Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, good morning, church.
[00:00:02] A little different expression of service today, but I believe we've did the right thing by honoring those who have served and gave themselves for our freedoms and our blessings that we enjoy so freely. I want to welcome those that are joining livestream and I'm going to have us turn in our Bibles this morning to the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Two Corinthians. We're going to start a new series there in this book. We just finished James last week. We're going to the next book. How many know we're covering books of the Bible? Isn't that great?
[00:00:36] Rick Warren, former pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Southern California, shared how his son Matthew had struggled with depression and ultimately led to his own suicide. And so Rick is sharing that he had struggled even as a little child with this situation. And even though they sought extensive treatment, counseling, they prayed for miracles.
[00:01:00] Rick shared that he was going to continue to believe God as long as Matthew was there. He was believing for a miracle, but also encouraged Matthew that failing to receive that complete freedom to continue to pray for God's strength to manage that challenge in his life. And despite all the efforts, Matthew finally ended his life after 20 years of struggle.
[00:01:23] This literally catapulted Rick and Kay into a ministry that they never wanted, but God certainly was calling them into to minister to other people who struggle with the loss of a loved one. And so six months after the loss of their son, Rick and Kay expressed the following sentiments in an interview with cnn Piers Morgan. And he said this. He said, we intend to spend the rest of our lives comforting others with the same comfort we have been given by God.
[00:01:55] Your deepest life message will come out of your deepest pain.
[00:02:00] That's pretty profound. And how many realize, not until the first heaven and earth pass away, until God's eternal kingdom is fully established, will God wipe away every tear from our eye.
[00:02:13] Death, mourning, crying and pain will be no more, for the old order of things will certainly pass away.
[00:02:20] Now, we're going to begin a sketch here from 2 Corinthians, probably the most autobiographical expression of the life of the Apostle Paul. And the reason being is because Paul here is trying to explain to us the true nature of the gospel while defending himself as God's representative, his ambassador. So the introduction to the second letter is where we find Paul's, I believe, greatest challenge. How many know that the Corinthian church may have been one of the most gifted church, but it had to be one of the most sinful churches they had so many problems, so many difficulties, so many misunderstandings. And, you know, as bad as all of that was, here's the good news that you and I can read the letter and go, okay, this is what we shouldn't be doing. This is what we shouldn't be doing. This is how we should be behaving. It really gives us some guidelines as to healthy Christian behavior. But the second letter is, as I said, probably the one that Paul exposes more of the challenges that he experienced as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And one of the great challenges was many itinerant ministers were coming in, following his ministry, confusing people with what the Gospel was truly all about.
[00:03:43] And so Paul was being criticized, his credentials were being nullified, his authority was being totally disregarded, and even there was a distortion of what the true gospel was.
[00:03:59] And so Linda Belville, in her commentary on Second Corinthians, basically explains it this way. The central theme of Second Corinthians is divine power in weakness.
[00:04:14] Those are the four words. Just think of those words. God's power manifested in weakness. It is a theme that the church in the west has tended to shrug off as appropriate only for Christians living under oppressive political regimes.
[00:04:30] Not so Paul. He defined the role of the gospel preacher in terms of the trials and hardships through which God's power is seen and appropriated. We're going to talk about suffering.
[00:04:40] It's a powerful theme. It's one that we all want to ignore. How many say that's true? How many here want to be delivered from all suffering? And I'm going to say to you that one day we will be. That's the good news. But while we're on this planet, there's going to be trials. Jesus said there will be trials and tribulations and difficulties. But he said, be of good cheer. In other words, don't lose heart, don't faint, don't despair, he said, because there's a hope that we have as Christians that even in the midst of difficulty, God's grace, God's presence, God's comfort will be there. We're going to see that very powerfully here. He goes on to say, it is the same for the church, which Paul says must suffer the same sufferings we suffer before it can experience the same comfort we experience. In other words, you can't experience comfort unless you've gone through something.
[00:05:35] And we're going to look at that because I don't want to just focus on suffering. I want to focus on the aftermath. I want to focus on the comfort that God brings to us in a time of suffering. And I think we need to learn that lesson. It's very real. She goes on to say Paul's focus on visions, revelations and the miraculous suggests that an issue was what constituted an appropriate witness to the Gospel. A mistaken emphasis on the miraculous by these so called super apostles resulted in a misconstrual of Jesus as a wonder worker rather than as a suffering servant, and a misrepresentation of the Spirit as a miracle empowerer rather than a guarantor of the gospel message. What is she basically saying is not that we're negating the miraculous, folks, not that we're negating the power of the Spirit, we're not going to do that. What we're saying is the reason for these things is what we need to understand the reason for the miracles. The reason for the power of God is to reveal the good news of God's kingdom bursting in into our lives. And it's actually a guarantor that you and I have. The Spirit of God living in us is the guarantor. It's the down payment that we're going to experience that spirit dwelling forever within our lives, for all of eternity.
