the New Testament. And when somebody refers to themselves as apostle or the word is used, it speaks of a delegate or a messenger, one who has been sent forth with orders. It's specifically applied to the 12 apostles. So Paul is an apostle of the Lord. But he mentions Timothy and Timothy our brother. Timothy, as we know by looking at first and second Timothy, Timothy was saved under Paul's ministry and was his assistant on many occasions. And the Corinthians knew him. They were familiar with this man named Timothy as Timothy administered to them. In 1 Corinthians 417, Paul had said, this cause have I sent to you, Timothy, who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ as I teach everywhere in every church. So they knew who Timothy was. So Paul introduces, the letter writer introduced himself first. So it's Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy. And then who's the recipient? Well, the church to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are in Alchea. And then thirdly, in verse two, he brings the blessing, grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Typical way of writing letters during his day. Grace and peace, Charis and Shalom. When he says grace, that's the Greek. If you and I, if we were in Greece, we were Greeks and we encountered each other on the street, you would say Charis and I would say Charis. That was how we said hello. And as a Jew, I would say Shalom because Shalom is used as a greeting. It's even used in Israel to this day as when I leave, Shalom, peace with you. And I want you to notice this. I point this out every time we go through the letters but I want you to notice this. Grace is always before peace. You don't find in introductions ever the word peace coming before grace. And why is that? It's because you'll never have peace without God's grace. And that's why he begins by saying grace to you and then says and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he goes into his letter. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. And so he begins with a blessing. He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why is he blessing God? Well, he's blessing God for his comfort in his times of pain and distress. You see, when Paul was called, Jesus made a statement to a man named Ananias. It's recorded in Acts 9, 15 and 16. It says, the Lord said to him, go your way. He's a chosen vessel to me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And so his ministry was filled with suffering. He had gone through tremendous trouble in Asia. We'll look at that next time. It's found in verses eight and nine. Well, some would say that all the trouble he endured was because God was judging him. Instead of it being judgment, he knew God's deliverance demonstrated God's grace. And that prompted Paul to bless God for giving him comfort in his time of pain and distress. Notice how he says in verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So I praise God. I'm not filled with bitterness over my trials. I give God praise because in spite of all that Paul has endured, God has shown him mercy. You see, when you read mercy, mercy is not receiving what you deserve. Mercy is a visible expression of compassion. And he had received mercy from God. God had withheld from him what he actually deserved. He was a man who went about persecuting the saints. He was a man who would accuse him and jail them. And then ultimately he would witness for their death. This was a man who persecuted the church. And he said, but God has shown me mercy. He is withheld from me that which I deserved. He said, as a man who was a persecutor of the church, I deserved judgment, but God has given me mercy. And not only has he done that, but he has also given to me comfort. Why? Because God is the God of all comfort. So that means that Paul in the midst of his struggles had received consolation. He had received rest from the Lord. God's compassion, God's kindness extends towards man. It's an expression of his nature. When you look at Psalm 86.15, it says, but you, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in mercy and truth. In Lamentations 3, 22, through 24, it says, because of the Lord's great love, we're not consumed for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore I hope in him. I need God's mercy and compassion daily. And every morning, and I wake up, they're renewed in my life. And that's what the writer of Lamentations is saying. That's because God is a God who is filled with compassion and he's gracious, he's long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth. And Paul understood that. And that fueled his praise to God. And so he refers to God as the father of mercy and the God of all comfort. Now the words consolation and comfort are key words. They're used around 17 times in this letter. In verses three through seven, the words comfort and consolation are used 10 times. Words like affliction, suffering, trouble, and tribulation occur seven times in these verses. So what is Paul saying? Well, he's saying God is a comforting and merciful father. And knowing that helps us endure whatever we go through with hope. And notice what he says in verse four. He says, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. He comforts us. Now that gives us insight into the fruit of enduring affliction and suffering. When you go through things, and now I'll give you a little bit of some practical teaching from that phrase there about being the God of all comfort who comforts us. When you go into hard