The Hard Times
It’s Not Me, It’s You • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
1 Corinthians was all about a young church, new to the way of following Jesus, that struggled to put aside its self-made ways. The people questioned every code of conduct, were easily swayed by fancy speeches, and took great pride in their wealth and their spirituality. They had a difficult time separating the former way of self-promotion with the new way of self-denial.
In this second letter, it seems as if the church has matured a bit. To hear Paul, it sounds like a little humility has crept its way in. That tends to happen the longer you follow Jesus. His ways become your ways, his heart becomes your heart.
PRAY
Sharing Suffering (2 Cor. 1:1-14)
Sharing Suffering (2 Cor. 1:1-14)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother: To the church of God at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout 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. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort. We don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction that took place in Asia. We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us. We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many. Indeed, this is our boast: The testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with godly sincerity and purity, not by human wisdom but by God’s grace. For we are writing nothing to you other than what you can read and also understand. I hope you will understand completely—just as you have partially understood us—that we are your reason for pride, just as you also are ours in the day of our Lord Jesus.
This is the most unusual start to any of Paul’s letters. He begins by “blessing” God. The Greek word here is different from the word often used to describe blessed humans. In those cases, we use the world makarias, which can mean favored or happy. But here, Paul uses the world eulogos, meaning to speak well of (it’s the same way we speak of our loved ones when they pass, as in a eulogy). There’s a powerful difference here. When humans are blessed (markarias), we given the green light to flourish and grow the way we were designed; barriers are removed, and the road to goodness and life and beauty is cleared. That’s the basic idea. But God doesn’t need that from us. Instead, our blessing of him is to recognize how good he already is. You cannot give God more favor, but you can give him praise. You can honor his name. You can shout to the world the goodness of God, the source of all goodness and life and beauty. To bless God means you are not the source of good; he is.
Now, what comes next lays the foundation for the rest of Paul’s letter. It is a pillar of who we are as Christians, and it is something we ought to have set in our minds from Day One of following Jesus.
Blessed be… The Father of mercies, the God of all comfort.
Comfort. Because following Jesus is not a comfortable thing.
Suffering is a part of life. This is a fundamental human experience. Suffering is connected to our imperfect natures and the sin-damaged form of our personhood and of this world. It is likely that you have experienced suffering in a number of ways, sometimes all at once.
Over 64% of Americans have an Adverse Childhood Experience, some form of trauma that embeds itself to a person and can lead to depression, anxiety, addiction, and higher likelihood of premature death.
30% of Americans get diagnosed with depression at some point in their life.
19% of Americans were struck by anxiety last year.
Over 70% of Americans are affected by addiction, whether their own or someone they love.
100% of the world’s population will eventually die.
Those are broad statistics, outlining just a handful of areas of tragedy in the world. I didn’t even mention cancer, miscarriages, divorce, war, grief, violent crimes, vehicle accidents, poverty, hunger, homelessness, domestic violence, child abuse, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, broken relationships, lost trust, birth defects, general aches and pains, aging, or that time you stubbed your little toe last week and almost shouted a dirty word.
You are not immune to pain and suffering. No one is. And when it comes to your relationship with God, I see some different views promoted.
View 1: I see many who experience suffering and blame God as the root cause, or deny the existence of God, because how could a supposed good God cause or allow that much hardship to happen? When you hurt that much, someone has to blame, right?
View 2: Sometimes I see Christians trying to pretend like they are impervious to suffering. As if following Jesus must mean you are happy and free from bad things now, partly because you are officially a good person who does good things and stays out of trouble, and partly because of some mysterious “hedge of protection” that Christians like to pray for.
Side note: I thought this was a made up thing for the longest time, but I did a little digging and found that the hedge of protection is actually in the Bible, in Job 1 (Satan is whining to God that Job is happy because of his little protective hedge keeping him and his family and his wealth safe). So, I guess I won’t say you can’t pray for this hedge, but that’s not quite the point of the story of Job, is it?
