II Corinthians 1:3–7

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, November 16, 2025.

• "Sometimes encouragement looks like holding someone steady when they cannot hold steady themselves.

• "Sometimes it looks like absorbing the angry words of another without firing back—letting them sit with what they said without the comfort of your having said worse.

• "Sometimes it looks like sitting in a hospital room and saying nothing because nothing can be said that will help.

• "Sometimes it looks like offering a small word of support that helps another keep going during a very bad day.

• "And sometimes it looks like being the one person who doesn’t walk away when others do.

"This is the ministry Paul is naming—the ministry of presence that draws its strength from the God who is present with us. The God who in Jesus Christ stepped into our sorrow and our joy, into our failures and our hope, into our living and even into our dying."

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