times and every believer does and you endure and you come out of it, that gives us credibility that is needed very often to be a trusted comforter to somebody else. I believe very strongly and I'll develop this as we go through this passage because this is gonna be my main point of application. So I'll begin by saying this. I thank God for his word. I thank God for his spirit. I thank God for the body of Christ. And I thank God whenever, I've gone through some tough times. He's always been faithful and kind to have somebody in my life who would come up and share with me when I was going through difficulties. That would be a blessing to me and I thank God for that. But I can also say this. There have been well-meaning people who have said the wrong kinds of things. And one of the things that we need to learn to do if we're gonna bring comfort is we need to learn first to listen. Because sometimes people have a tendency, and I've seen this more than once, who have a desire to help and yet a tendency to maybe speak when they should listen. And sometimes we may have something we wanna bring to somebody, wanna encourage somebody, and we don't really listen. We have to learn to listen and then to speak. And in ministry especially, when someone's going through something and you're trying to minister to them, it's really important for us to put ourselves in their place. Now, we may not have lived long enough to experience a lot of things. One of the things with life comes, the longevity of life comes many experiences. And so when I was 20, I had one experience. When I was 30, I had another 40, 50, and that's the way it's been in my life. And same with you, those of us who are growing older, all of us in this room are growing older as I, even as I'm speaking right now, we are growing older. But you go through the years and then you go through the many years. And what happens is you discover that what you believed very strongly and thought you knew deeply at the age of 20, you were very shallow at 20. And at 30, you begin to realize that you didn't understand as much as you thought you knew at 20. When you're 40, you realize how stupid you were at 30 and that's kind of how it is. As you're growing older, what happens is you gain more experience. And as you gain more experience, you have more to give to other people. And so one of the things that I've learned is to listen and then to speak. And sometimes what people really need isn't a quick scripture. Sometimes what they need is a shoulder to cry on and an ear that's willing to hear. And even if what they're saying doesn't make sense to you at that moment, I've discovered that given time and opportunity, those things can be straightened out if I'm one who's willing to listen. And that's what you do. And the many times that I've had opportunity to minister to people in difficult situations and hard losses, you learn to listen. I was a young man and our church was maybe two years old and I was in the front yard in my home. I was in my early 30s, maybe 33 at the time. And as I was standing in the front yard, a car drives by and then I see it stop and back up and then pull in front of my home and I look to see who it is. And it's a member of our fellowship. And I walk up to say, hi, how you doing? And he says, oh, I'm doing fine pastor and we visit for a moment. And he was to me an older man. He was in his 40s. Again, I was in my 30s. And so, hi, how you doing? Well, I'm doing fine pastor. He said, I saw you here. He said, I just wanted to say hi. And I said, well, hi, how are you? And visited for a moment. And then he said this to me. He said, you know how you feel about your pastor, Chuck Smith? I said, yeah. I said, I love him very much. He said, that's how I feel about you. And I smiled at him. I thought, well, that's a very kind thing to say. Well, I get a phone call in the office a while later, a few weeks later. And this friend of mine that I had just recently seen in front of my home is in the hospital. And I went to pay a hospital visitation. And so I tell my wife, Marie, I'm gonna go into Covina. I'm going to a hospital. Would you like to go with me to go see so-and-so? Whom she knew. And she said, yeah, I'll go with you. So I bring my wife and we do a hospital visitation. Pastors on occasion do that. And I was doing that. And I went to the front desk and I said, I'm looking for this brother. And they said, oh, he's, well, you need to go to the second floor. And I said, okay. And so we go to the second floor and we're there in the elevator. The door's open and it's kind of odd because all the lights are off in this floor. All the lights are off. And Marie and I step out and I look and I say, I wonder why the lights are off? Because it's pitch black basically except for a light down the hall. And then around that through the hall comes somebody towards us and they walk up and they're startled. And it was a doctor. And he says, what are you doing here? And I said, well, we were here to see so-and-so. And I was told to come to the second floor. And he said, you haven't heard? And I looked at him and I said, heard what? And he said, he just died. And when he said he just died, the words died had not yet even stopped echoing, if you will, died. And this man's wife comes right around the corner, died. And I look at his wife and I'm standing there with mine. And I was thinking, I came to visit a friend just to say, hi, he's gonna be okay. Some of you have been there. Some of you have been there. I was just gonna say, hi, we're a friend of mine. And he's died. And his wife's standing there looking at me. What do you do? What do you do? So I go to her house and I'm in her kitchen and I'm standing talking to her when I look out the window. And here comes her 12 year old son walking down the street coming home from school. And I look at her and I say, do you want me to stay here with you? She says, no, I have to do this on my own. And I say, okay. And I walk out and you walk out. Sometimes the best thing you can do is listen. