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WHERE IS GOD WHEN IT HURTS? OVERFLOWING SUFFERING MET BY OVERFLOWING COMFORT 2 Corinthians 1: 3-11
INTRODUCTION If ever there was a person who suffered physical pain, social rejection, the loss of earthly comfort and emotional distress, it was Christianity’s chief spokesperson of the 1st century and author of half of the NT, Paul of Tarsus. He was raised in a wealthy home, the successful son of an influential Roman citizen who also was a committed follower of the Jewish traditions. He was trained in the best Jewish schools and was rapidly growing in his reputation as a fierce and capable leader and defender of the true Jewish faith. The Lord Christ himself confronted him while he was seeking to stomp out the beginnings of the Christian church. Jesus told him, when he opened his eyes to his glory, that he would have to suffer many things in order to bring the gospel to the Gentile peoples. How those words proved to be true in his life! The very men whose admiration he worked so hard to gain, turned their fury upon him when they discovered that he was now a promoter of the despised, crucified Jesus. Within days of his conversion there was a plot afoot to assassinate Paul. Turn with me to 2 Cor. 11: 23 and look with me at a part of the list of sufferings that Paul endured. Let me just note that the reason this list exists is because the Corinthians were choosing to listen to other “more successful” teachers and men claiming to be apostles of Christ who were leading them away from Christ. He is seeking to prove to them that he is a true apostle so they will not abandon Christ. The evidence he brings forward is the extent of his suffering. Let me just pick out two or three of the ways that he suffered for us to meditate upon. In v. 24 he tells us that five times he received the forty lashes minus one. That means that on five separate occasions, Paul had his shirt stripped from his back, his hands tied to a pole over his head so that the skin on his back was stretched tight and then he was whipped. The end of the whip had many strands and on the end of each strand was fastened a piece of metal or bone or glass so that the whip stuck to him after each blow and had to be torn out of his flesh. He received 39 blows on five different occasions. He not only endured the pain of the beating but also the pain of the infections that surely followed. What do you think that Paul’s back looked like? His back was a mass of welts and scars. New scars on top of old scars. How much continuous pain did he endure just from these floggings? Then look at v. 27. He labored and toiled both in preaching the gospel but also in making tents in order to provide for the physical necessities of he and his co-workers. Due to a lack of funding he often went without food and at times didn’t have enough money to buy clothes to replace the ones that were stripped from him when he was arrested and beaten and so he sat in cold dungeons, naked. Finally, in vv. 28-29 notice how he suffered ongoing emotional distress out of his concern for the well being of the churches he helped to found. He carried a burden of care for the well being of those he loved. In his first letter to the Corinthians he said this about his life as an apostle, “For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle of the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ…” You may be wondering why I’m taking the time to show you the extent of Paul’s sufferings? One reason is that in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul makes his experience the model of all Christian experience. He does this by using the 1st person plural pronouns, “we”, “us”, “our”, throughout this section. He also explicitly states it in v. 7. He knows these people are Christians because they are suffering as he does and are being comforted as he is. He is not saying that every Christian endures the exact same kinds of suffering, but he does say that the sufferings of Christ overflow into the life of every Christian. C.K. Barrett makes this point so clearly, “Profoundly conscious as he is that he is an apostle, Paul does not draw an absolute distinction between himself and the ordinary Christian who is not an apostle; the special thing about an apostle is that a common Christian pattern comes in him to a particularly sharp focus.” A second reason for pointing out his sufferings is so that we can experience the comfort he experienced. If we are going to be comforted in our sufferings by the sufferings of another we need to know the severity of their suffering because ours always seems severe. The third reason I want you to be fully aware of Paul’s suffering is so that you will know how to answer the many misinformed professing Christians who tell you that faithful Christians don’t suffer, that Christians who live by faith will always be wealthy, healthy and living a successful life. That is a lie because one of the most faithful Christians to ever live suffered every way that we are told that faithful Christians don’t suffer. In this passage Paul is seeking to show some of God’s good purposes in the suffering that we endure as