[00:06:56] She goes on to say, in so doing, the effectively put forward a different gospel. Chapter 11, verse 4. We'll touch about that. We'll talk about distortions of the Gospel. By the way, we have distortions today in the Gospel. There's messaging today that's very confusing and it's leading people astray. I think the latest one now is called progressive Christianity, which is neither progressive nor Christianity. And what people are doing is basically moving away from believing in the inerrancy of God's word, which is a big problem. It's clear from the reoccurring thought in this letter, his letter, that his preaching was one of a word accompanied by power, conviction and the Spirit. And I believe that when we hear spirit filled preaching, something happens inside of our Spirit. Our Spirit resonates. There's something that God's Spirit is using those words to speak into our lives in a very powerful way. And so in Paul's greetings to this congregation, he appeals to three important aspects regarding the nature of the Gospel. It's a gospel that has power to comfort us in the hours of darkness where suffering and pain at times can seem overwhelming to us. And so I'm going to look at these expressions and aspects of the gospel. First of all, we see Paul's greetings and appealing to his authority and the authenticity of his message because they were under scrutiny. People were rejecting what he was saying.
[00:08:22] Generally, letters in the ancient world included at the beginning both who the sender was and who the recipients were.
[00:08:32] We kind of do the same thing when we put a letter in an envelope. In the envelope we put down who the recipient is. On the top, usually we have the sender's name. So if it gets lost, it can be returned to sender.
[00:08:44] This is generally followed by some expression of greeting and stating a desire for the person's well being that was typical in the ancient world as well. Paul's apostolic authority though is immediately expressed in this letter, which is really unusual. Paul many times never mentions the fact that he's an apostle, but boy to the Corinthians, he's stating it right up front and there's a reason for it and I'm going to hopefully convey that to you today.
[00:09:11] It's a very descriptive greeting. It includes that he has authority from Christ.
[00:09:16] He's an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. He also includes his fellow co author Timothy. We read it here in verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. In other words, I didn't volunteer for this, that God appointed me to do this.
[00:09:35] And Timothy, our brother to the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Acacia. Well, Acacia was the province in which Corinth was the predominant city. And so he's talking about the region there in southern Greece. So what is an apostle?
[00:09:52] Well, an apostatolos, which is the Greek word, is an emissary who is authorized and commissioned to carry out a personal message to on someone else's behalf. So what Paul is saying is I am speaking to you on behalf of Christ.
[00:10:10] Isn't that pretty powerful? How many think that's a pretty powerful commission?
[00:10:13] And you know, let's take a look at why Paul is saying this. We know from his amazing conversion to Christ he was literally confronted by the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Jesus had called him. It was according, he said, according to God's will and purpose. If you read in Galatians, he said, God who call me from my mother's womb. In other words, Paul has a sense that he was preordained by God to do what he was doing. This was not out of God's plan. God had chosen him, even though as a young person he was very zealous for his Jewish law.
[00:10:50] And he was even a person who was killing Christians at first because he thought that that was a deviation from his faith. But in reality, it was a fulfillment, fulfillment of his faith. And when he met Jesus, he had a whole new understanding and God forgave him. And so now Paul is saying that he's sent by Christ. Now as his representative and as Christ's representative, he spoke the message of Jesus. And therefore this message was one that had divine authority.
[00:11:19] He's trying to make a point to these guys. So if you're not listening to me, you're not listening to Christ. If you're not listening to Christ, you guys are in trouble. You know, this is the message, this is the gospel, because there were people coming in and basically trying to negate what Paul was saying and negate the message of the good news of Christ.
[00:11:37] Paul's commissioning. There in Paul's commissioning, we see the human equation, don't we? Blinded by light, led into Damascus, told what to do. And Ananias, a believer in the city of Damascus, was to come and lay hands on Paul so that his sight could recover. And he gave him a message. And let's pick up the story here where that happens in Acts, chapter 9, verse 15. But the Lord said to Ananias, go see, he was kind of telling God, hey, listen, because God was revealing to him. He was supposed to go do this for Saul of Tarsus. He goes, hey, God, do you know who you're sending me to pray for? This is the guy that's arresting and killing people. I just want to point that out to you. He was a little nervous. God said, no, no, go. This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. Okay, I added that little part because I want to point out to us that suffering is included in the life of the believer, not just Paul's life. As a matter of fact, Peter says in his letter, prepare your mind to suffer. And I think sometimes we think suffering is optional, like suffering is something we could be delivered from. And as we're going to look at this opening few verses here in Second Corinthians, suffering is a part of our lives and I know we'd like to pass on it, you know, hard pass. But it's not going to work that way because God says in that suffering he has a purpose for it. We're going to look at that this morning.
