Dartmouth

Bible Notes

Notes from the Pulpit Ministry of Dartmouth Bible Church

Series: Studies in 2^nd Corinthians (Lesson 2)

Scripture: 2^nd Corinthians 1:3-7

Speaker: Rev. Neil C. Damgaard, Th.M., D.Min.

Date: January 18^th , 2008

Comforting with the Comfort with which We Have Been Comforted

2^nd Corinthians 1:3-7 (NASB)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; ⁴who 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. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. ⁶But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; ⁷and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.

Introduction We have had some struggles lately, as individual people.

o Some of us have had to deal with aging parents, and how to serve and help them.

o Some of us have had illnesses ourselves and we just haven’t felt good.

o Some of us have agonized with marital problems and we are in pain that way.

o Others are lonely and can’t see anyone coming to remedy that.

o Others of us have been frustrated at work and it is a drag to get up each day and go back there once again, with little enthusiasm.

o Others of us have had conflicts with each other in the church and we find that especially disheartening because we thought that was the one place where we would find the warmth of the fellowship family.

o Others of us, who are parents, have wrestled to know how to communicate with our teens—its not like we don’t remember how it is to be a teenager, but we so badly want our kids to avoid stupidity and the consequences, and they just seem to turn us off. And I am not unsympathetic to our teens too, who struggle sometimes with the issues of adolescence and with their parents (if they even have two parents.)

o And others of us are burdened with addictive tendencies that haunt us and impact our lives and those around us.

o Still others suffer from “seasonal affect disorder” in the winter months when the light is low, and we are in an emotional fog until April. We have had some struggles, lately.

I mention all this because though we may not wish to dwell on suffering and pick at the sores, it IS very human to suffer and to struggle with suffering. (The men in the locker room of my gym make talking about suffering one of the major topics of discussion, I notice.) And I wish to say, for the record, that in my opinion and in my understanding of the Christian life, it isn’t unspiritual to feel pain, to wither under stress, to be susceptible to depression—though some Bible teachers or preachers would make you think so. I admit that we can be whiny, and I don’t like listening to whiny people for too long. But 2^nd Corinthians is a very human letter, of the apostle Paul, who suffered and endured pain, stress and depression and many other trials. In fact this letter is so “human” and real that some Christians just don’t like to read it. We are going to spend a little time in this epistle—this letter—and discover some excellent lessons for the Christian life.

Now Ray Stedman gives a good little summary of where 2^nd Corinthians fits into the history:

Paul began the church in Corinth somewhere around 52 or 53 A. D. [I am amazed that any church was started in the first century! No resources, no Sunday School curricula, no Bibles, no hymnals and no tax-exempt status.] He stayed there for about a year and a half; then he went to Ephesus, where he remained for a few weeks, and then he went on a quick trip to Jerusalem, returning again to Ephesus.

1. While he was at Ephesus, he wrote a letter to the church at Corinth which is lost to us. It is referred to in First Corinthians 5:9, where Paul says he wrote to warn them about following a worldly lifestyle. In response to that letter, the Corinthians wrote back to him with many questions. They sent their letter by the hands of three young men who are mentioned in First Corinthians.

2. In reply to that letter, Paul wrote what we now call First Corinthians. In it he tried to answer their questions, and we have looked at those answers. He tried to exhort them and instruct them how to walk in power and in peace; and he tried to correct many problem areas in the church. Evidently that letter did not accomplish all that Paul intended. There was a bad reaction to it, and in this second letter we learn that he made a quick trip back to Corinth. How long that took we do not know. Paul calls it a "painful" visit. He had come with a rather sharp, severe rebuke to them, but again he did not accomplish his purpose; again there was a great deal of negative reaction.

3. So when he returned to Ephesus, he sent another brief letter, in the hands of Titus, to Corinth to see if he could help them. Now Titus was gone a long time. Transportation and communication were very slow and difficult in those days. Paul, waiting in Ephesus, grew very anxious to hear what was happening in the church there. He became so troubled that he left Ephesus and went to Troas and then up into Macedonia to meet Titus. There in Macedonia, probably in the city of Philippi, he and Titus came together.

