I'm very much looking forward to opening up God's Word out of
Second Corinthians so you can open your Bible to the New
Testament book of Second Corinthians right now, if not
already. And we're going to commence a
series through this book in the coming Sunday evenings so you
can be reading ahead as we teach expositionally through the book,
but just by way of some announcements to begin with to
remind you that you're invited out on Wednesday to join with us
in prayer. 7:00 teaching of God's Word.
And then the latter half of that hour spent time together
praying, bringing requests unto the Lord.
And Friday youth, 5:00 for the younger age, 6:00 for the older,
but there's a little overlap there as they interact one with
another. And then ladies, lastly, the the
Tuesday morning begins. Well, the next one is the 26th
of August at 9:30. Let's pray again, Lord, we thank
you for your word. We thank you that we're now able
to open your word, your revelation, your truth to us and
that you will speak to us tonight.
We desire and we need to hear from you.
We need to know how to live. We need to know what is right,
what is good, what is proper, what is truth.
And we need to be able to have your strength and your power.
You're enabling within us to be able to live that out, to be
obedient to your word. And we thank you for the comfort
that you supply. And tonight as we we look at the
comfort that you bring in the midst of suffering and in trials
and we see that in Paul's life, we know that we encounter all
sorts of difficulties and circumstances and situations
that come upon us, that we're exhausted in ourselves.
We need your help. We need your strength.
We thank you Lord also for your provision in our lives and as we
give back to you in our tithes and offerings, we thank you for
your blessing and and we worship you in that way, giving out of
cheerful hearts and be blessed. Now we we thank you and we
commit this time to you in Jesus name, Amen.
Second Corinthians chapter 1. We're going to have a look at
the 1st 11 verses I'm reading out of the New King James
Version and it's starting verse one.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy,
our brother to the Church of God, which is at Corinth with
all the Saints who are in all Akai grace to you, verse 2 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 God of all comfort, who comforts us in
all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are
in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are
comforted by God. Verse 5.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation
also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is
for your consolation and salvation, which is effective
for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer.
Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and
salvation. And our hope for you is
steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the
suffering, so also you will partake of the consolation.
Verse 8. For we did not want you to be
ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in
Asia, that we were burdened beyond measure above strength,
so that we despaired even of life.
Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we
should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead,
who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us in
whom we trust that He will still deliver us.
You also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may
be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to
us through many. I think one of the hardest
things for you or I to handle is when we become the target of
malicious gossip, or if people have said things that have
manipulated the truth in such a way that that it's caused even
people to know you, people who are close to you, to turn their
back on you. I don't know if you've ever
experienced that. I'm sure you probably have,
because you're human. Part of the human experience is
to encounter betrayal, is to encounter things that aren't
true being said about us. Well, this is Paul's background
here in writing this book, Second Corinthians, that we're
getting into. You remember as we studied
through the book of First Corinthians that Paul shared his
heart for the people. There were certain questions
that they were asking of Paul. There were certain things that
he'd heard about. And so he sought to instruct
them and to correct certain things that were taking place in
there. And he'd sent the letter First
Corinthians to them via a fellow called Titus.
And Paul was to catch up with Titus and to just see how the
reception of the letter had gone.
And there was just a mix up. He didn't.
He wasn't able to meet Titus where he'd planned to.
And so there was this in between not knowing what had happened
since the letter had been sent out.
And finally Paul caught up with Titus.
And Titus was like Paul, good news and bad news.
Good news is that Paul, they received your letter that some
correction has started to take place that they've they've put
into practise the certain things that you were instructing of
them to correct and to do. But bad news, Paul, is that
there are people within the church who didn't like what you
said. And because they didn't like
what you said, they've decided to shoot the messenger.
And that's what Paul is now addressing in Second
Corinthians. There are people who didn't like
the content, some of the subject matter of his first letter in
First Corinthians. And so they took to attacking
Paul and particularly Paul's apostleship, the fact that he
was an apostle. They said it can't be because
look at Paul's life and look how much he's suffering.
If he were a true apostle of Jesus Christ, he wouldn't be
going through all of the things that he's going through.
And really, this is part and parcel now with what we're going
to look at tonight. Because I love that Paul deals
with this and I love that it's in the Bible tonight for us.
Because one of the things that people grapple with a lot when
it comes to Christianity and God is, you know, why do bad things
happen to good people? Why does difficulty come across
the paths of of Christians? Well, let me just address that,
that it's only ever happened once to one person, that bad
things have happened to good people, and that was Jesus
Christ and he volunteered for that.
And the Bible tells us that there is none righteous.
No, not one. But I understand, and you might
think I'm just arguing semantics there.
I understand the heart behind that because what's wrapped up
in that is this false notion that to be blessed by God, then
things must be going swimmingly, must be going well in life.