Christians. MAIN POINT The Christian life is a life of overflowing suffering met by overflowing comfort so that…I. God might be praised (vv. 3-4a) You might wonder how a person who has endured such pain and is enduring such pain could ever praise God. “ I mean if God loves me and wants to use me to preach the gospel, then why in the world do I keep getting beat up and thrown in prison? Why am I constantly putting up with a lack of funding and chronic illness? If the God who made the world is really my Father, then why does he permit me to suffer so much?” But you see, Paul doesn’t talk like that. He begins this letter by praising God. Let me remind you that whenever someone truly praises God they are not doing it out of duty. No one ever praises anything or anyone out of duty. We all know that hypocrisy in praise exists. There are many who look and sound like they are praising God but who are in fact, “honoring God with their lips while their hearts are far from him.” However, Paul is not like that. His heart is full of joy in God and so he naturally praises God, he blesses God. He is doing what I’ve heard several young men whose names I won’t mention do as they describe the beauty of Queen/Senator Amadala in the “Star Wars” movies. He is doing what I hear my softball teammates do as they praise one another for getting hits and scoring runs. Everyone praises what he or she admires, values, esteems, i.e., what is impressive. So it is with Paul. Why is his heart so full of joy in God that he cannot help but to praise God? He praises him for who he is and for what he has done. He is the Father of compassion (lit., “the mercies”) and the God of all comfort. He praises him for comforting him in all his trouble. When Paul says that his heart is full of joy that leads to lips full of praise because God is the “Father of the mercies”, he means that God is the originator of mercy. There is no mercy except that which comes from God. It means that God always delivers people from their afflictions not because he is under obligation to do so, but because he delights to be merciful, to show pity. Paul’s heart is full of joy at the thought of God’s mercy because he knows that he does not deserve mercy. He knows that he deserves destruction and hell. He believes Lamentations 3:22, “Because of his great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.” He knows that he and all who join him in God’s eternal kingdom will do so, not because of anything in them but solely due to God’s unmerited favor. So when you know that God is acting as a compassionate Father towards you, that he has compassion for you, when you deserve hell, how can you not be happy and so praise him? God is not only the Father of the mercies but he is also the God of all comfort. God expresses his mercy, his compassion by giving comfort to his afflicted people. He is the source of all comfort, not just some comfort, not just comfort in some situations. He is the one who gives comfort at all times and in every situation and in every way that is needed. But notice that Paul isn’t talking in some theoretical manner. God is the one who comforts him in all his troubles. He speaks from his experience of God’s comfort coming to him in his suffering. While Paul is being lashed with the 39 lashes, God is comforting him. While he spent those 24 hours in the open sea, God was comforting him. While he is burdened with the care of these thousands of other believers, God is comforting him. While he is naked, shivering with cold in that dark dungeon, God is comforting him. While he lies in bed, sick and too weak to move, God is comforting him. If God is able to comfort Paul in the severity of his suffering, how can he not comfort you in whatever suffering he is calling you to endure right now? The Christian life is a life of overflowing suffering met by overflowing comfort so that… · God might be praised · And so that… II. God’s comfort might be experienced by more people (vv. 4b-7) We need to answer two questions. What exactly does Paul mean by comfort? How does this comfort come to us? When I think of what Paul means by this word comfort I think about what it means to comfort one of my children when they are sick or when they are afraid. I have no doubt that if I asked parents what they did when their child was sick or afraid to comfort him or her they would all say the same thing. “I take them in my arms and let them know that everything is going to be OK. I comfort them by being present and by assuring them they are safe. Then I act to keep them safe. I prove that my promise isn’t an empty promise by acting on their behalf.” Now I want you to turn over to 2 Timothy 4, that Steve just read and look with me at a time when Paul was in trouble and how the Lord comforted him. Paul is in prison in Rome and is on trial. If he is convicted he will be executed. Notice that everyone has abandoned him. In v. 17 Paul says, “the Lord stood at my side” and in v. 18 he says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.” The comfort that God gives is the assurance of his presence and that this trouble will not keep me from my heavenly home. Don’t miss that Paul expects more evil