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just hear. Sometimes the best thing you can do is weep. You weep with those who weep. You rejoice with those who rejoice. We go through the life. We go through life, the gamut of life together. And we have to learn to just allow the Holy Spirit to work. Because sometimes my words, even if they're scripture, are not going to really find a home in their heart. This is stuff that you learn when you grow up. These are things that happen. These are things that you need to learn. You see, our God is the God of all comfort. Our God is our Father. He's merciful. We need to learn that. But sometimes what we do is we listen to what's being said because they sometimes simply need to speak. It's always wise to learn to listen before you speak. Be quick to hear and slow to speak. It's very important for us to do that. You see, that way people are able to minister and when you go through things, it develops you. It's one thing, if you've never lost a child through any tragedy or through a miscarriage, it's one thing for you to say, oh, don't worry, you're young, you'll have another one. Which is probably one of the, not the wisest thing to ever say, but people do that. And God bless them because they don't mean to be unfilling, they don't. They don't mean to be unfilling. They just are trying to comfort you and we know that. My wife has lost one of our babies and I have a lot of experience in this area of miscarriages and all that. And with that, you don't say things that you shouldn't say. You just let them speak and say what they want. I remember when Marie lost our baby it was between David and Joseph. Marie was pregnant I think in six and a half years, five times and she had, we lost one. The one that would have been born right after my son David and we wouldn't have had Joseph. But I remember going to the hospital and I was a young man and I remember sitting there and them saying to me, we're gonna have to do a DNC and I left my wife and at the hospital I had to come and leave her there and I went and I was ministering in another fellowship at that time and I sat with the senior pastor and I still remember saying to him, this is the first time I've left a hospital when my wife is pregnant without a baby and I still remember Marie coming from the bathroom holding in her hand the body of my child. I still remember that. And when people say, oh, don't worry, you'll have another. Well, that may be so but that wasn't what I needed to know right now. What I needed right now was just someone to listen when I said, I'm hurting, I'm hurting. I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do. You see? And what that did with me is it developed a deepness in me and I've discovered this and this is why I wanted to share some of the things with you today as we go through 2 Corinthians because Paul is speaking about a merciful God who is a comforting God and he brings consolation to us and God is comforting and God is merciful and because he is, his children should be comforting and merciful too. In Matthew 10, 25, Jesus said it's enough for a disciple that he be like his master and a servant like his master. So that means that part of the way comfort is given is through God's children to one another. As a body of Christ, we should make it our aim to encourage and comfort one another. Somebody said, Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion looks out to the earth. Yours are the feet by which he goes about doing good and yours are the hands by which he is to bless us now. You see though a person may share their love with us and listen, our deepest comfort really does come from God because it's God who comforts us in our times of pain and our times of need. He says it himself, Isaiah 51, 12. God said, I, even I, am he who comforts you. And notice verse four, he comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort others. Your ability to give comfort is tied in with your experience in receiving it. You ultimately give to others what you yourself have received and Paul has received great comfort and therefore he gives great comfort to other people. Well, why would I need comfort? Because I go through hard times, you go through hard times. Life can be difficult. It's filled with loss, it's filled with pain and those pains can be intense. We're rejected by family, we're rejected by friends because of our faith in Jesus. People can abuse us verbally, they can gossip about us, they can lie about us, they can even physically attack us. And this is something that we can endure for the sake of the gospel. But Jesus prepared his followers for this kind of life. He said in Matthew 10, 24 and 25, again, a student isn't above his teacher, a servant above his master, it's enough for the student to be like his teacher, the servant likes his master. But he went on to say, if the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more are the members of his household? So if you've gone through it, Jesus, why wouldn't