That the crowd is cheering and applauding everything that takes
place in in life, that everything is cruisy, that all
the streets are downhill in life and everything is going in your
favour. But you know what flies in the
face of that? The Bible and the likes of Paul,
who we're reading about, who encountered suffering and trial
and tribulation and great difficulty, so much so that
that's what these false teachers and these accusers in current
were using to level against Paul as a claim that he was not an
apostle, not a true follower of Jesus Christ.
So these questions, these doubts that we have that others express
really are found for us in our text that we get through.
Now, Paul suffered probably more than perhaps any other Christian
that we know of. We'll read later in Second
Corinthians of all of the things that he endured in the name of
Jesus Christ for being a follower of Jesus.
He'll talk about having been sick, unwell, persecuted,
shipwrecked multiple times. You know, you'd think one time
being shipwrecked is is once enough, but he had a number of
occasions being beaten, being imprisoned, being whipped, being
stoned to the point of death, being falsely accused and
maligned as we're reading about, stabbed in the back, forsaken by
those that were once sort of friends and followers of his.
You name it, Paul endured it. Yet all the way through, Paul
that we read was a righteous follower of Jesus Christ, a man
of faith who continued to love God deeply and passionately.
And so that is what makes Second Corinthians such an amazing book
for us as we study through it and why we're going through it,
because Paul reveals the reality of the Christian life.
There will be difficulty, there will be trial, there will be
sufferings, especially in the ministry of God and the ministry
of God to others that we're involved in.
So it's a very much a reality check for us.
He gives a defence of his apostleship.
He gets very personal in this book, maybe more so than any
other of his letters combined, as he really just defends, you
know, these accusations and these challenges that were
against his apostleship and him being a minister of Jesus Christ
as we make our way through this letter.
And he'll keep coming back to it.
But in this book, Paul reveals for us that suffering, though
not enjoyable, is actually part of the blessing of God because
of what it produces in US. And so Paul is writing for us to
see and sense and for certainly the audience in current, to
sense the purpose in suffering. Even in this very first chapter,
the 11 verses that we read, look at how many times he refers to
sufferings or the terminology thereof.
In verse 4, tribulation trouble. In verse 5 sufferings.
In verse 6, afflicted and sufferings again, verse 7,
sufferings. Verse 8, trouble pressed out of
measure, despaired even of life. So it's pretty intense, the
struggle and all that Paul is encountering and what he's
writing about. So as Paul will explain for us
in his sufferings, he's going to communicate this message that
there can be blessings in our buffetings, that no matter the
burden and the pressure that we're feeling, God can transform
it and use it for good in our lives and for His glory.
So tonight specifically, we're going to learn of the comfort
that comes in suffering. And if you're the note taking
type, there are four points that we'll be able to communicate and
understand this. If we're seeking comfort in the
midst of suffering, we must number one, remember who God is
verses one to three. He begins with the usual
salutation that he would in in all of his epistles commence
with Paul and he goes straight to the issue at heart and
apostle of Jesus Christ. So there's no doubt.
I don't care what people are saying.
I am an apostle of Jesus Christ and not by my own fabrication or
making, but he says by the will of God straight up he's he's
declaring who he is by the will of God.
Timothy is alongside of him. And so Timothy sends his words
here as part of this letter. The audience to the Church of
God in Corinth, we know that to be in Greece.
We looked at all of that through our study in First Corinthians.
So I'm hoping that that background is enough to not have
to go over this territory again with all the Saints.
Saints simply means believers. Not that you have to have
performed the miracle, not that you have to be dead and not you
have to be declared as such by the papacy in Rome, but all of
us who are believers are Saints in all a chaos.
So this letter is not only going to Corinth, but surrounding
churches in the territories thereby.
Now typically when they would greet one another in, in in
Greek speaking language, they would say the word karis, which
is grace. But then he adds what was
typical for Hebrew, though it's in the Greek here, peace,
Shalom. And the response back is Shalom,
Shalom. Like I see that peace and I'll
raise your peace. That's why they would repeat it.
Shalom, Shalom. And so that's really the heart
behind this word peace here that he gives is is, is I, I pray
God's grace to be upon you and the peace of God in you from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we get to verse 3. He's suffering, but he gets
straight to it. Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all
comfort. You see, Paul learned these
three things in his own suffering and he shares it with
the audience. And for you and I tonight to
remember in our suffering, if we're seeking comfort in the
midst of our suffering, he brings up 3 attributes,
characteristics of God. And so he would say, remember,
if you're suffering who God is and when you suffer, haven't you
found that's the time when you learn the most about God, when
things are difficult, when you're having to press in to Him
and to all of his attributes? And this is the point I want to
make here in this first one. In suffering, you will learn
about God in ways that you will never learn without suffering.