attacks! He expects more suffering. He does not expect to be kept safe from suffering but to be kept safe in suffering. He is comforted because he knows that the Lord will not permit any evil thing to keep him from his eternal home. The greatest danger that faces me when I suffer is the danger of forsaking Christ because I cannot handle having the comforts of this life taken from me. The goal of God’s comfort then is to keep us holding fast to Christ so we make it safely to our heavenly home. This definition of comfort fits our text in 2 Cor. very well also. Notice that in v. 6 comfort and salvation are paired together. Paul says that he is afflicted and comforted so they can be comforted now and saved in the future. Then in v. 7 Paul says that his hope for them is firm. What hope is he talking about? He is confident they are going to gain heaven. Why? Because they share in his sufferings and they share in his comfort. In the midst of their suffering, they know that “the Lord will deliver them from every evil attack and bring them safely to his eternal kingdom.” How does the Lord comfort his people? I want to look at three ways God comforts us in these verses. First, the main point of this part of the passage is that God’s comfort comes to the Corinthians through Paul. The main way that God’s comfort comes is by God’s comfort overflowing from Paul’s life into their lives and then through their lives into the lives of others. Paul says here that the suffering comes and the comfort comes to a particular Christian so that Christian can turn around and give the same comfort he or she has experienced to another Christian that is suffering. Look at v. six. It is a remarkable statement. Paul says that the reason that he suffers is for their comfort and salvation and the reason he is comforted is for their comfort. Paul sees God standing behind both his suffering and his comfort. He sees that one of God’s purposes for his suffering and his comfort is to give comfort and salvation to others. How does this work? Here’s how I find this working in my life. Primarily I find that the comfort that others have discovered in suffering comes to me from their example of perseverance. I think of John Owens who was one of the most well respected pastors and theologians in England in the 1600’s. He and his wife had eleven children. Ten of these children died before the age of five. The one daughter that survived died at the age of 21. Yet he was a faithful pastor for over 40 years. He wrote volumes of books that are still in print today, showing the enduring value of his wisdom and insight into the gospel. He believed that to have Christ and to lose everything else was gain and proved it by loving Christ through all those years of suffering. I simply think, “If he could can do it, so can I. If Christ was able to strengthen him to hold fast, then he will hold me fast.” In 1977, Jane and I were considering joining the staff of Campus Crusade and contemplating a life of having to raise money and of moving around on a regular basis. What helped us give up a secure job and income and the respect of our family was knowing so many others that had done and were doing the same thing. Knowing others who are suffering and seeing their persistent faith in Christ and obedience to him and hearing them continue to praise him and to love him assures me that the suffering is not in vain. As I see others remain faithful to Christ while they suffer the loss of earthly comforts and pleasures I am strengthened to “imitate their faith”, to “join with them in suffering for the sake of Christ.” Second, notice that God’s comfort comes to us through or by means of, Christ (v.5). This means that God comforts you not because of anything you ever did to deserve his comfort but because Christ died and rose again on your behalf. This little phrase, “through Christ” is all over the NT and should not be treated as a meaningless cliché. God comforts you for one reason, because of what Jesus did in his suffering, death and resurrection for everyone who trusts in him. But it also means that the comfort we receive is tied to Christ. Christ himself is the source of our comfort. Christ is our life and so he is to be the subject of our meditation. You must think much of Christ through every day if you are going to find Christ to be your comfort when the afflictions come. A third thing to note about how the comfort comes is at the end of v. 6. I think the ESV has a clearer translation. It says that the Corinthians will experience the comfort that Paul is giving them “when they patiently endure the same sufferings Paul endures.” In other words, comfort is only experienced when you are enduring suffering. We shouldn’t expect to be comforted by God when we are not enduring suffering. Corrie ten Boom describes this reality in her account of how her family helped many Jewish people escape the gas chambers of Nazi Germany before they were finally caught and thrown into a concentration camp themselves. She tells how she was talking with her father one day about her fear that she would not have the courage and faith to hold onto Christ and endure if they were caught and went to