Please be seated. Turn to your, uh, in your copy of the scriptures to second Corinthians. Uh, today we’ll begin, uh, that little book or big book, I guess it is 13 chapters. Uh, remember in our understanding of Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians, he went there on a second missionary journey, stayed about a year and a half. Uh, he left. Uh, he visited once it was called the painful visit. And in our, uh, early studies here in second Corinthians, he’ll mention coming again. Uh, he’s written them. This is his fourth letter. We don’t have the first one. It’s lost. We have the second one called first Corinthians. Uh, we don’t have his third, third letter it’s lost, but we have the fourth one and it’s called second Corinthians. Hopefully that’s all clear.
Remember that the city of Corinth is in the province of Achaia. So at the end of 1 Corinthians, when Paul was giving his greetings, he said that Fortunatus and one other person and Achaicus had come. So Achaicus was probably a slave whose name was named after that region. Remember, Achaia is the region and Anyway, it’s south of Macedonia where Philippi, Athens.
So anyway, a little background. It’s helpful to peek at your maps and follow the brown lines and purple lines and whatever of the missionary journeys. But anyway, he’s telling them about his third missionary journey. Today, we won’t really discuss verses one and two, because we’ve talked a million times about these introductions. I’ll probably say a little something, but we’ll really jump to verse three. But let’s now give our attention to God’s word. Second Corinthians chapter one, verses one through 11.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth. with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as we share abundantly in Christ’s suffering, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. For if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.
For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessings granted us through the prayers of many. Amen, God’s word.
I can imagine that some of you have been through a near-death experience. Perhaps that near-death experience was in a health matter. You nearly died, but God rescued you. Perhaps that near-death experience was in your automobile. Perhaps that near-death experience was on a roller coaster or a ski slope or a runaway motorcycle or who knows what. But you perhaps have been near death and you have come back and said, oh my goodness, what was that? Glad that’s over. The apostle Paul lived a life of near death experiences. He lived a near death life as an apostle, you might say, both in body and in soul.
Remember when he was converted on the Damascus road. Remember when he met the risen Christ, how the risen Christ said to him and said to Ananias, who would later find Saul in Damascus, He said, I will show Saul or Paul how much he must suffer for my name’s sake. And indeed that he would be the instrument God would use, God’s chosen instrument to be a light to the Gentiles.
Well, we know from Paul’s ministry through letters and correspondence to the people at Corinth that his ministry of three years at Ephesus has been both glorious and fruitful but he has also faced many harsh enemies. And so when he speaks in this passage of his sufferings, he speaks in this passage of great difficulties, not only does he refer to his whole apostolic ministry and his time at Ephesus, but he also had an experience as they traveled through the province of Asia, coming face to face with death many times. Paul, in several places in his writings, provides enough information where we can have this wonderful summary of what he endured.
There was a time in Ephesus where he upset the Jewish population and they examined him through the 39 lashes, the same treatment he would receive several other times. They gave 40 lashes, lest one, and the last one was in case they miscounted, but also so as not to kill the person receiving such a punishment. During Paul’s ministry at Ephesus. As he proclaimed Jesus Christ, he upset the temple worship there so much that the silversmiths who made the silver idols that were worshiped among that population, they caused a great riot because their business was ended by the apostles preaching of the gospel and the conversions that would follow. And that riot at Ephesus nearly cost him his life. He speaks in other places of a sickness that brought him near death, of labors that were intense, of imprisonments, of countless beatings. He speaks of being near death often.
He was stoned and left for dead at Lystra. He was shipwrecked on at least three occasions. His journeys took him through rivers and through bands of robbers. He was attacked by Jews. He was attacked by Gentiles. He was attacked in the city. He was attacked in the wilderness. False brothers have been out for his life. And he has indeed found escape at a time from a basket through a window on a city wall.
He had nights of sleeplessness. He went through hunger. He went through thirst. He went through exposure, daily pressures and anxieties, and he wondered at times about the spiritual state of his people that he had served. And so the daily pressures and anxieties took a toll on him.
We read in Hebrews 11 of many wonderful people who were the heroes of the faith by faith. They believed in God. They did wonderful things. But we’re told in Hebrews 11 and perhaps Paul is referenced here. We don’t know. But there were many who suffered mocking and flogging and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy. This is the life of the apostle Paul. This is the life of the one God called on the Damascus Road. and set him apart and sent him to be a light to the Gentiles. This is the one who would give us 13 epistles that we hold so dearly in our scriptures. And you wonder why this trouble, why this suffering?
