My name is John Latham. I'm from the Austin, Texas area. And we like to be called Texans. And no matter how you say it, it's not an insult. So those not with our culture been so blessed today to be here.

Almost didn't get to come When Scott asked me months ago, it was a tenuous, yeah, I'd love to come and be a part. But as late as Tuesday, I was on the phone with the airline just trying to see if my Wednesday flight might be moved to Thursday. And of course, they said, Nope, you've got the cheap ticket. You either fly tomorrow or you buy a whole whole new ticket. We have some health issues in our family that we deal with.

We've been dealing with. It's actually the three year anniversary of a 22 year old son and three years ago he was almost killed in the car accident. Some of you know the story and uh it was right before the conference that year and Scott I think mentioned it to the people here. Y'all prayed for us for fear are so grateful. Uh but at the time he had broken bones and uh ribs and whatnot a leg and and yet it's a brain injury that still bothers him today that we still deal with.

He was in the hospital setting for almost 10 months. We were able to bring him home and care for him. We turned our dying room into kind of a hospital room and care for him there in our home. It's a chore. He doesn't speak.

He doesn't swallow very well. He has a tracheostomy to kind of protect his airway and his lungs. He can't walk. He has use of his right arm some, but not his right hand very well. At times he's like an Alzheimer's patient, he's irrational, unreasonable, and difficult to deal with.

And other times he's very docile and calm and seems to understand where he is, who he is, and what's going on. And so he also has lung issues kind of ongoing because of the trach. He gets pneumonia about every six or seven months. And so again, the idea of planning something and being so far away from home, when you have someone like that in your family, you just don't know from day to day, week to week, month to month, what life is going to look like. And then this last July, my daughter, a 13-year-old daughter named Abby, she started having health problems.

First it was her eyes. I thought it was pink eye. Saw a doctor, said, no, it's not pink eye. I think it's this. And treated her, and it would go away, and it would come back.

And then in September, she started having pain and swelling in her joints and they run some tests and her her autoimmune numbers are high her Arthritis numbers are high and one doctor thinks she has rheumatoid arthritis. Uh, I doctor thinks she has cat scratch fever, so she's being treated for an infection. Uh, in the last few weeks, she's had these horrible mouth and throat ulcers that she's dealing with. Doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to drink. And, and so really is more her as of Tuesday that I was concerned about leaving my wife both to care for for our son and and our daughter in that situation and being being so far away.

So what I speak to you about this morning is is being under pressure and just be to work a word of comfort to you. I guess I look at our situation and you told me three years ago, well this is going to happen and this is going to happen and you'll be in this hospital setting for this long, you'll bring your son home, I'll take care of him and this will go on and on and then your daughter will get sick and that will go on for months and who knows where it goes from here. I probably would have said to you, I don't think I can handle that. It's probably a little too much for me. I don't know if my family can handle that.

I don't know that given the other responsibilities of shepherding the rest of my family and being a pastor that I can deal with all that. That seems a bit much, Lord. Thank you, I'll take it. Is there a second option? And yet, my family's still together.

We're still serving the Lord. We're still a joyful family. There's still peace in our home. God is still flourishing us in so many ways that we're still here. And I'll read from Saint Corinthians and Paul's words there, we haven't been crushed.

Paul speaks of being hard-pressed on every side and yet not crushed. I just want to speak just a brief word of comfort each of you today because I look around I know in a room like this with men who are pastors, men who are husbands and fathers, with some of you young men and being students and with work and things you have going on, that there's affliction everywhere. There's trial and tribulation, there's pressure everywhere. Every family, every table, every church, there's difficulty, there's pressure, there's hardship, there's heartbreak. I just want to say to you that Paul begins this letter to the Church of Corinth, reminding them that they serve and love and are being ministered to by the God of all comforts.

So that then in the fourth chapter he can say to them, but we have this treasure and earthen vessels so the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. Always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested and our mortal flesh so death works in us but life in you and I certainly wouldn't in any way compare myself to the Apostle Paul and to the afflictions that he endured what I'm going through and our family's going through is minor compared to the persecution he endured compared to what Puyong just just spoke about that the believers in Iran are going through. And you might do the same.