die? So the key to enduring these things is to keep looking forward to the results. And so I go to the doctor and the doctor says to me, you know, you've got precancerous cells on your nose. So I want you to start putting this medication on it. And so it looks like toothpaste. So I start rubbing it on my nose. And before you know it, I could have played Rudolph in the church play on Christmas, my nose is bright red. Do I like it? No, I'm looking for the results. As I go through this, the cancer cells are gonna be destroyed. And he said, you know what? You probably should put it on your whole face. I said, no, I'll start with my nose. So I look for the results. You know, we all do. You always look past the moment to the end. That's what you do. And so when you're going through a trial on a difficulty, it's never pleasant at the moment. The result is always something pleasing because it results in us being conformed into the image of Christ. That's God's work. But going through it at that moment can be tough and it can be very difficult to go through. And that's what happens. But we need to look for the result. And in many ways, this is how our prayer to be more like Jesus is fulfilled. The Bible says those who God foreknew, he breathes in to be conformed to the image or the likeness of his son that he might be the first born among many brothers. And so God uses this in your life to ask you a prayer when you said, make me like you. And we need to remember what he's like. Sometimes when we say, make me like you, Lord. We fail to realize what Isaiah 53 said about him. He's a wounded healer. He's acquainted with grief. He was rejected by man. He was abused. And yet I'm saying, God, make me like your son. And he says, I will. And then when he begins to, I complain against him for the work he's doing. Why am I going through this? Oh, wait a minute. Didn't you say you want to be like Jesus? Oh, yeah, I was taught to pray like that. I don't know what it means. Well, now you're learning. Now you're learning because Jesus was wounded. He was rejected. He was despised. He ultimately was killed. And you're saying, make me like you. Break my heart with the things that break yours. Is that what you're asking for? Cause I will answer that prayer. Why? Because you are predestined to be conformed to the image of my son. Do you want to be a Christian? Yes, I do. Then allow me to do my work. When I was 14, I went to school. My stomach hurt. Went to the nurse and the nurse said, oh, you probably should go home. Called my mom. My mom came and picked me up. She said, what's wrong, son? I said, you know, my stomach hurts. Go home. Continues hurting. My mom finally says, we better take you in. She takes me to the doctor. The doctor presses on my abdomen. Let's go. And I jump. And he says, appendix. We got to remove it immediately. They put me into Studebaker Hospital there in Norwalk. And I remember they gave me some gas and they put some kind of something in my veins to cause me to go to sleep. He said, start at 100 and count down. And I got to like 93 and I was out. I still remember that. And I was just laying there. But I also remember this. I woke up when I heard the doctor say, scalpel. And I remember seeing the scalpel put in his hand. And I remember him putting it in my side. And I fainted. But I remember that. And he sliced. I saw him slice. Those things are sharp. I discovered that sliced me open. You know the smartest thing I did was lie still while he was operating. The smartest thing you can do is when the Holy Spirit is operating, be still and know that he is God. That's the best thing you can do. Amen. Because he's removing from you that which is going to kill you. He's removing from you that which is crippling you. But sometimes, Lord, why are you doing this? And we want to jump off the Spirit operating table and run out of the room. And God says, no, there's something about the Lord you guys have discovered. If you haven't, you will. Maybe you're discovering this right now. Do you think you can get away from him? No. No. Where can I flee from your presence? The psalmist asks. If I go up, you're there. If I go down, you're there. Everywhere you're there. I can't. You're your omnipresent. You're everywhere. I can't get away from you. So I learned a long time ago, and I'm still learning that when I'm on the Spirit's operating table, don't get up because he's removing something from me. He's going to do his work and it's going to happen. And he's answering my prayer. And I want to be like you. You want to be like me? Yes, I'm going to remove things that are unlike me from you. But those are my pets. Those are things I like. I mean, these are things that made me who I am. He says, yeah. And you think that pleases me. Well, I never thought of it that way. No, I want to remove the things from you that do not please me and replace them with the things that do. And that's how it works. And so we go through these things, the afflictions and the hurts and the sufferings, but they actually are benefits to us. We need to understand that this is how the Lord works. Looking verse five, he says, as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so are consolation also abounds through Christ. The sufferings of Jesus abound, the word abound means to overflow. The sufferings of Jesus overflow in relation to us. The sufferings that Jesus endured are to benefit every believer. He suffered for us. We too suffer. And it gives us understanding that is used for the benefit of other people. He