Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning, 815.
[00:00:07] You're the lucky ones because you have evaded the rain. See? Perk of being the holiest ones in the church. You come early like, you. Well, you guys didn't. The ones who are actually coming in, you got rained on, but the ones who got here. Just kidding. Oh, goodness gracious. Last week I had the privilege of preaching at a friend from junior highs church in Seattle. And so his name's Ryan Falls. Actually, Ryan preached here. I think it was like, 2017 or 18, and it was really, really fun just to be with his church. And so I bring greetings from Westminster Chapel in Bellevue.
[00:00:44] Not Wisconsin, Washington. And I was just reminded that all over the country, all over Chicago, all over the world, our incredible churches with men and women who love the Lord, who believe in the gospel, who uphold the word of God. Like this. I love village church. We're one of like, hundreds of thousands of gatherings around the world. And it's just really beautiful to remember. Like, we have brothers and sisters all over. And so even having Daniel here from Charlotte, you're just reminded, like, the Lord has bound us together with people who share the same holy spirit and the same convictions, and heaven is going to be a wonderful place. But I bring you greetings from Westminster Chapel in Bellevue. And you didn't quite know I was going there, but I brought them greetings from you. So we're good on that one, guys. We are launching today the book of Second Corinthians. So if you would open up your bibles there, two Corinthians, chapter one. As you do that, I have a real question for you. I want you to raise your hand if this applies to you. Raise your hand if you love relational drama in your life. Anybody? Anybody? No one? Bueller? Nothing. Not even a single person. None of you are gluttons for punishment. All right, well, listen. Few churches have more drama than the church in Corinth. And probably few people have likely experienced, quote unquote, church hurt like the people who attended the church in Corinth. And so you're gonna see kind of the first couple chapters. Our theme is church hurts. You can interpret that any way you want, but, like, church hurts sometimes. Sometimes there's churches that hurt, and sometimes there's people in churches that hurt. You can think about this in many different ways, but at the end of the day, like, church drama is real. And two, Corinthians is one of those books where we are just dropping right into the middle of a multi year church drama. And so there's some context that we have to understand about the book of second Corinthians. Might I just give you a high level picture of maybe some of the drama they're dealing with in their location? So buckle up. There was open incest in the church, and the church ignored it, like, literally happening, and nobody did anything about it.
[00:02:57] They were dragging their personal disputes into the courts and absolutely humiliating the reputation of the church.
[00:03:05] They were, catch this. They were trying to bring in pagan practices and rituals into their Sunday morning worship. What would you do if someone tried to bring in a pagan ritual into corporate worship at village church? Like, you probably would take them out, right? You'd be like, run up there, like, no. And tackle them to the ground. Don't do it, Daniel. No good. All right. They got communion. They got drunk during communion. The rich people ate first. The poor people were able to take communion. They had, like, a love feast, right? The poor people were allowed to do it if there was some leftover after the rich people ate. This is happening. Okay, we're not done. The worship services were total chaos. And so people would start speaking over one another, and they would start speaking in languages nobody had ever heard before. And then they were saying, God is I have a word from God. And it was just absolute insanity to the point, by the way, where non Christians would come to a worship service, if you will, in the corinthian church, and they would leave and they would say this. These people are crazy.
[00:04:07] They had a group of people who hated their founding pastor, Paul. Paul planted this church. He started it, and they were working in to get rid of Paul. And so they were divisions and teams. There was Paul's team. There was the super apostles team. There was Barnabas team. There were all these different people, and they had all different teams, and they had factions. And so what, pastor, are you loyal to? That was the question that they were having to deal with in this church. And also what's striking is that the people who wanted to get rid of Paul didn't even believe in the gospel. They didn't even believe in an actual resurrection. They were heretics. And so these people are running around in the church, open incest, divisions. Okay, can we just say, if you went to the corinthian church, would you have left after your first Sunday there? And the answer is most likely. But unfortunately, there was nowhere else to go. And in their cities, they would typically have one major church. It was the church in Corinth. And sure, you could get on some animal, and you could take 4 hours to go to a church in a neighboring city. But most people don't have the ability, time, or resources to do that.