[00:13:16] Mark Seinfeld says he's not an apostle by virtue of his own abilities, powers or self assertion. The Corinthians were looking for a genius God sent them an apostle who was theirs in weakness and suffering. Okay? They have to understand the Greek mindset. The Greeks were into eloquence, they were into wisdom.
[00:13:37] Socrates, Plato, all of these guys. And here you got this little Jewish guy all beat up.
[00:13:42] He did not look the part of God's representative. And he was. But sometimes you can't always judge a book by its cover.
[00:13:52] And that's what I would say about Paul. He was not impressive, he wasn't eloquent.
[00:13:57] I would argue he's probably one of the best theologians the church ever had because he was inspired of God and he had an amazing understanding of Scripture, but they did not value him. Isn't that amazing? Sometimes we have people among us that God is using and we don't appreciate what God's really doing in and through their lives.
[00:14:17] The issue, simply put, is that to reject Paul's message is in reality to reject God's message, which some of the Corinthians were doing. How it applies to us today, you say, well, when we reject scripture, where we're doing the very same thing, we're rejecting God's message to us. So we've got to be careful of that.
[00:14:36] We have to take the whole counsel of God, not just cherry pick.
[00:14:40] Sometimes Christians, we just pick the verses we like. Well, these are my favorite verses. Those are the ones I want to ignore. No, you got to take the whole thing together. It works together. And I think if you don't do that, you get out of balance. You get into ideas that are heretical and will lead you astray. And you know the enemy always is going to question God's word. Isn't that kind of the first thing? Did God really say this? Well, of course he did. This is the word right here.
[00:15:09] So what was the gospel message that Paul preached and how did it differ from the false messages that were coming from these false apostles?
[00:15:17] Well, let's take a look at the blessing and the challenges of the gospel. Paul understood that the gospel, which brought such amazing benefits as fruit, forgiveness and peace and joy and hope and eternal life. How many like those? Those are great, aren't they? If you receive Christ, you're going to have eternal life. I mean, you can have joy despite hardship and difficulty. You can have a peace, a shalom, a sense of well being, even though your circumstances are terrible. These are all benefits of the gospel. But he also says there will be times of persecution. Anybody who lives a godly life in Christ Jesus shall. It's not will, maybe. No, you shall suffer persecution. You will be. You'll offend people, you'll annoy people, they will not like you. Just because you're a Christian and you're going to experience measures of hardship in your life. God's going to allow certain things to come into your life for a purpose. And we'll talk about why does God do that, right? In returning to an area where Paul had suffered persecution, he's encouraging now new believers with these words of hope, but also warning to have a mind prepared for suffering. And he's basically saying, listen guys, life is hard.
[00:16:29] I would like to tell every young person, get out of this thinking life's supposed to be easy. I would argue that we're living historically in one of the easiest times to live.
[00:16:39] We have more modern conveniences.
[00:16:42] I still remember going to my grandparents farm.
[00:16:45] No running water, no electricity. You had to get wood, put it in the stove. You had to go outside to go to the bathroom. You had to go down the hill to pump water, bring the water back up. How many go, you know already. It's not sounding that pleasant, you know. And this was in southern Saskatchewan and it got cold.
[00:17:03] Not fun. You know what I'm telling you? No central heat, no air conditioning.
[00:17:08] Life was challenging. There was hardships. The people that came before us, they had a lot harder than we've ever had it. So we got to get out of this mindset that life's going to be easy. It's easy. Easier, but not necessarily easy.
[00:17:24] Now Paul shares this with these people in the book of Acts. He said they preached the gospel in that city. They went a large number of disciples and they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. And then he says this. We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God. They say, said, oh my goodness. People say, well, I signed up for Jesus, I didn't sign up for hardships. Come on, let's be honest because sometimes we get told, come to Jesus and all your troubles will come to an end. I say come to Jesus. You get a new set.
[00:18:01] The old set is gone, a new set has come. You know, that's biblical. You're going to have a different set, but you're going to have God's enabling help through the problems. And that's the upside of, of walking with God. Plus we have eternal life. It's great. Well, in returning to that area, he shared this with them. And then Paul is trying tying the true message of the gospel to troubles, trials and tribulations. In this earthly life, his authority is being challenged because another message of power and prosperity is being embraced, while Paul is seen as weak, struggling and suffering.