says our consolation, verse five also abounds through Christ. Because God is merciful and comforts us, we experience this on a personal level. His mercy, His compassion, do not extend to us simply to stop with us. His mercy and compassion is to flow to us and flow from us to other people. And these are the things that deepen us and equip us to compassionately encourage those who are hurting. And that's what he says, verse six, if we're afflicted, it's for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we're comforted, it's for your consolation and salvation. And so God is merciful and he works within us. And we're being equipped to comfort others with the same comfort that we receive. The church was enduring hardship. And Paul is an example of the fruit of affliction. Suffering isn't mindless. It's not useless. It's not just fate. There's a purpose within it. We give to others what we have received and that which we have received is God's comfort. And he says in verse seven, and our hope for you is steadfast. Because we know that as you are partakers of the suffering, so also you will partake of the consolation. The fact that you're enduring reveals that you've received consolation. And the consolation can be experienced here as the Lord delivers you out of your trials. Psalm 3419 says, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers the amount of them. The things you go through deep in you and equip you. Some of you have been here a long time and perhaps you might remember back in 2001 when my father went home to be with the Lord, how difficult that was for me. And it was because I was not prepared for it. When my mama went home to be with the Lord a few years ago, I was prepared. And I was able to deal in a better way with the passing of my mom, but my dad was a surprise. He died of a heart attack. And I didn't expect that at all. And so when he died, I was left with great pain. It was the hardest thing at that time that I can remember going through. And it got real bad. I kept doing my ministry. I didn't want to stop. I wanted to be faithful to the Lord in the midst of the pain because I know my God is a comforting God. And yet I didn't give myself a place to heal. So I was up in the pulpit and often I would weep. Do you see me weep? No, I wept a lot more and deeper because my heart was so broken. It was shattered. It was in pieces. My father was very close to my father and he died in such a quick way. And I wasn't prepared. And so it was difficult. It was difficult for me. And I showed a lot of emotion to the point where I began to just bottle up because I became aware of that. And I didn't like it. So I started bottling up and I started emotionally pushing people from me. I just, all my closest friends, even my children, my son David said, dad, he said, when my grandfather died, he said, I didn't lose just my grandfather. I lost you too. I didn't realize that I had closed. I had pushed everybody out. Everybody was just out. I got a heal. I don't know what to do. I'm still ministering to this church. I've got so much I have to do. It was hard. And so I started just doing that. And my wife Marie got concerned for me and Marie said to me, honey, she said, you know, I don't know. And I said, you know, I said, if and when your daddy, when your daddy dies, I'll be able to be there for you because I understand what it's like to lose a father. You know, two years, almost to the day my father-in-law died. Almost to the day my father died on February 15th. My father-in-law died on February 13th. My father-in-law would come here to the church because he was in construction and he would watch the construction of this building. And he was a construction man and he loved it and he would come on Fridays. And one Friday he didn't show up. So my son Joseph and his aunt Pat went looking for my father-in-law, went to his house and they walked into the house and my father-in-law was on the floor. He'd had a stroke and Patty, my son Joseph was an EMT. He's now a nurse, he was an EMT. And he said to aunt Patty, he said, Patty, call 911. And my son knelt next to my father-in-law. Now my father-in-law, I loved my father-in-law very deeply, he's a good man and I loved him deeply and he loved my kids. And my son Joseph knelt next to him and he said, are you ready, grandpa, are you ready? And my father-in-law said to Joseph, I'm a good man, Joseph. And Joseph said, yes, you are, you're a good man, but you're not good enough. You need Jesus Christ. You need to open your heart to Christ. And Joseph shared the gospel with my father-in-law and there on the floor in his house he received Christ as his Lord and Savior. And I went into the hospital to see my father-in-law. It had a massive stroke and I saw him and he shared some things with me as I spoke to him and then his health lapsed and they put him in a room and there he is in this room. And as I'm standing here in Chino Hospital as I'm standing in the room at the foot of my father-in-law's bed, standing at the foot looking at my father-in-law, I can look to my left and he was in bed number two. My father died in the same room in bed number four. And so when I was standing on the side here looking at my father-in-law, I could see the bed that my father died in. It was difficult, difficult when he died. We went to his funeral. He was here in Chino at St. Margaret's and the priest said, my father Ruben, Ruben Lopez. He said in heaven because he was baptized as a baby. My son Joseph stood up behind that microphone because