[00:05:15] Let me just summarize what the church in Corinth teaches us.
[00:05:21] I don't care where you go, church is messy, period. It's just messy. You talk to anybody who's been in church for long enough, it's messy. And some people have it in their minds that, you know what? I can have drama in my home, which we do. I can have drama in my marriage, which we do. I can have drama at work, which we do. I can have drama at Starbucks, which we do. I can have drama with my friends, which we do. But if you bring trauma into church, this is a drama free zone. I'm sorry, but last time I checked, the very same people that are in your family, in your marriage, in your home, in your friends, at your work, they're the same kind of people who all go to church. You know what that means? Everywhere you go, everything everywhere is messy. Yay. Aren't you guys so excited? And if you're young and you're like, I have been protected from the mess. Your mom and dad are awesome. Just wait. Cause you're gonna find life is messy. Church is messy. Work is messy. Guess what? Your heart is messy. Being in relationship with you and me is messy. Everything about this is messy. And so some people are like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna avoid people biblical permission to do that, or I'm just not gonna go to church. Because sometimes, somewhere, someone hurt me. We don't have the ability, also from scripture, to pull away and disconnect from local assemblies. Somehow we gotta figure out how to be in a messy church with messy people and do this to the glory of God with grace and forgiveness. Can I get an amen? Village church on? This church isn't easy. And if you came in here expecting perfect people, I'm so sorry. You're with a bunch of wicked sinners who are struggling with their own hearts, let alone everything else in our life. Now, when you read the book of two Corinthians, you are, as we said, parachuting into a church drama. And if you just kind of open the book, you're not going to know what this drama is. So what I want to do is I want to take a minute or two, and I want to walk you through their drama. And, like, any kind of dramatic situation, it's complex. There's a lot of pieces and movements to the story. And so what I want to do is kind of walk you through a timeline of what led to the book of two Corinthians. So if you get notes, this could be helpful. I'll put it on the screen. You can take a picture of that, or I'll send it to you. But here's kind of the context you need to know of this book. First, Paul writes what is now a lost letter to the corinthian church. We don't have this. Jury's out. If for some reason we found this letter, would it be canonized? We don't know. We've just never had to deal with this. There is a letter out there that is lost. This was the first thing that happened. It was before the book of first Corinthians. So technically, one corinthians should be second Corinthians in the line of letters that we're aware of. The second thing that happened then is that the Corinthians, they wrote Paul a letter back, and they had a lot of questions. So when you read the book of first Corinthians, what you realize is that Paul is responding to very specific problems, but also questions that they are asking about how to be the church next. What happens is that while he receives this letter from the corinthian church, and it could have been from the person who gave it to him, reports started coming to him. In fact, he identifies that there's a woman named Chloe, and it's her household that is bringing back to Paul disturbing reports about what is happening inside of the corinthian church. So after they receive first Corinthians, Paul hears all this stuff. Paul sends Timothy, his protege, to Corinthenne to basically say, what's going on in this church? I wrote them a letter. They wrote me a letter. I wrote them a letter back. I'm now getting word from Chloe's household. Disarray and craziness is happening in this church. Can you please, Timothy, go check this out and see what is going on in Corinth.
[00:09:00] So Timothy comes back and he reports, and he's like, it's crazy, Paul. These people are losing their minds. So Paul makes what he calls a painful in person visit to the corinthian church. And it didn't go well.
[00:09:16] We don't know the details. We just know that they were in disarray. Paul shows up, and things get markedly worse.
[00:09:25] So then Paul writes them another letter. This letter also is lost. So technically, this letter would have been third Corinthians. He calls it the severe letter. Paul writes them a strong, emotionally driven. He calls it tearful, painful, angsty, like letter to them, and it apparently had rebuke, and there were challenges in it, like repent or. Jesus is basically going to shut this place down or take his spirit away. Whatever the severe letter was, it was pretty intense. That would have been the third letter to the Corinthians.