Anyway, I see a lot of Christians try to smile through the hard things and use lots of platitudes and surface sayings, things like “God has a plan” and “God never give you more than you can handle”—that one I know is not in the Bible. The idea is that if I am suffering, either I’m just naive to what God is doing, or I must be sinning, but either way, it shouldn’t be happening to me.
View 3: But then, there’s the true way of Christ. And that is to embrace suffering as a vehicle for the glory of God, to share his good news and reveal to the world the nature and character of a gracious, compassionate, and merciful God, who longs to bring comfort, encouragement, and healing to his people.
Now, when I say “embrace suffering,” I don’t mean go looking for it. There are stories during the early church’s history of persecutions where believers were burned at the stake, and some overly zealous followers would jump out from the crowd and fling themselves into the fire as a sign of their commitment to die for Christ. I’m not advocating that, and neither is Paul. No one’s asking you to stick your finger in a light socket while shouting “It’s all for the glory of God!”
What I am saying is that suffering will find you; you don’t need to go looking for it. What separates us is how we come to understand the origin of suffering and the source of our comfort and relief. So instead of blaming God or ignoring your pain, be honest about it. Life sucks sometimes. Hurt happens. Relationships get messy, sickness consumes healthy bodies, financial losses unexpectedly spring up. These are real realities in human life, and you are human. It is okay to feel sad or hurt or disappointed or frustrated. To not feel these things is to not be human, to not know the real limits of body and mind. If you are struggling today with an addiction or trauma that you cannot ignore, as much as you try, I’m here to tell you that this is a safe space to feel, to wrestle through hard things.
Even better new than this? Suffering won’t be ignored, but it won’t rule over you either. Because we don’t serve a God of suffering. We serve a God of mercy and of comfort. In every affliction, we find relief in God’s mercy. In every despair, we have hope in a God who will deliver. And in every situation, we will be shown the way through, by the grace of God.
We do not believe that God causes suffering. We believe that he uses it to bring about his goodness. To show us his love. To remind us of his power. To unite us with him in mission.
Now you might be here wondering, that’s a nice sentiment, but I don’t see God right now while I’m hurting. How do you know God actually cares about me in the way you say?
I know because I have experienced it for myself. I have found supernatural freedom from sin, I have found comfort in the words of Scripture, a calming of the heart that cannot be explained. But most of the time, I find it in the community of Christ-followers. I have shaken with grief and have found understanding and care in a circle of praying friends. I have been lent sympathetic ears to my struggles. I have received gracious gifts of love and mercy from Christians I don’t even know, but have heard my hurts and responded. These I cannot also explain with human wisdom. But the grace of God, a free gift I do not deserve, has brought about my deliverance in the hands and feet of my brothers and sisters in Christ. The comfort of Christ overflows.
Just as the sufferings of Christ overflow. Something else that Paul notes here, and I do not want you to miss this. If following Jesus is new to you, I do not want you to be unaware.
Our heart, always, is that you would know Jesus, that you would experience his life and love, and that you would be transformed, day by day, in the image of Christ for the world. Becoming more like Christ is not just about becoming a better person—that’s the story you often hear in the church. That’s not the story of the Bible, that’s the story of the pharisees, the story of the law code meant to separate holier individuals from the less holy ones. No, becoming more like Christ is about becoming a person of selfless love, generosity, faithfulness, forgiveness, peace, compassion, and grace. It is becoming a herald of the kingdom of heaven. It is becoming less concerned with bringing about your own good and more concerned with bringing about good in others. It is about denying yourself and taking up the cross, if need be. It is about humbling yourself and taking on servanthood. It is about the righteousness and justice of God, certainly, but it is also about the reconciliation of God and man, restored relationships. It is pursuing a world where mercy triumphs over judgment.
It is about becoming a person who will go wherever God leads, to do whatever God needs.