a concentration camp. She just didn’t think that she could handle it. Her father reminded her of what happened whenever he took her to the train to go and see her grandparents. He asked, “When do I give you the ticket for the train?” She said, “When I’m just about to get on it.” He said, “That’s right. In the same way God doesn’t give you the grace you need to stand until you need it.” God gives you his comfort when you suffer and not before. The Christian life is a life of overflowing suffering met by overflowing comfort so that… · God might be praised · God’s comfort might be experienced by more people · And so that… III. Self-confidence is destroyed and God-confidence is strengthened (vv. 8-10a) In vv. 8-9 Paul describes a particular affliction that he endured and what affect it had on his life. We do not know what the affliction was. We don’t know if this was suffering due to the general misery that is in the world, like sickness and accidents or if it was suffering due to his calling as a Christian and an apostle, like being beaten or imprisoned. The only things that are certain about the trouble are first, it happened while he was living in Asia, most likely the city of Ephesus. Second, the suffering felt to Paul as if it were too great a burden to bear. It was as if a massive rock was placed upon on his back and was crushing him. Paul was sure that he was going to die. He was in a situation that was so severe that he had given up all hope of remaining physically alive. He was in a hopeless situation. He was like a man on death row, the sentence was passed and he was simply waiting for the execution. Third, while being sure he was going to die, suddenly, he was delivered from death. He was, as it were, snatched from the jaws of death. He says in the middle of v. 9 that the reason that this happened was so that “we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” There are three things that you must see here. First, Paul believes that God put him in this situation. In other words, God placed him on the brink of death. God wanted Paul to despair of life, to have the sentence of death in himself. God stripped away all hope of remaining alive. Second, the reason God did this was to shatter all of Paul’s self-confidence. Humans are by nature self-reliant, proud creatures. Humans believe they have what it takes to gain a happy life on planet earth. Humans believe the lie of Satan that a happy life on earth is better than the eternal pleasures God offers. Therefore, we give our energy to building happiness here, rather than pursuing God and his righteousness. Therefore, God sends suffering to break us of our self-reliance. When a man or woman comes face to face with their own mortality, with the finality of death, they can no longer live under the illusion that they have what it takes to be happy. The threat of death strips away all confidence of finding happiness here. Jonathon Edwards, arguably the most famous pastor in American history, regularly told his congregation to think often of their death and of the final judgment. I am absolutely persuaded that no one can live well who is not prepared to die well. I view my task as your pastor to prepare you for a good death because I believe you cannot live well if you are not prepared to die well. The third thing to see is that God puts us in situations where we despair of life to humble us and to cause us to depend upon him, the God who raises the dead. God did not put Paul in this situation so that he would depend upon God to deliver him from this life-threatening situation. God put the sentence of death upon Paul so that he would set his hope firmly on the God who raises the dead. He wanted Paul to fix his attention on the final resurrection, not on deliverance from the immediate trouble. God wanted to make Paul into a person who could say that to die is gain. He wanted Paul to be a person who could live in hope and joy no matter what the trouble because he knows that the deliverance that is coming is absolutely certain because the God we trust in is the God who raises the dead. The point of the suffering is to convince Paul that it is hopeless to live as if you can be happy in this world. It is foolish to act as though this world is what you were made for. This situation had its intended effect upon Paul because even when he is kept alive he sees that deliverance as simply pointing ahead to a far greater deliverance. Paul was surprised to still be alive. This unexpected deliverance gave him greater hope in the final deliverance. I can report to you that Jared’s suffering is having this effect upon me. When I think of our situation from a purely earthbound point of view, it is hopeless and overwhelming. What gives me joy, and I mean real joy, and hope is to think of the day of resurrection. This suffering is the not the end. There is a great day of joy coming. This will one day end, when death will be swallowed up by victory. There is a day coming of such joy that the present suffering will seem as nothing. This greater awareness of the coming resurrection helps me to love others and to forgo earthly pleasures in order to love others because I know that