he was given opportunity to speak. And my son Joseph said, Ruben Lopez, my grandfather is in heaven today, not because he was baptized, but because he gave his heart to Jesus Christ, repented of his sins and got born again and preached the message to our family. But see, I had gone through that loss. And I could understand and help my wife navigate hers. You don't suffer for nothing. You learn from it. You learn to give what you've received. You learn what was good when it was said to you and what shouldn't have been said to you. You learn those things so that you can communicate to other people suffering. One of its purposes is to train us into the mercy of God, the comfort of God and the ability to minister to others who are going through the pain that you've suffered yourself. So there's a purpose in it. It's never just mindless and useless. Do you wanna be deep? You go through deep things. And ultimately what happens when the Lord continues and completes his work is what we're gonna be having a full experience relationship with him in 1 Peter 4, 13 and 14. And it's as rejoiced to the extent that you partake of Christ's suffering that when his glory is revealed you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you're reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part he's blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified. So our hope, he says in you in verse seven is steadfast. We know that as you are partakers of the sufferings so also you will partake of the consolation. It is not useless. Through all that we endure that is not something we have brought on ourselves. We must remember that God is a father of mercy and he is the God of all comfort. There are things that we go with and I'll close with this. We go through that we blame God for. We say, how come God? Well, sometimes we are simply reaping the seeds we sowed. We did it to ourselves but we blame him. Why are you allowing this to happen in my life? You sowed those seeds. Contrary to my word, I taught you not to do that. You sowed from the flesh you will reap corruption. So don't blame me, God could say. Don't blame me for being God, for saying this in my word and warning you how many times that I have to tell you. Don't blame me for what you're reaping. There are people who are right now going through things, consider it for a moment. Are you blaming the Lord or is it something that you did to yourself? And if you did it to yourself, repent. Say, God, I'm sorry. You see, blaming God is never wise. I got out of the army, I started growing my hair. I used to wear long hair but I was gonna go to Biola and I had to get my hair cut. They used to have haircut regulations. So I went to this place that used to get my hair cut and I asked him to cut my hair in a certain way but he decided to cut it the way he thought it should be and he cut my hair into an old 50s style hair, it's like a pompadour. Some of you guys remember that? Looked like a 53 Chevy hood on your head. It was like all round like that. And then, you know that surprise like, how do you like it when they turn you around and there you are? I was so mad, I was so mad. I'm just looking at, Greece is the word. I mean, I'm looking at myself. I got on my motorcycle cause I used to have a Harley and I was driving and as I was driving home I was mad at God and I was saying, even a haircut, you can't even guide the hand of a barber. I was so mad, look at my hair, look at my hair. And I went home and I washed it and I was complaining to my sister Madeline was there. What's wrong? Look at this. I told God, why God, why can't you God? How come God, I was always mad at the Lord for anything bad and I got on my motorcycle and drove from where I lived. I lived on a street called Orende Road and I went up to Firestone and I started to take a right turn and as I took a right I downshifted into second gear and powered out and when I did that to accelerate up the hill when I did that I hit a patch of oil and when I hit the patch of oil, the bike went down and I'm laying there with my bike on me with traffic starting. I remember sliding out from underneath the bike, grabbing it, dragging it to the side of the road and I distinctly remember hearing the voice of the Lord saying, don't talk to me that way. I'm not lying. Don't talk to me that way. And I stopped. My bike didn't get messed up. There were no dents on it. The paint wasn't scratched. It landed on its tank. Should have been all scratched because I hit hard. I got up not a ding on the, not a nothing wrong with the bike and only a little chastening on me. So I began to learn at that time, don't blame God for everything that goes bad in your life. Some of those things are just life and guess what, sometimes life stinks. Sometimes it doesn't go the way I want it to go but guess what, I'm not God. I learned a good lesson from dumping my bike and I've done other things that the Lord will speak to me and he does through his word, he does by his spirit and sometimes a still small voice where he says that's enough, let it go. Have you been there? Because that's how he works. Any comfort that you have that comes from him is for somebody else too. It's not just for you, it's for others. Why? Because Christianity isn't just me, it's us. It's us. We share what God has given to us with others. That way we can help them not to go through the things we've gone through. And when you do that, you've understood that God is a merciful and comforting Father. He gives to you, so you give to others.