[00:09:59] So Paul sends this letter with a guy named Titus, another protege. So if you know Timothy Titus, these are pastoral. These are young pastors that Paul's shepherding. So then Paul sends Titus, and he gives Titus this severe letter.
[00:10:15] Now, Paul is 400 miles away from Corinth, so it takes about a month. So Paul writes this letter, took him time to write it, gives it to Titus, says, bring this to Corinth. One month goes by. How do you think Paul is feeling? Paul planted this church. Paul spent three years with this church, starting this church. Paul loves this church. Paul poured his heart and his soul and his blood and his tears into this church. And so Titus leaves, and it's going to be months until Titus comes back, let alone two months to get the letter there and for Titus to write something and write a letter back. And so Paul's wondering. I wrote them a really hard letter. I gave it to my buddy Titus. I really hope they receive it well. Is this the end of our relationship? I don't know what's going on. And then Titus sends word back.
[00:11:01] They received your letter, and they repented.
[00:11:04] Could you imagine, like, the people that you love, like, saying something hard to anybody is hard enough, but to write a letter that you are literally pouring over and praying over with tears to call a group of people a church to repentance and threatening them with, like, if you don't do this, Jesus is gonna intervene. These are emotional moments, guys.
[00:11:26] And so he gets word back, and his heart is relieved. And then he writes the book of two corinthians with the relief that they're okay.
[00:11:36] And this is where we parachute in. Two Corinthians, chapter one. This actually should be fourth corinthians, technically, if we're just kind of playing this out. And so with this context in mind, look at two Corinthians. One. One. It's actually more loaded than most realize.
[00:11:51] Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother. So the way this would work is you would get a scroll. Typically, it would be wound up, and so you'd read it from top to bottom, and so you would identify yourself at the beginning. But it was custom that when you would get a letter, particularly from an apostle, you would gather the churches together, and then you would open the scroll and you would read it together. And the very first word out of the pastor's mouth in Corinth is going to be what?
[00:12:25] Paul?
[00:12:26] This is letter number four. And they might have a little, like, PTSD from letters one, two, and three because they get progressively more and more severe, and you're like, oh, no, what's going to happen now? And so this is an emotional letter. And I also, you need to remember, as you read this, there is still, at the time of receiving this letter, second corinthians, a very anti Paul, strong contingent in the church. To be clear, they don't believe the gospel. And to be clear, they are small in number, but they are creating quite a ruckus within the corinthian church.
[00:13:07] And they are self proclaimed apostles. They are self proclaimed, and they got even this nickname called super apostles because they would always say that they are better than the original apostles. And so they came into the city of Corinth, and it was interesting, because what these super apostles did is they capitalized on a cultural moment where in Corinth and the pagan religions, which all these people came out of, to be a strong spiritual leader, to be respected, to be a guru, you needed three really important things. Number one, if you're going to be a great leader, right? How do you know if they're a great pastor? Number one, they have charisma. They get up in front of people, and they're compelling, and that's really important. But guess what? Do you know what? The apostle Paul didn't have charisma.
[00:13:54] In fact, the apostle Paul was a pretty boring guy. In fact, the apostle Paul, after being beaten multiple times, probably had multiple physical defects. He didn't look normal. If you met Paul, there'd be scars all over his face from the whips that would rip open his skin. Paul was a marked man with scars. He wasn't charismatic. He didn't speak well. And brings us to the second requirement. If you're in the first century, if you're gonna be a spiritual leader, you can't just have charisma. You have to be skilled in rhetoric, which basically means you have to be able to talk really, really well. And if you're not a great communicator, if you don't, like, really pronounce things well and move people, then you can't be a great spiritual leader. But number three, what you also had to have is mystical spiritual experiences. So if you could come in and be like, let me tell you about this mystical spiritual experience I had, you would be now seen as a powerful spiritual leader. So Paul didn't have charisma. Paul self admittedly, isn't a good talker. And Paul is never gonna brag about really what we're objectively amazing, supernatural, mystical experiences. What Paul's gonna brag about is his suffering.