4. Titus brought him a much more encouraging word about the church, and in response to that, out of thanksgiving, Paul wrote what we now call the Second Corinthians letter, although it was really the fourth of a series of letters.[1]

Now this letter opens with the typical grace and peace that was Paul’s trademark. But that wasn’t just meaningless talk—grace is the basis for all good things God gives to the believer (love, joy, forgiveness, help, wisdom) and when we are consciously relying on God’s promise of grace, we get peace from Him; “A heart that is resting, a heart that is confident that God is at work is calm within and is serene and untroubled of spirit.[2]” That’s the way Christians are supposed to live. Since we have received Christ by faith and by grace, we get an overall sense of peace in our lives.

One of the things that Paul praises God for is the COMFORT that God provided to him. It is that comfort that we get from God, that we use to comfort each other. That’s what I want us to concentrate on today. Paul says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; ⁴who 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. He mentions comfort four times in these two verses. God is to be praised for His mercies to us and for being the source of comfort when we are suffering. Affliction is pressures, stress, hardships, troubles. We are never guaranteed as Christians that we will be exempted from these, but Paul at least praises God because though he is IN pressures, stress, troubles, God gives him comfort. The Greek word for “comfort” (παρακλήσεως) is related to the familiar word paraclete, “one who comes alongside to help,” another name for the Holy Spirit. “Comfort” often connotes softness and ease, but that is not its meaning here. Paul was saying that God came to him in the middle of his sufferings and troubles to strengthen him and give him courage and boldness (cf. vv. 4–10).^{^[3]} Comfort is more than just a little cheer or friendly word of encouragement. Paul does not mean that. The word basically means "to strengthen." What Paul experienced was the strengthening of God to give him a peaceful, restful spirit to meet the pressure and the stress with which he lived. That is what Christianity is all about and this is God's provision for affliction. It is amazing to me how many thousands of Christians are dreading facing their daily lives because they feel pressured and stressful and tied up in knots, and yet they never avail themselves of God's provision for that kind of pressure. These words are not addressed to us merely to be used for religious problems. They are to be used for any kind of stress, any kind of problems. God's comfort, God's strengthening, is available for whatever puts you under stress.[4]

He sees God's hand as having sent these very things into his life, therefore he never prays to have them removed so that he might escape from them. That is a VERY different view of Christian living than most Christians possess today. We see afflictions and stress and pressure as things to be avoided at all cost! He sees them as opportunities for the release of the strength of God. That suggests the first reason why Christians go through suffering—to be a platform from which to see the real strength of God. Now, if I know we are supposed to suffer as Christians, but why does it hurt so much?"

First, it hurts because that is the way you discover what God can do. How are you ever going to find the comfort of God, the strengthening of God, if you are not under any pressure or stress? It takes that to discover what God can do, and God will keep on sending it until you begin to understand that, and begin to count on him, and find the release from within that he provides. Do not try to run from it -- like so many do. Face up to it, and do as Paul does, by seeing these as opportunities to understand and experience anew the strengthening of God.

From verse 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. The strengthening is exactly equal to the pressure. That is a Christian lifestyle; that is what every Christian ought to be able to experience.

A second reason for suffering is found in Verses 4 and 6. Able to comfort those who are in any affliction…it is for your comfort and salvation…