You might look and say, well, I'm not going through near what John's going through, but pressure is pressure. And in many ways, we all can feel that and experience that and know what Paul means in a different degree and saying yeah I feel hard-pressed on every side. My wife and I joked the other day that we're basically going to begin turning our house into a hospital. We got the dying room already for our son, our daughter, whatever's going on with her. We're gonna turn another room into something for her.

We have aging parents that that live near us. They're all in their seventies and we're just a matter of time. You know, it's just it's just coming. One of them is gonna have a stroke when I was gonna get sick, heart attack and and we're just we'll just line them up and and the Lord would just may call us in the medical ministry here hard-pressed on every side and yet not crushed not crushed well I had a moment the other day when I felt as though the weight was too much and I was going to be crushed. I have moments here and there where I feel like it's too much.

I'm going to flee or I'm going to collapse. My wife's going to come in and she's going to find me on the floor there in a fetal position sucking my thumb, crying. Another night I had one I felt was just that close to doing that. I spent a lot of the day trying to help my daughter. And she's 13.

She's at that wonderful, beautiful, terrifying age of 13. And she goes from being OK to in tears and crying and it hurts. And I can't do it. And the medicine's not working. And this isn't working.

And I went from her room and trying to comfort her, and then back down the hall to my son's room to check on him. And that went on kind of day in and day out for the last few weeks. And then things had kind of calmed down, and I'm up, and it's kind of late at night. I'm checking on my son, and he's agitated, and he's sweating. He kind of does this.

And he could have tooth pain. He could need to go to the bathroom, maybe he's gone to the bathroom or who knows what and he's sweating and he's agitated and it's like 1230 at night and I'm tired and I just wanted to stop and check and figure it out. And he's gone to the bathroom. And everyone's asleep. And I'm like, great.

And I'm wanting to get on to him like, son, there's the right time of the day to do this, and it's not now. This is not the time for this. I've got no help. And it just all seems so overwhelming that I was almost in tears, almost just weeping there. And I'm not saying that crying is unmanly, I don't over cry, but it wasn't that kind of crying.

It wasn't a weeping we've heard about today over sin or repentance or weeping with those who are suffering. It was a weeping of it's too much. I can't take it anymore. And yet, by the grace of God, my wife heard me talking to him and came out and helped me. We got it done.

It was no big deal. Again, it was the moment it felt as though it was too much. In reality, it was really not much at all. But we feel that way at times, don't we? As husbands, fathers, pastors, men, young men, whatever it is, that it's too much, that we're going to be crushed.

We're going to lose our minds. We're going to lose our religion. We're going to walk away. And here Paul gives us a glorious truth that even in his ministry with all the affliction, all the difficulty, the persecution, the jail, his illnesses, everything he dealt with, he says yes we are hard-pressed in every way but not crushed. Perplexed, absolutely, we are perplexed with our daughter.

We are doing all sorts of things to try to help her. If there's a remedy for ulcers we have either tried it or are trying it. We are perplexed. We're not despairing. We talked today about persecution and I've dealt with just a fraction of it compared to so many of you and if I talk to some of you about the pressure on undergoing it would entail persecution.

We're not abandoned and at times we get knocked down, never destroyed. And Paul tells us why that is. It's not because we're better or smarter or because we will ourselves through it because of this all surpassing power of God that is in us through Christ Jesus. We cannot be crushed because we will not be abandoned. The God of all comfort comforts us in every affliction, whether it's watching your child suffer or maybe as some of you had to do watching your child die.

Whether it's the affliction of shepherding and caring and loving people in a church that don't love you back or walk away or worse, walk away from God. There's afflictions in your marriage, your job, your finances. Every affliction God comforts his people. He never abandons us. He never lets us get destroyed.

Never lets us get crushed. We'll talk about the reformers throughout this week, and as we reflect upon them, think of what they endured for the gospel, for solo scriptura, for the church. We've seen satan through so many things at them. They were harassed by the romaness of the pope and and his armies, his hordes and his priests that they were chased out of churches. They were chased out of countries.

They were afflicted by God's people as well. Yet they were never crushed, never destroyed. They persevered. They kept preaching and working because the God of all comfort encouraged, strengthened and upheld them. I don't know what you're going through.

I've shared just a brief little bit of what I'm going through, but I just want to comfort encourage you today that the God of all comfort is here. He is near the broken hearted. Whatever comes your way this this day, this week or this coming year, run to him, cling to him, trust in him. He will not fail you.