[00:18:38] So Paul will talk about God's power being displayed in weakness. Jesus himself came to earth as a helpless babe, died a disgraceful death as a falsely accused criminal. However, what seemed like human folly is God's wisdom. And what seemed like human weakness was God's demonstration of power. As he said to the Corinthians in his first letter, listen, God chose the foolish things of the world, the shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him.
[00:19:20] You know, our society, our culture, it's all about strength, beauty, power, money.
[00:19:26] Isn't that kind of what it's all about? Come on, let's be honest. Good health, vibrancy. Hey, once things are worn out, just chuck them away.
[00:19:35] We are a society that if it's not, you know, we have to have a new functioning. And if it's not, we just throw it aside. We don't even repair things anymore. We just chuck it aside and go on to the next thing, you know, we have a society of obsolescence. I think they're even creating things to break down after a certain point of time because they don't want to have, you know, to keep you buying more stuff. Right. That's what keeps the economy going.
[00:19:55] Maybe I'm wrong on that, but yeah, the old stuff sometimes works forever and you buy the new stuff. He goes, what's with this thing?
[00:20:07] It's not working anymore.
[00:20:10] Yeah, so what is God teaching us? You know, he's telling us, listen, this is God's wisdom. It's because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God that is our righteousness, holiness, redemption. Therefore it is written, let no one who bow, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. In other words, we're not looking to humanity as the Savior of our lives. We're looking to God himself. It's so beautiful. So now he moves on to the spiritual standing of the recipients. The recipients of the letter are Corinthians, and particularly those who are the Church or the Ecclesia, the called out ones who are described as God's holy people.
[00:20:52] Boy, Paul, are you ever generous with that description of these Corinthians. Because if you look at these guys behavior, you're Going to say, these guys don't look holy to me, Pastor, you know, once you know the lifestyle and behavior of these guys, you're going to question Paul's choice of words. But the word holy means to be separated by God.
[00:21:12] And then he goes on to say, when we think of the word holy, we have this picture of people living at a higher degree of spirituality than normal Christians. But that's not the meaning as God's holy people. The word means to be separated for God, for God's purpose, to be set apart. And we're set apart in our society to reveal God's grace, that when we look at our lives, we'll just say, hey, we didn't deserve this.
[00:21:40] This is unearned favor.
[00:21:42] It's favor despite ourselves. Isn't it true? I didn't deserve this? God, why would you forgive me? I was a rascal. I was like self centered. I was just doing my own thing. It was about me. God goes, no, but I'm going to rescue you. Thank God. He reaches out and gets a hold of our lives and spins us around. We do a 180 and pretty soon we start going in a whole new direction and we start learning things, you know, scoff. Hafman says, despite their past problems and recent rebellion, the repentance of the majority of the Christians has demonstrated that they continue to be God's people. So Paul's greeting to them, I think, is conciliatory in tone. He's trying to soften the blow. Instead of saying, you bunch of rascals, no, he says, oh, you holy people.
[00:22:28] Isn't that kind of nice? He's kind of got a pastoral heart to him. In Second Corinthians 1:2, he says, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:22:40] Listen to these terms. Paul wishes his readers a continuing experience of God's merciful gifts from forgiveness and justification to deliverance from the power of sin and eternal life. Paul can do so because Christ's death on the cross for those who deserve only God's wrath makes such grace possible. Accordingly, Paul desires that they experience peace is not primarily a wish for an untroubled circumstances. Because, I mean, I think when we think of peace, don't we think of that? No conflict, untroubled circumstances.
[00:23:12] Rather, he wishes them that comprehensive Jewish word, which is shalom. When the Jewish person says shalom, that literally means peace in the Hebrew language, but it means this well being that characterizes the life of a believer individually and corporately, when all is right with God, a possibility also granted by the grace of God through Christ. So in other words, shalom and peace literally means things with me and God are good.
[00:23:40] So I'm wishing you shalom. May God's peace be with you. May God's.
[00:23:46] You know, your life is in a right standing and right relationship with God. You know, you can handle a lot of problems in life. You know, when you have good relationships. How many say that's true?
[00:23:57] You know, I've seen this. You know, when people are struggling in their marriages, it affects their work because you know what you got.
[00:24:05] There's, you've been unhinged in some way. There's a lack of real peace in your soul. There's conflict. And it's the same way when you don't have a right relationship with God. You don't realize it, but you're in conflict with God. Your life is not at peace. You're not at peace with yourself because you're not at peace with God, the one who created you. And that's what he's talking about here, this peace that he's communicating to them.