Many times we can be averse to suffering.
We don't desire it. We pray for God to get us out of
it. But in suffering, you will learn
more about God in ways that you would not if you'd been absent
of suffering it. It'd bring growth into our
lives. And you might say, I don't want
to grow if it means suffering. Just because you don't want
suffering doesn't mean that you'll be exempt from suffering.
You will suffer. It's a guarantee.
It's going to come trials, difficulties, tribulations, all
that we're reading of for Paul and and for those that name the
name of Christ, it comes with the territory.
It's just that you'll waste it. And so if you desire to grow,
expect suffering and firstly, remember God in that suffering.
And he says God is blessed. Verse 3, blessed be God.
It means all the praise belongs to God here.
You know, it's easy for us to acknowledge the blessedness of
God, to praise him. Oh God, you're worthy.
I I bless you when things are going well, when everything is
just cruisy and and very comfortable for us.
But it takes a tender, yielded spirit to confess with Job.
In the Old Testament book of Job, he said these words the
Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
But my heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name. If anyone knew anything about
suffering, it was Job. If you've read his story, you
know all the loss that he endured, all the impact
physically, all all the emotional strain and the anxiety
that the pressure. You know, if you or I ever
complain of suffering, slap me in the face when it comes to
saying I'm like Job. Job knows what it means to
suffer. But his response was the Lord
gave the Lord has taken away, but my heart will choose to say,
Lord, blessed be your name. And Paul was able to say the
same. It begins in verse 3.
Blessed be God, he was suffering.
It was intense. Later on, as we read, it was so
intense to the point of death that he thought we're going to
die. This is how intense this
suffering is this trial that we're going through.
I, I think this is the end for me.
Paul was writing in these words here and yet through it he's
able to say, blessed be God, praise be to God.
Amazing. And then second, remember God.
And he points out in verse three that God is the father of
mercies. The word father here means
originator. It means the source of So the
idea that he's declaring to remember about God in the midst
of our suffering is that God is the source of everything
merciful that comes to us is the Father of mercies.
The Bible declares of Satan that he is the father of what all
lies. And that means that Satan that
any time a lie comes, anything that seeks to deceive, is the
originator, is the source of that.
But God, God is the source, the originator of mercy and mercies.
Here is is plural. It shows that God's mercies are
available for all kinds of difficulties, all kinds of
trials, all kinds of tribulations.
In Lamentations chapter 3, verse 22, Jeremiah the prophet says it
is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.
In other words, what he is declaring there is that
practically there is nothing that we deserve from God but
that everything we have comes from Him and is a consequence of
His mercies. That's what that means
throughout the rest of the Bible.
The Bible declares and describes God's mercy as being manifold,
as being tender, as being great, as being new every morning.
He is the Father of all mercies. Everything we have from Him is a
consequence of this. It's, it's not that we deserve
it, but that God is so good that he gives us his mercies.
And that's just, you know, in the physical sense when we think
about many practical things, but in the spiritual realm, every
mercy we experience comes from him.
David said Psalm 103, verse 10 to 11.
He has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above
the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear Him.
If God were not merciful, none of us would be alive right here
tonight. But suffering is what suffering
does. It reorients our thoughts to
remember that no matter what I'm going through, no matter what
I'm experiencing, I don't deserve the mercy that God, You,
the Father of, have given to me. You're the Father of mercies.
So remember he is the Father of mercies.
And thirdly, remember in that that he is the God of all
comfort. Verse 3.
What is comfort here? It's not just sympathy or pity.
It's not that God comes along and gives us a there there and
it'll be OK and a pat on the back and you'll be right.
Just, you know, hop back on the hop back on the bike and life
will just continue to roll along.
No comfort here. The word comes from a Greek
origin, Paraclete. Now, those of you that know from
our recent study in the Holy Spirit is starting to make a
connection here. It's the same sort of root word
that's used to describe the Holy Spirit who is the God of
comfort. It means to come alongside and
to help. And to support in time of need,
it means that when you're going through suffering and trial and
difficulty, when someone is there as a comfort, they're a
support that you can lean into. They offer strength, help, aid
to carry you along in to come alongside in that journey.
And the Bible tells us that He is the God of all comfort, all
comfort. And in verse 4, God comforts us
in all our tribulation. It says, so He's all comfort in
all of our tribulation. Jesus said in John 16, verse 33,
these things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have
peace in the world, you will have tribulation.
But he said be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.
How is it that God comforts us? God comforts us through his
word. Have you ever found in reading
the Bible in a sermon, perhaps like tonight in the context of
church or when you open it up for your devotions or when you
hear in a podcast or you just listen to it, that God, his
word, it's so alive and so real, is able to comfort you in the
very circumstantial situation right there and then that you're
you're going through. God comforts us through his
word.