Sharing Christ’s Sufferings, Receiving God’s Comfort

But Paul's point here is to help us to understand to help the Corinthians to understand that the Christian life isn't one that evades. It isn't one that escapes suffering. The Christian life is one that learns to embrace it, learns to endure it. Because as we share in the sufferings of Christ, we share in his comfort. Therefore, we can take that same comfort and share it with those around us. [00:39:00] (26 seconds)  #EmbraceEndureFaith

So if you would, picture picture the comfort of God not so much as that in our suffering, God shows up and changes the circumstance and ends or terminates the difficulty. But that in our suffering, God comes alongside and is present with us in that suffering, that the comfort of God is not the change of circumstance, but God coming alongside to strengthen us and to sustain us in the midst of whatever that suffering may be. That's God's comfort. [00:20:09] (38 seconds)  #GodComesAlongside

But that's not the sales pitch that we often give for ministry. Come and give everything. But for Paul, when he says, listen, you Corinthians, you Christians, you want to experience the comfort of God. The comfort of God is experienced in as much as we experience the sufferings of Christ. You can't take one without the other. Why? Because as we suffer well and endure well for Christ, we find that it's in the midst of that suffering that we experience in the truest and fullest sense the comfort of God. [00:18:06] (38 seconds)  #SufferAndShareComfort

That perhaps there's moments when we engage in the mission and ministry that God has called us to that we find ourself in a place of despair where we don't have the answer, where we're faced with the most impossible difficulty and maybe the highest of cost, where we may give our life even for that sake. And the purpose for it is that we wouldn't learn to rely on ourselves, but that in that moment, we would learn to rely on God because he is the source. He is the provider of all things. [00:23:00] (28 seconds)  #RelyOnGodInDespair

I don't wanna have to I don't wanna have to get an elbow to the to the ribs. I listen. I just don't want it. The the bench is comfortable, But God has not called us to serve on the bench. He's not called us to lead on the bench. He's called us to get in the game. He's called us to enter that game and to run and to compete and to do so faithfully and with perseverance. [00:29:18] (20 seconds)  #ServeDontSitOut

when they they start to follow Jesus, and they expect things to just kind of clean up a little bit, get get easier, get a little bit cleaner, and they find that actually instead of getting easier, sometimes life gets even harder. Sometimes the suffering ramps up just a little bit. The difficulties start to to heat up just a tad. And instead of being frustrated or disappointed or caught off guard by that, the the Bible continually calls us to come back to this idea that that we should expect that to happen. [00:03:38] (31 seconds)  #FollowingJesusHasCost

K? And these these may be external difficulties, circumstances or events or things in our life that that put pressure on us. They test your faith. They makes you feel like the weight of the world is falling on your back. It could also be internal difficulties, internal afflictions where you are wrestling and fighting and battling in a in a in a struggle against sin or temptation or whatever it may be. These things that test your faith. They put pressure on you. Those are the difficulties for Christ and in Christ that Paul's talking about. [00:09:55] (35 seconds)  #FaithUnderPressure

When you're in the midst of hardship, the enemy wants nothing more than for you to believe that you are the only one fighting the battle, that you are alone in the fight. And what happens, and we see it happen all the time in the midst of difficulty, people will step back, and there is a tendency to isolate ourself because of shame, because of fear. [00:33:57] (23 seconds)  #NotAloneInHardship