And when that happens, you will encounter suffering of a different kind. Jesus foretells this in John 17. Because you will take God’s message of hope to hopeless people. Angry people. Proud people. Selfish people. Cynical people. Oppressed people. It means taking the gospel to uncomfortable places. It means choosing the glory of God over the glory of man. When you choose to follow Jesus, it will naturally take you into situations where your power and strength are not enough.
You will be overwhelmed beyond your strength. You may experience despair, you may even lose your life.
How’s that for a sales pitch for the church?
The flip side of becoming more like Jesus is that, while you will experience more joy and peace and satisfaction than you have ever known, you will also be led where he was. You will see affliction, distress, and opposition in the mission of spreading the name of Jesus.
Now, you may not be shipwrecked or stoned or beaten or imprisoned like Paul was. But you may get passed over for that promotion that requires you to commit everything to your job. You may lose friends who tire of your talk of Jesus and who mistake conviction for condemnation. You may face backlash for choosing the kingdom of Jesus over popular ideas and cultural relevancy. You will have to make life decisions for the sake of Jesus’ mission that seem absolutely backward to the rest of society.
Your affliction, distress, and oppression will look different than Paul. But the bottom line is, to fully walk the path of Jesus will not be an easy road. It will not be a wide road. It will tempt you to turn back and run for human comforts and protections.
But, just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
This is a testimony that the world cannot fathom. Despite every ache, every heartbreak, every conflict and concern, God remains faithful to us, and we remain faithful to him and to each other. And we continue to extol the goodness of God.
Calming Conflict (2 Cor. 1:15-2:4)
Calming Conflict (2 Cor. 1:15-2:4)
Because of this confidence, I planned to come to you first, so that you could have a second benefit, and to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and then come to you again from Macedonia and be helped by you on my journey to Judea. Now when I planned this, was I of two minds? Or what I plan, do I plan in a purely human way so that I say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? As God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes and no.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you—Silvanus, Timothy, and I—did not become “Yes and no.” On the contrary, in him it is always “Yes.” For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God. Now it is God who strengthens us together with you in Christ, and who has anointed us. He has also put his seal on us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment. I call on God as a witness, on my life, that it was to spare you that I did not come to Corinth. I do not mean that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, because you stand firm in your faith. In fact, I made up my mind about this: I would not come to you on another painful visit. For if I cause you pain, then who will cheer me other than the one being hurt by me? I wrote this very thing so that when I came I wouldn’t have pain from those who ought to give me joy, because I am confident about all of you that my joy will also be yours. For I wrote to you with many tears out of an extremely troubled and anguished heart—not to cause you pain, but that you should know the abundant love I have for you.
Paul’s challenge: a people who did not trust that this was the case. A man who confronted Paul and questioned his leadership. A group of self-appointed “super-apostles” who claimed more authority than Paul.
It’s one thing bear challenges and hurt in places where the Gospel is not yet known. It’s another to be beaten down by those you love and those claim to know grace and mercy. And so, while Paul loves the Corinthians and seeks their best, he has kept his distance. Not to protect himself, but to “spare” them from pain.
The way of Jesus is a way of forgiveness and grace, where mercy triumphs over judgment, but there is judgment. We fall short. It’s a place of coming clean with our imperfections and our selfish ways, and finding compassion and love on the other side. But there are times when judgment is misconstrued, misunderstood, or misdirected.
Unfortunately, I have found that the church in my own life has been simultaneously responsible for the greatest comforts and the greatest afflictions. And while the church remains God’s primary mouthpiece of grace in the world, no one has done more to tarnish the legacy of the gospel more. It is a double-edged sword, because we get it wrong, and sin maintains a hold on our hearts sometimes.
This is a reality that we live in an already/not yet sort of world.
For now, I want you to see Paul’s model. He is hurt, yet he loves. He is afflicted, yet he does not quit. Instead, he leans into the hope of Christ’s salvation. He believes in God’s promises. He trusts the process of transformation.
PRAY