Well, you read later on in 2 Corinthians, Paul speaks of having a thorn in the flesh. God gave him that thorn in the flesh that he might not think so much of wonderful things, but have a humility. And when he asked over and over that God would take away the affliction, God would take away the discomfort. God would take away all of the hardships.
God simply said, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect and weakness. And that is the thing that we ought to be thinking of in this passage. When we are at our lowest, at our weakest, God’s strength. shines brightly, God’s character shines brightly. For in our weakness, God’s power is made perfect. We see the face of God more clearly, but also we are able afterwards to minister to others who go through such hardship.
And in our passage, you see it’s a brain twister, it’s a tongue twister. I think the word comfort is used a dozen times, the word affliction several times. But big picture, we have the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he is the father of all mercies and he is the father of all comfort.
Now, we live in an era in Christianity here in the West where we mingle the blessings of a prosperous life with some of our beliefs. And even in America, we have this prosperity gospel, this prosperity doctrine that’s false, of course. But it says God wants you to be happy and God wants you to be prosperous.
And so if you are not happy and you’re not prosperous, something in your daily disciplines is not right. And usually when you watch the TV preachers, you haven’t sent money for their jet. Right. You haven’t sent money for their lavish lifestyle, those sorts of things. But the exact opposite is true.
If you’re suffering in the Christian life, that means God is at work. If you are suffering in the Christian life, that must mean God is at work in you. I was watching a news clip the other day, and I think it was our secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and he was being chastised by a Democrat senator at some hearing. And this senator was just giving him the business about you know, you’re just a dirty, rotten, stinky person. And so when, uh, the secretary of state had the chance to respond, he simply said, it must mean I’m doing my job. And I think as believers, we have been conditioned that life ought to be wonderful and happy and never, never with any pain.
Uh, but there is a sense when we are living the Christian life, when there is pain, that is when God is most at work. And when in the midst of that pain, there’s darkness and uncertainty, and we say, Oh, Perhaps God is up to nothing. That is when God is up to something. Remember, C.S. Lewis said that pain is God’s megaphone. And so perhaps in the pain of life, we should say, speak, Lord, your servants are listening.
So what are we to think of this passage? What are we to think of the life and ministry of Paul? What are we to think of our own life and ministry as Christians in the 21st century? Uh, perhaps where we’re too prosperous, definitely where, when the going gets tough, the Christian church is very tempted to cave in. And when the going gets tough and things don’t seem to be working instead, instead of holding fast to the gospel, we water it down and say, oh, we need to figure out how to make it palatable. Some more people will come to faith. Uh, when we think our lives are ineffective or we think the culture and it’s rot all around us, it’s going to overtake us.
This is when we should remember the life and ministry of Paul. We hold fast to the gospel. We hold fast to the character of God and we keep on going in the midst of the darkness. We keep on going in the midst of the hardship. We keep on going even when people say, no, you’re wrong. No, the gospel can’t be true.
Now, remember the setting of Corinth. Remember the phrase to Corinthianize was basically. uh, equating the Corinthians with all sorts of debauchery. They had the temple, uh, was it to, uh, Diana, the temple where they had something like a thousand cult prostitutes. And so all around the apostle. all around the early church there at Corinth was great debauchery and great idolatry. And I think one of the struggles that Paul had in his ministry, why there was so much trouble is for these people to be converted from idolatry and sexual debauchery to faith in Jesus into a life of following Jesus.
That was really, really hard. There was so much to clean up. And it’s not that the word couldn’t do its work. It’s not that the spirit couldn’t cleanse and sanctify. But it shows us that as believers, whether we’re living in the promised land with some Canaanites still around, or living in Corinth with the Corinthianizers all around, or we’re living in 21st century America, we’ve got to be on our toes. We’ve got to mind our P’s and Q’s. We will live for Jesus. We will believe truth, but it will not be popular. We won’t be famous. And perhaps we too will suffer some of what Paul and others have suffered. So we want to think today about the value of suffering.
And just by way of reminder, Joseph, when he revealed himself to his brothers, Uh, at the end of Genesis, after he had been in Egypt and in prison, been in Egypt and been forgotten by the, uh, the cup bearer, been in Egypt and raised up seven years of stores for the seven years of famine, his brothers come father dies. And remember the brothers say, Oh boy, daddy’s dead. We don’t have our free pass anymore. Um, he he’s gonna, he’s gonna get us back for what we did to him.
And do you remember what gracious Joseph says to his brothers, what you meant for evil? God meant for good. And that’s the key to understanding our suffering. There is value in it. Joseph was able to say what you have meant for evil, God has meant for good. How about Job? 40 chapters of misery. We understand what Job went through. We have the picture in the Bible in a couple of chapters of what Satan asked God permission to do.