[00:24:27] Mark Siegfried also explains the nature of God's grace for our lives and how we appropriate that grace in different aspects in our broken world. He said growth is nothing other than growth in the faith that grasps Christ and a saving work again and again in the ever changing circumstances of life that is in trouble, deliverance, affliction and comfort. What is he saying? He's saying simply this. You know, when we think of God's grace, we always think of God's forgiveness to us.
[00:24:58] Can I expand that thinking in your mind? Grace is what we have every single day to live life. And every single day, God has grace for you and grace for me. And that God's grace helps us through the day. Isn't that a beautiful thought? So whatever you need right now, it's available to you by God. It's undeserved, it's unearned, and all you got to do is ask for it. You appropriate that grace in your life. Let me move on.
[00:25:28] The second important aspect, it's the praise due to the Father of compassion and all comfort. We are directed to the source of compassion and comfort in our time of need. He's the Father who understands suffering because he suffers with us. You know, in the Judeo Christian worldview, we have a revelation of God who suffers.
[00:25:51] By the way. This is not true in most religions at all. As a matter of fact, in other religious ideas, they show God or the gods as absolutely all Powerful and transcendent means beyond human understanding. But we have a God who is our Savior, who identifies with us in our pain. This is so beautiful to me. This is why I really love Jesus so much. He gets it.
[00:26:16] He lived it.
[00:26:17] He became a human being. I just said we see it demonstrated in the Old Testament as the suffering Father in the story of the testing of Abraham. How many know. Yeah, that's being played out. Abraham's being tested. How many know that story where he's asked to offer up his son and then at the last minute, God, you know, spares him from slaying his son? How many know that story?
[00:26:38] You know what that story is really all about? It's about God revealing to us the pain of a father who allows his son to be sacrificed for the sins of the world.
[00:26:47] That's really what that story is about. How many of you. That's a beautiful story. It's giving us insight into the heart of God and what it cost him to provide salvation from sin for you and me. It shows the suffering he went through, the agonizing suffering of giving up his only son. And then I see it in the New Testament in the prodigal son story where he's the. You could call him the prodigal Father, where he's waiting for the Son to come back. And the son finally comes back. And there we see this compassionate Father running to forgive the Son. Isn't that a beautiful picture? That's the picture of God you need to have in your mind. I think a lot of people see God with a big stick, ready to whap you over the head every time you mess it up. You know what I mean? A lot of people think God like that. I don't see God that way. I see him as the agonizing Father. I see him as the running Father, embracing, forgiving, showing compassion, comfort, and throwing apart it because his wayward son has come home. What a beautiful picture of God. That's the one we need to see.
[00:27:48] And then we see the suffering as God took upon himself in the person of Christ. A human body without a sinful nature, making himself of no reputation, taking on the nature of a servant, humbling himself, becoming obedient to a shameful, criminal death on a cross as a substitute for our sins.
[00:28:06] And the prophet Isaiah explains the substitutionary expression of compassion toward us in Isaiah, when he said, surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.
[00:28:17] Paul's expression of thanksgiving for God's compassion and comfort is expressed this way. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comforts, who comforts us in all our troubles.
[00:28:32] Pause. Let's just reflect on that statement. If you have troubles today, he is here comforting you in your trouble.
[00:28:42] That's what it says. I believe what the scripture says. There's comfort available to you right now because God is in the house.
[00:28:53] He comforts us in all our troubles. He's comforting you right now in your trouble so that we. There's a purpose. Here's the purpose. So that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Well, what's he telling me? He's telling me, paul, listen, I'm allowing you go through this difficulty in your life so that you can experience my comfort.
[00:29:17] So that when you come across people who are walking through a similar difficulty, that you can come along and explain to them how they can experience that comfort from me.
[00:29:28] And that's not only true for me, it's true for every one of us. That's why he's allowing you to experience some of the things you're experiencing. It's not about you. It's not about your situation. It's more than that. It's God wanting to comfort you so that you can help other people. Because God wants you to be like himself. That's what God does. He's always interested in other people. And when you and I move past our affliction, when you and I move past our sorrow, when you and I move past our. Our suffering, when you and I embrace God's comfort, and when you and I begin to share that comfort with other people, something happens to you.
[00:30:03] It changes you. You're not the same person anymore. You've become more like God.
[00:30:08] You've become godly. That's what God is interested in seeing happen in our lives.
[00:30:13] You know, goes on to say, so that we can comfort those in any trouble, the comfort we receive from God. Linda Belville says it is easy to talk about divine comfort in the abstract, but for Paul, God's comfort was very real.