I think the older you grow as a Christian the more this becomes true. Your sufferings are not sent for you so much as they are for someone who is watching you, and seeing how you handle the pressure that you are going through. Older Christians easily forget that younger Christians are watching them all the time. When we give way to complaining and murmuring about our circumstances we are teaching these younger Christians, teaching them as if we sat down with them and waggled our fingers at them, that God is faithless, that the Scriptures are not true, that we can get no adequate support for what we are going through. When we have sufferings sent to us they are often sent so that others watching us will know that they can be sustained. That is what Paul says to this church. "When I suffer," he says, "it is for your comfort; it is that you might see what God can do, and, what he can take me through, he can take you through. Therefore, as you watch me, you will see how to handle this." Notice too, Paul’s mention of the Corinthians’ very salvation. He isn’t saying that he somehow contributes to that in a legal way, but he sees that “willingness, by God’s grace and the Spirit’s power, to suffer and be comforted and then comfort and strengthen the Corinthians enabled them to persevere.^{^[5]}”

Then notice that, in this remarkable interdependence of the Body, we are encouraged to share with one another what we have gone through. This is why Christians ought to share their problems, their struggles, their failures and their successes with each other, freely and openly -- thus we encourage one another.

Chuck Colson has said that he often asked himself why he had to go to prison as a result of Watergate. He felt that legally, there was no reason why he should have been put in prison. Nevertheless, he ended up there, and, for a long time, he struggled with that. Why did he have to suffer the humiliation, the shame, the disgrace, and the discontent of prison? But then the answer began to come. While he was in prison he learned what prisoners go through. He saw these forgotten men and women of American society, the awful injustices they often face, the difficulty, even the impossibility of recovering themselves, and there was born in him a great sense of compassion and a desire to help. Since he has gotten out of prison, he has devoted his whole life and ministry to going back in and helping these men. Now wonderful stories are beginning to come out from prisons all over America of dramatic changes in human lives because Chuck Colson was sent to prison.[6]

That is why God sends us into difficulties at times. Not always for our sake, but someone else's sake. We have been brought along and matured to the point where we can take it, and rejoice in it, and handle it rightly. When we do, what a lesson we are giving to those who are following along behind.[7]

EXTENDED NOTES:

Now, still a third reason for Christian affliction is given in Verses 8-10:

We do not know what this was that Paul went through. Some think it was a severe illness, and perhaps it was. Others, and I am among them, link this with the record in Acts 19 in the story of the great riot that broke out in Ephesus, and the threat to the lives of all the Christians in that city. This was a time when it appeared the whole Christian cause had collapsed in Ephesus, and all that Paul had labored on for years was falling apart. He must have gone through unusual emotional stress and physical threat during this time. He tells us that he was "utterly, unbearably crushed." Now that is the lowest ebb the human spirit can come to, the uttermost sense of despair. "Why," he said, "we felt that we had received the sentence of death." It was absolutely hopeless; he had given up; there was no way out. He could see himself losing his life at this point. But then he adds, "but hat was to make us rely not on ourselves." One of the major reasons God sends us suffering is to break the stubborn spirit of self-will within us that insists on trying to work it all out by our own resources, or run to some other human resource, or in some way refuse to acknowledge that we need divine help. I find this in myself. I struggle sometimes. I do not want to pray about a certain matter because, if I pray about it, that is admitting that I cannot handle it myself. Paul must have struggled the same way.

Then a final reason for suffering is given in Verse 11:

Once again, suffering is sent to us to show us that we are not individuals living all alone in life. We are members of a family, we are members of a Body, and we need each other. When you have a difficulty or a trial, share it with others so that they can pray with you, for many prayers will bring great deliverance. That is what that verse says. In answer to many prayers, God will send a blessing which will awaken thanksgiving in many, many hearts. Paul says, therefore, "You must help us by prayer," so that there will be great thanksgiving for the great blessing that comes from many prayers. That is the reason for requests for prayer, for sharing our needs with one another, and for enlisting the aid of others in praying us through times of pressure, as we ought to be ready to respond to those who are going through pressure with prayer for them ourselves. Now that is the way the Christian community ought to respond to stress and pressure, to difficulties and trials and disasters. God has sent them. God has allowed them to come as opportunities that you might learn again this amazing secret of inner strength, inner comfort, inner peace that can keep your heart quiet, even though you are going through troubled times.

^{^[3]} MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (2 Co 1:3). Nashville: Word Pub.