And, you know, round one, then round two. And then we have to put up with Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and whoever the other bozo was that gave bad advice. And we have to listen to all that until finally at the end of the book, God thumps Job on the head and says, why don’t you hush? I’m God, you’re not.
And so there’s value in suffering because our eyes look to God, our eyes see his character. Remember what James, the half brother of Jesus says, suffering produces steadfastness. And when suffering runs its course, we are perfect. We are complete. Or Peter. Peter writes to scattered believers around the Roman Empire and he says, you will go through grievous trials and they will test your faith. And when you come out on the other side, believing more and stronger and better, your faith is proven and it is to the praise of God. Why in the world God gives us suffering and uses it? for his holy ends is a mystery, but it is a fact. It’s how he does. It’s how he works.
And so we read this passage and we think also one last, uh, hero of the faith. We think of Naomi. Uh, we think of her leaving Bethlehem because of a famine. She goes off into the land of Moab. Those are the, uh, the ancestors of lots. incestuous relationship with his daughters after the whole Sodom and Gomorrah epic. And so they’re in Moab among Moabites. That’s bad, but they’re getting food because there’s none in Bethlehem, the city of David. And so they go and her boys marry Moabite women.
Well, the boy, the husband dies, the boy dies, the other boy dies. And so she’s left with, um, with the two daughter-in-law or is it Orpah and Ruth? And Ruth says, where you go, I’ll go. The other one stays back home. And so they go back to the promised land, go back to Bethlehem. And she tells everybody, don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara Hebrew for bitterness. And so they go back to Bethlehem bitterness. She’s lost it all famine, lost husband, boys, the whole works. Well, Ruth, as you know, goes to Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, and he redeems her. And in time they marry and she has a child.
And what is it that the people around Naomi say as she holds that child, that grandchild? They say, blessed be the Lord, Naomi, for he has not left you without a redeemer this day. May his name be renowned in Israel. They’re speaking of the little baby boy. They’re speaking of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, who is the father of Jesus. God has not left you without a name, without a redeemer. He is a restorer of life, this little baby.
And he will nourish you in your old age. And so in the midst of our suffering, we need to remember that through the darkness, God never leaves us. He never forsakes us. And there are bright things at the end. Remember, Job, at the end of his life, had more than he ever had before. God blessed him greatly at the end of his life. And so a little perspective I think is helpful. Well, a couple of things this passage tells us. One is that suffering leads us to comfort. If we are suffering, God will comfort us.
In fact, Paul is exclaiming to the Corinthian church, I’ve been through absolute horror in my Christian ministry. I’ve been through absolute misery and I can say, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I can say, blessed be the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. For in my suffering, in my affliction, he has comforted me. What does Job say in the midst of his misery? The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
So our suffering leads to comfort. It leads to God’s comfort. And that is what the Apostle Paul is communicating to the Corinthian church. I’ve been in some messes. But God has comforted me and now that comfort with which I have been comforted will be a comfort to others. And so suffering leads to comfort. It also shows us the character of God.
When Paul says he was so utterly burdened beyond his own strength, when he was so utterly burdened and despaired of life itself, when he had felt that he had the sentence of death, he says in verse nine, but all that was to make us. rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. I can’t help but think in that verse of what Hebrews 11 says of Abraham’s suffering when he’s marching up Mount Moriah with his son, his only son, Isaac, the son he loved, that God told to take to that mountain and to sacrifice him there as an offering, kill him, the son of promise. And we don’t we don’t get this in Genesis 22, but we get it in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, where it says Abraham was in the act of offering up his son Isaac because he believed that God could raise him from the dead. And so when you’re in the midst of suffering, it shows us the character of God. It reminds us what he is and what he’s like. Asaph in Psalm 77 was pretty beat up by the world. And he started asking ultimate questions. Has God lost his ability to help? Can God more save? Does he hate me? Does he abandon me? What’s going on here? And then he says, oh, yeah, I remember the strong right arm of God. The right arm of God is his saving hand. It’s his mighty and outstretched arms which redeem people.
And so when we despair of life and we are utterly burdened. Our suffering will lead to God’s comfort, but our suffering will also show us the character of God. There is no better place to go in our suffering than to God himself. And we read in our confession of sin, we have a high priest, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, who can sympathize with us because he has suffered in every way or been tempted in every way like us, except without sin. And what a wonderful grace that is. Third thing is that suffering helps us comfort others.