[00:30:26] It was something he received from Titus when he arrived from Corinth and something he experienced in hearing the good news about the Corinthian church. In other words, they had responded positively to his message because he was grieving over a letter he had sent with tears because of their bad behavior and saying, guys, you need to shape up because you're drifting from the true gospel. He goes on to say, here. She goes on to say in turn, the comfort that he gained when Harassed at every turn, prepared him to get encouragement to those around him. Suffering then is a training ground for service to the body of Christ.
[00:30:57] I don't like that training ground sometimes, but I know it's God's tool he's using.
[00:31:04] Equips us so we can better minister to those who, for the sake of the gospel, who are going through trials and hardships. In this way, we mediate God's encouragement. You know what it means by mediating? It means at that moment when you're encouraging somebody, you are standing in Christ's place and you are allowing Christ to minister through you to that person. It's not you doing it, it's Christ in you doing it. How many say that's pretty profound?
[00:31:31] I've seen it when I'm ministering many times. People have broken down and I know it's not me that's doing this. It's the spirit of Jesus coming through me right now. And, you know, I don't see women by myself. I always have one of the ladies in our office there. But I've had some of the ladies go, they were so broken, they were weeping. They said, pastor, it would be okay to give you a hug. I just, Yeah, I can see the spirit of God had just ministered so powerfully in their lives. Of course, my administrative assistant's right there. She even gives them a hug. But, you know, I get what's going on there. It's the spirit of Christ. It's not me. It's Christ in me ministering that way. And you know what? That's not just me doing it. It's Mark doing it. It's Darren doing it. It's you doing it to each other. I see it all the time. That's what's going on. It's this ministry of Christ flowing through your lives.
[00:32:19] And then he goes on to say, here. She goes on to say, second, the provision is not deliverance from, but deliver encouragement in.
[00:32:27] You know, there's times in our lives where God doesn't deliver us. Sometimes God sustains us. How many know that's true? But ultimately he will deliver us.
[00:32:37] If not in this life, he will deliver us into his presence. We need to understand our God is a delivering God. There's nothing too hard for him. The implication is that if we're serving Christ, we'll encounter hardships. This is a given of the Christian life, and it was a given in Christ's life. We share in the sufferings of Christ. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, So also our comfort abounds through Christ. So rather than focusing our thoughts on why in the hour of suffering, Paul brings us to the person who will see us through the suffering and use what God takes us through to bring comfort to other people.
[00:33:15] Wow, are we seeing something here?
[00:33:18] What do we tend to do when we're in trouble? Why?
[00:33:22] Why is this happening to me?
[00:33:24] God wants you to get past that question.
[00:33:27] God wants you to say, what can I learn from this experience that I can bring to other people? People change it, move it off yourself, and all of a sudden something will happen to your inner man. Your inner being will be lifted. I can guarantee you it will lift.
[00:33:43] Mark Seyfried says Paul's message stands in stark contrast to the old, unanswered human question of the origin of evil, in contrast to the question of suffering that seeks an answer that we might then carry around in our heads to our own satisfaction. Paul speaks of a comfort that God has given to us in Christ. He understands that we need something more, something larger and greater than an intellectual answer to the question of suffering, just as we need something more than mere outward aid or assistance. He announces a comfort in which the warmth of God's love and understanding is present, along with the hope of deliverance from evil.
[00:34:22] Well, what's he saying?
[00:34:24] It's what I've tried to say to you all along about the Book of Job. Do you want an answer to your problems or do you want the presence of the living God?
[00:34:31] I want the presence of God. And you know what God says to you and me? I'm never going to leave you nor forsake you.
[00:34:37] So whatever trouble you're in right now, whatever distress your soul feels right now, I want you to know he is with you.
[00:34:45] He is present.
[00:34:46] He loves you. He cares for you. He's walking with you right now in this trouble.
[00:34:54] Isn't that beautiful?
[00:34:56] Do you know, I was listening to Rick and Kay as they're sharing about their son. He said, you know, the people that were really a blessing were the people that had already lost maybe a child and came, and they never said a word. They just sat with us.
[00:35:10] Because what can you say to a person that has a loss like that? And the answer is, most of us go, I don't know what to say. Great. You're not supposed to say anything. That's the point.
[00:35:19] You just have to be there. It's called presence. And when you have somebody sitting next to you and not saying anything and is just present, that is the most profoundly comforting thing you can have. And I want to declare to you today that God is doing that with you every single day. God is present in your time of suffering and sorrow. We need to know that how important is that he goes on in Christ. God promises to wipe away not only the questions in every mind, but also the tears from every eye. The comfort which comes from God alone cannot be found in an answer, but only in a relationship of communication with God in which there's a place for petition and lament and also thanksgiving and praise.