everything I “lose” here for the sake of Christ will be more than made up for in heaven. I am discovering that what Jim Elliott, the young man who was killed by the tribal people he was attempting to share the gospel with, said, “A man is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” The Christian life is a life of overflowing suffering met by overflowing comfort so that… · God might be praised · God’s comfort might be experienced by more people · Self-confidence is destroyed and God-confidence is strengthened · And so that… IV. Prayers would lead to praise (vv. 10b-11) Paul ends his reflection on God’s purposes in suffering where he started, with the glory of God. At the end of v. 10 he declares his comfort, his hope is set on God who he knows will continue to deliver him throughout his life until he is safely home. He is not saying that God will keep him from suffering but that God will so work in his life that he will persevere in faith through all the suffering because God will deliver him. Then he says another amazing thing, “as you help us by your prayers.” Paul knows that while it is God who will keep him safe that one of the reasons God will do so is because he is answering the prayers of God’s people on his behalf. If you were to ask Paul how does he know that God is going to keep him safe until heaven? One of his answers would be, “because so many people are asking God to keep me safe.” He says the same thing over in Philippians 1: 18-19 at a time he was in prison. “Yes and I will continue to rejoice because I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my salvation.” Paul knows that God will make the suffering he endures serve his eternal good because God’s people are praying for him and God will answer their prayers. Why has God set things up in this way? Why does he send suffering and then send comfort in response to the prayers of his people? The NIV doesn’t reflect the Greek very well at this point because Paul is quite careful to use a word that points to purpose. Verse 11 ought to read, “As you help us by your prayer on our behalf so that God might be thanked by many people for the gift granted us through the prayers of many.” Many wonder, if God is sovereign, if he sends the suffering and he sends the comfort, then why should we bother with prayer. Right here are two reasons. First, God gives the gift of faith and perseverance and deliverance now and forever in answer to the prayers of Christians for one another. Second, he does this for the same reason he does all that he does in the world, for the praise of his glorious name. We get the benefit. He gets the glory. We cry out for help, he gives the help and so receives the praise. When we stand around God’s glorious throne in his eternal kingdom we will not be talking about how wonderful we were or about how strong our faith was, we will be praising God for how he listened to our cries for help and then sent help to strengthen us so we would not abandon Christ. I want to read you an email we received this week from a woman we graduated from college with but with whom we have had no contact for 25 years. She recently heard about our situation and has written us several times. She writes, “This morning reading through Matthew 5-7, I’m reminded that ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. And, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ So, I continue to pray that you would know the peace and comfort of our Lord Jesus. I also continue to ask God that His will be done and all those who love Him can trust in His perfect plan, but also ask for a miracle and a healing. I know that there is always hope with our Lord…” There are hundreds of people praying for us in this way. It is God’s answering these prayers that explains why we are able to hold on to Christ in these difficult days. We all need to be prayed for in this fashion because every Christian is experiencing the sufferings of Christ and so every Christian needs to experience the comfort of God, the assurance that the suffering is worth it and that God will keep us safe to our eternal home. All of us need to have others ask God to keep us from loving the world and so being destroyed by suffering. We need to have people praying that the suffering would loosen our grip on this world and cause us to hope in God, who raises the dead. This will result in the suffering serving us in our salvation and in God getting the glory. No one is going to make it safely to heaven without others praying for them. Here is one other reason for making it your goal to develop relationships with other believers. Here is another reason to be in a small group. Here is another reason to join us for First Friday Prayer. Here is another reason to gather your family together each day to pray. The Christian life is a life of overflowing suffering met by overflowing comfort so that… · God might be praised · God’s comfort might be experienced by more people · Self-confidence is destroyed and God-confidence is strengthened · Prayers will lead to praise
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Copyright 2002 John Swanson.
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