Now, I wanna say at the outset, here’s what we don’t mean. This is typical Southern way it goes. Somebody says, I have cancer. And the correct response is, oh, I’m so sorry. But what do we say? Oh, I had it once too. Or I had an aunt that had it and she got better. Or I had an aunt that got it and she, yeah. He died and wasn’t so great. You hear that a million times. Okay. That is not comforting people with the comfort, which, which we have been comforted. That’s giving a one-to-one analogy. That’s really not a one-to-one analogy. And it’s just not helpful, right? What does it mean to comfort with the comfort with which we have been comforted?
It’s when you see someone suffering and your heart sinks because your heart has sunk there before. You know the pain, you know the hurt, you know the sorrow. You sigh and you groan with them. You know, maybe not exactly, but you know the burdens. And instead of being miserable comforters like Job’s three friends, you sit with in silence and you suffer with them and you understand what their hardship is. Suffering helps us comfort others.
Well, the fourth thing is this, suffering brings us to the end of ourselves. Paul, who was a pretty strong guy, Paul, who was a can-do spirit apostle, he was an entrepreneur. He could travel for years at a time to serve the Lord in very harsh conditions. He says that his suffering brought an end to his own strength. His suffering brought an end to his self-reliance. His suffering brought an end to his self-assurance that whatever came in life he could do.
You watch what people say about their goals in life. And I am going to do this, and I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do this. And James, the half-brother of Jesus says, we need to be careful. We need to say everything if the Lord is willing. And it’s at the times we get most confidence that God has a way of knocking us off our pedestal. Remember when the people of old decided they would make a name for themselves instead of God making a name for them like he would Abraham, they built a tower up to the sky that called it the Tower of Babel because God came down and frustrated their work. God came down and confused their languages and scattered them abroad as they were supposed to have done in the beginning. And so when we start getting too big for our britches, as we say, God has a way of knocking us back down to size. So suffering leads us to God’s comfort. Suffering shows us God and his character. Suffering helps us comfort others, but it brings us to the end of ourselves. And so Paul is explaining to the Corinthian church, all their hardships, all his hardships can be understood in light of the sanctifying work of God.
I don’t know if you catch the word comfort in our passage, but there is a Trinitarian sense of comfort in the work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. You know very well when Jesus tells the disciples that he’s going to leave them and he says, but I’m going to send another, the comforter.
He is the one who comes alongside. He is the one who strengthens you for the journey. So here we have God, our father and the father of our Lord Jesus, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. We have the comforting father, but we have the Holy Spirit who comes along and comforts us and helps us. But we also have Jesus, the sympathizing high priest. And so brothers and sisters, when we go through hardship, all is not lost. For we have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who will help us.
There’s a stretch of our confession of faith. And many of you have heard me say this several times, but I found it over the last few years very interesting. Under the providence of God, His governing all things, under the sanctification of the believer, growing in grace and holiness, under the assurance we can have of our salvation, and then under the section on our perseverance of the Saints. It speaks of how God at various times and in his own wise course of action may lead a believer through extreme hardship where they seem to have no light of his countenance at all.
And our confession says we are still upheld by his oath and his promise and his covenant, his hands are still underneath us, but we may be going through life in utter darkness and despair, but God has not left us. He has not forsaken us, but he is bringing us to an end of ourselves, an end of our sin, an end of our self-reliance, like Paul says. And so if you’re in the midst of the fire, if you’re in the midst of the crucible, if you’re in the midst of this hardship, know that God has not left you. He has not forsaken you.
It may seem strange, it may seem counterintuitive to salvation and all the rest, but you will come out pressed and you will come out shaken and you will come out withdraws removed, more beautiful than ever. And there will be a sweetness about that suffering or that that suffering has brought about. That’s hard to think of, hard to believe, hard to internalize. Some of you have experienced it, you know it.
The apostle Paul declares it. And now as we go to the Lord’s table, as we go to the Lord’s supper, we think of the one who went through great everlasting suffering for our sake. And we see the beauty of Christ in heaven and the glory that we will one day behold. Let’s pray now and ask for God’s help and grace. Father, we thank you for a dose of reality that life is full of suffering, losses, crosses, and hardships, but you’re right there to make something wonderful and beautiful out of it.
We don’t like it. It is no fun. It’s painful. It’s hard. It’s sometimes sad. It’s sometimes depressing. We wonder if it will ever end, but like Asaph, we must remember God most high and his right hand. And we must remember the promises of God, the oath and the covenant of God is forever sure. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. Thank you for these truths. Help us to bear up under hardship will so that our comfort will be to the praise of your great name. Bless us now. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.