[00:36:02] It's okay to lament.
[00:36:04] I've read this psalm. Do you know what a lament is? How long is this going to go on, God? Or why is this happening? We can ask those questions, but we have to rest in God's wisdom.
[00:36:17] Richard Buckham has summed it up well when he says, to identify with Paul's experience, we do not need to be shipwrecked or imprisoned or lowered in a basket from a city wall. Even without the physical dangers of Paul's career, anyone who throws himself into the work of Christian ministry of any kind, with half the dedication of Paul will experience the weakness of which Paul speaks.
[00:36:37] The times and problems seem insoluble. In other words, I don't know what to do here. God. I don't know the answer to the problem. Problem. The times of weariness from sheer overwork or the times of depression when there seems to be no results. Or the emotional exhaustion which pastoral concern can bring on.
[00:36:54] I get all that this is talking about.
[00:36:57] You know what? There's days you feel like you're just pouring yourself out. You're just pouring yourself out. And it's not just pastors. Every mom, listen to me, Moms. I'm just pouring out. I'm pouring out. Especially young moms right now. You know, a lot of young moms feel like running away. Let's be honest. Come on, ladies, let's just say it. I feel like running away from home sometimes. It's not the kids that need to run. It's me.
[00:37:20] You know, I'm pouring myself out. I'm pouring myself out. When does my cup get refilled? I've heard it, I've listened to it, and I empathize with it. But can I just say something? The Christian life is a life of pouring out.
[00:37:33] I've poured out my life.
[00:37:36] And I'm going to tell you something. There's a day when your cup will be full. There's a day when the kids will grow up. There's a day when you know what you're Going to feel blessed when these kids come back and just say, you know, I now get it, Mom. I now get what you've done for me. And I'm so appreciative now. But, you know, when they're 18, they tell you how stupid you are.
[00:37:56] You know, I get all of that stuff, you know, or, you know, people miss joy you for what you're doing for them.
[00:38:04] You don't think you get misjudged when you're helping people?
[00:38:07] Oh, yeah.
[00:38:09] You know what I found the more you do for people, sometimes you get more misjudged. It happens all the time. This is what he's talking about.
[00:38:17] In short, all the times when the Christian minister or worker knows he stretched to the limits of his capacities for a task which is very nearly, but by God's grace, not quite too much for him.
[00:38:28] Anyone who knows only his strength, not his weakness, has never given himself to a task which demands all he can give.
[00:38:35] That's powerful.
[00:38:37] If we're distressed, he says, it's for your comfort and salvation. If we're comforted, it's for your comfort which produces in you what Patient endurance. Oh, I'm getting echoes here of the book of James.
[00:38:50] Count it all joy. When you run into all these problems so that you can persevere, you can learn patient endurance.
[00:38:58] Are you getting a sense that God wants to help us develop patient endurance? How many go, that's not my strong set, Pastor. I'm neither patient nor enduring.
[00:39:09] How many know that our whole culture is neither patient nor enduring, But God wants that from us. Okay.
[00:39:16] He goes on to say of the same sufferings we suffer, our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, you also will share in our comfort. It's a shared thing indeed. What happens to us is not just for our spiritual growth and development, but for the growth of other people. And we need to understand that. Okay, let me move on to the third point, because I got one minute.
[00:39:41] Is the deliverance and favor granted in answer to prayer? God does hear the cry of our hearts, but but does not answer in ways that we fully comprehend. How many say that's so true?
[00:39:50] Why does God allow hardship? Why do we experience trouble? Why is it that these troubles are often beyond our ability to endure? Paul's answer is simply that we'll not rely on ourselves but God. That's exactly what he says. We don't want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experience in the province of Asia, probably in Ephesus we were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Endured indeed. We felt we had the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but God, who raises the dead. Wow. He has delivered us from such a deadly prayer. He will deliver us again. And on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us. But then he goes on to say, as you help us by your prayers, then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted in answer to the prayers of many.
[00:40:40] So I think what Paul is trying to say to us, and this is such an appeal that we need to understand is when we have these trials, God wants us to learn how to rely on God number one and to rely on the prayers of the community of saints.
[00:40:57] That's what he wants.
[00:40:59] He wants you to move from independence. He wants you to move from isolation. He wants you to move into community.
[00:41:05] And I think that's a powerful thing. And when we do that, you know what happens? We have support. How many think support's important?
