FBC Morning Light – April 22, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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A good Friday morning to you. Hope your week has gone well and looking forward to the weekend. We have a special weekend coming up this

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Sunday, and it's carrying over into Monday and Tuesday. We're having a Spring Bible Conference featuring

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Mark Chansky. He's been a pastor for a number of years in Michigan, now serves as a coordinator for the

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Reformed Baptist Network, and he wrote a book a few years ago entitled Encouragement, Adrenaline for the

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Soul. He's going to be with us this weekend and speaking in the adult

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Sunday school class, Sunday morning at 9 .30, in the morning service at 10 .30,

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and then again in the evening service at 6 o 'clock. And then we're also having sessions on Monday and Tuesday evening at 7 o 'clock, and all of these sessions are going to revolve around his book

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Encouragement. I trust that the services themselves, the messages themselves, will be an encouragement to us, but they'll also equip us and challenge us to be an encouragement to other people within our own homes, within our church family, and within the workplace, and others in the world around us.

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So let me just really encourage you, if you're in the Sterling area, to set aside the time, join us for these special Bible Conference sessions this

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Sunday, and then Monday night and Tuesday night. Sunday, regular service times, Monday and Tuesday at 7 o 'clock.

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I hope you can do that. Today we're reading in 2 Corinthians 1, and I found an interesting connection here between what we read in 2

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Corinthians, in the experience of the Apostle Paul, and the experience of Job in the

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Old Testament that we've been reading about. Here's where I'm going with this. In verse 4, he talks about the fact that God, the

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God of all comfort, comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort others.

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Now focus on that. Get that. Did you hear that? God comforts us in our tribulation.

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So the first thing to understand is that God's people experience tribulation, good, godly people.

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Paul himself expresses later the character of some of the tribulation he's experienced.

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Listen to what he says. He says in verse 8, we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia.

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Now, he doesn't explain what that trouble was, but he goes on to say the effect of that trouble.

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He says that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.

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Now, does that sound like the emotional experience of Job?

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He was so troubled and burdened beyond measure, beyond his strength to endure it, so that he despaired even of life.

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Yes. So again, if you've been listening the last few days and you've been reading through the book of Job, you've heard

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Job's friends basically argue, look, godly people don't suffer tribulation like this. If you're dealing with tribulation, then there's something wrong with you.

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And Paul says, I endured this great tribulation, this despairing of soul.

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So much so, in verse 9, he says that we had the sentence of death in ourselves. So God's people, good, godly people, experience tribulation.

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But when they experience tribulation, God also has ways of bringing comfort and encouragement to those who are experiencing that tribulation.

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Job's friends could have been instruments of comfort to him, but they weren't.

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They were instruments of torture instead. But God intends that we become agents and ministers of comfort and encouragement.

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I guess that dovetails very nicely with our Bible conference here starting in a couple of days, doesn't it?

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But this is what he says. In verse 3 he says, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, comforts us in all our tribulation, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

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We don't have the details of how Paul was comforted by God, if this was direct or indirect.

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Did the comfort come directly? In other words, as Paul meditated on biblical truth and what he knew about God, what

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God was like, that comforted and encouraged him, sort of like David in the incident in Ziklag.

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Remember that in the Old Testament? David had gone out to battle with his men and left wives and children at home.

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While they were gone, some enemies came and overran their village and took all their property and took their goods and their wives and their children away.

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David and his men came back to Ziklag, and they saw what had happened, and they were utterly devastated, understandably.

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But we read there that David encouraged himself in the Lord. Is this what

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Paul did? Did he encourage himself in the Lord? Did the Lord directly comfort and encourage him, or did he do so indirectly?

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Maybe with the encouragement of those in the ministry team who were with him. Maybe by seeing some encouraging response or fruit from his labors.

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We don't know exactly the method that God used to comfort Paul, but here's how Paul applies it.

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He says, God comforted me in my tribulation, so that I then might turn around and comfort others who are enduring and going through tribulation themselves.

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One of the ways that God uses to comfort and encourage his people in their times of tribulation is to use his people to give that comfort.

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That begs the question, will I be such an agent of comfort?

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Will I allow that comfort to come to me? Will I allow

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God to use instruments of comfort to come to me in my affliction and my tribulation?

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There are some people who just want to suffer in silence, they just want to suffer alone, and they go through deep dark waters and they put on a smiling face, and they're in agony and misery and despair deep inside, but outwardly you wouldn't know, you'd never know.

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Oh, but if they would only allow the ministers of comfort to minister to them.

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You see, this is a method God uses of comforting us in our affliction, using other people, and God wants to use us to be a blessing and a help and encouragement to others.

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Maybe a good way to think about this is to say, I really need this

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Bible conference this weekend. I need to learn better how to be an encouragement to others.

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Again, as I said at the beginning of our time together today, let me encourage you to come to these special services

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Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday. Set aside that time, make it an important priority.

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We may learn how to be better equipped to give comfort to those in tribulation.

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Our Father and our God, we thank you for the comfort that you give and the instruments you use to bring that comfort.

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May we be instruments of comfort in your hand. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, have a good rest of your