[00:41:13] Especially when you're at a low point, especially when you feel like running away.
[00:41:17] Yeah, this is when we need to run, to run to God, run to the saints. Pray, pray, pray.
[00:41:23] Something happens to you, you know, it's powerful. But let me close.
[00:41:31] Just see where I'm going to move along here. Okay, here it is. When we embrace Paul's point of view of God, suffering and ministry, we will rejoice in all things.
[00:41:40] So what's Paul's point of view? In a nutshell, God is sovereign and in control of all things and working them all out ultimately for our good. How many believe that God is good, God is loving, everything's under control, and he's going to work this out. Even though I don't get it, you know, I sometimes have to say this is beyond my pay grade. God, I don't know what you're doing, but that's fine. I'm just going with you.
[00:42:04] Do you know how freeing it is to be able to say to God, I'm just the manager here, you're the owner. I got to let you know there's a few problems down here and they're only owner problems, you know what I mean? We need this, this and this, and only the owner can provide it. So I'm letting you know you're the owner. This is your headache, not mine. I just letting you know, just tell me what to do. But it's your problem. But meanwhile, I feel the pressure like we all do. Secondly, our suffering is the context of God's comfort. Now that's an interesting thought. No suffering, no comfort kind of goes together, you know, it's like no victories, no battles. You got to have battles to have victories. You got to have suffering to have comfort.
[00:42:47] You have to have miracles.
[00:42:50] When you're hitting a place of importunity, it all works together as far as God's concerned.
[00:42:56] So let us stand because I'm two minutes over now and I don't want to keep going.
[00:43:02] But the good news is there's a blog just letting you know you can pick up all this information. So here's my question.
[00:43:10] My staff, they're so good, you know, they said, you know, Pastor, after last week, you, you generated so many questions on that sermon. Why don't you just write some questions to generate questions? Thank you, guys.
[00:43:21] So here's my question for you today. When you walk away from here, I'm going to pray for you.
[00:43:26] What am I learning through this time of distress in my life? That's the question I want you to answer because I know some of you are.
[00:43:34] What comfort is God revealing to me that I could help others through their time of suffering to serve stress or sorrow?
[00:43:42] Is that a good question?
[00:43:44] That's something to work on. I gave you a homework assignment. Wow, this is scary now.
[00:43:49] I came to church to be blessed and all of a sudden I go home with homework. But it's good homework. Can you see that?
[00:43:56] It's going to force you to find what God is doing in your life, to experience God's comfort and then to bring that comfort to the. The people around you.
[00:44:08] How many think that's amazing? Are there a lot of people in Red Deer right now suffering?
[00:44:13] Are there people right now distressed? And I want you to remember something. You know God. Most of you know God. Most of them do not know God. They don't have the comfort you have.
[00:44:25] That's why you need to go to them. And maybe you're here today and you don't know God, but I want you to know our God.
[00:44:32] He's compassionate, he's loving, and he suffers with us.
[00:44:38] That's beautiful.
[00:44:40] He's a God who suffers. He hears the cries. He's not distant or not around. He's here for us.
[00:44:48] And he wants to invite you to come to him this morning.
[00:44:52] Believer or non believer? Come with your distress. Come with your trouble. Come with your affliction and cry out to him and say, lord, show me your comfort.
[00:45:02] And when I see it, I'm going to embrace it. And when I get it, I'm going to share it.
[00:45:08] So Father, we do pray today. We just lift our hearts to you. I'm lifting my hands to you.
[00:45:13] We need your comfort, we need your grace.
[00:45:16] We need your favor today. We need your delivering power today. We need you to hear our cry today, the cry of our souls today. We, we cry out to you today and we pray that you will hear our cry and grant us divine comfort and deliverance.
[00:45:34] And Lord, I pray today with the comfort and the deliverance that we're receiving from you in the days ahead that you will give us the grace to come alongside just like the Holy Spirit does comes alongside and we become present just like you are present. In. In our sorrow, in our struggle, in our affliction, in our difficulty. You're present. Lord, help us to see your presence in my current situation and many times it's the people that you're bringing into my life who are walking alongside of me. They're present. They're there for me. And I know it.
[00:46:10] You don't always have to be talking, but they're there.
[00:46:13] They're there for me. They're present just like your presence present.
[00:46:17] So Lord, I pray that you'll help us to go out as your messengers.
[00:46:23] As like Paul, he said, I'm an apostle by the will of God. I'm a sent out one. I have a message. I've been commissioned by Christ to communicate this good news. Lord, we also have been commissioned by you to bring this amazing message to other people that you love them and you're there to come comfort them. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave today.