[00:15:05] And so for these super apostles, they're like, if he was from God, he would be a good talker. He'd have a lot of personality. He definitely wouldn't suffer. Oh, and by the way, he would have tons of mystical experiences, and he would be teaching us how to have these mystical experiences also. So they capitalize into this cultural moment. And the people are like, you're right. He does stink at talking. And you're right when he does walk into the room, people don't really pay much attention to him, and he is pretty ugly. And you know what? If he was from God, why would God let him suffer? That doesn't make any sense. So this thing would happen, and then they'd be like, oh, yeah, we don't believe in the resurrection also, but a minor detail, right? But they tapped into this, this particular moment in time to create this division. Look at verse one. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. And then he writes, by the will of God.
[00:16:01] And this is a jab at these guys.
[00:16:04] You are super apostles, self proclaimed by the will of yourselves, with no authority over you, calling you into this ministry.
[00:16:15] I was put into this position. Not me, Michael, Paul, by Jesus himself.
[00:16:22] So apparently, like, you can self proclaim anything you want, but we don't do that here. So Paul's like, no, literally, I was killing christians, and Jesus showed up, blinded me, called me into ministry. I'm an apostle because of Jesus. And so he's kind of front. He's like, these are fighting words in the front end of this letter. But Paul knows that the majority of the church is now with him, even though these super apostles are creating ruckus in the body.
[00:16:52] Something you need to know about the book of Second Corinthians. And, my goodness, to do, like, a full intro to this book. It's like a six hour message. So I'm going to just do the whole series as an intro to the book. So every week we'll plot a different aspect of Corinth or what's going on to help you get inside the context of this local church here. But something you need to know about this book that's going to really dictate the way we preach through it.
[00:17:15] It is very off the cuff.
[00:17:18] So if you're familiar with the New Testament, the Book of Romans, Paul wrote a whole bunch of letters called Pastoral Pauline epistles. They're letters that he wrote to local churches. If you read the Book of Romans, it's almost like he mentally outlined the book and then they didn't have chapters back then. But if you were to think about each chapter, they have a very logical flow. So if you're teaching through Ephesians or Romans, you can really just go verse by verse and walk through the entire book. And there is like, almost a lawyer like linear nature to the arguments into the thought process. Two Corinthians is not that. Second Corinthians is a relieved, broken pastor writing from the bottom of his heart, stream of consciousness. He's got a couple large agendas. They have a collection they got to get to. We'll get that in a few months. He's got a. Some things he wants to encourage them on. He's got to deal with these super apostles. They're going to come up in this letter because they're just making trouble and they're not relenting and they're not even believing in the gospel. He's got to deal with all that. But you need to understand that you are literally eavesdropping. It's like a reconciliation letter between two long lost friends who haven't talked for a while, and they've had a deep pain between them, and now there's been reconciliation, and they're working through the next steps. And so what you get is this stream of consciousness. And so there's this part of me, like, as a linear preacher, like, we just got done with Leviticus, and you can follow Leviticus. You can walk through chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and you can kind of watch the flow of it. Second Corinthians is a nightmare to preach like that because it just goes back and it goes forth, and it's emotional. It's up and it's down. And so a lot of times we preach through this book, we're gonna pull out sections, and then we're gonna look at some of the themes in the sections. And so in two corinthians, chapter one, we're gonna be verses one through eleven. There are two themes that come out. Theme number one is comfort, and theme number two is affliction. I want to look at each of these separately. And so first, I want to talk about affliction, because affliction for Paul would be this. It's suffering innocently for Jesus or from a sinful world.
[00:19:24] Stubbing your toe is not affliction. It stinks, it hurts, it's frustrating, right? That's not affliction.
[00:19:29] Affliction seems to be this idea that there is something I'm not guilty or deserving of what is happening to me, and there is something happening because of my relationship with Jesus or because we're just living in a sinful world that doesn't tolerate the values of Jesus. And there's this idea in affliction that the one being afflicted is generally innocent, sinless, but just generally innocent. And look at verse eight. He says, we don't want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were. And I want you to hear it again. You have to understand, this is a pastor speaking with his beloved church and friends, candidly pouring out his heart. He's not trying to act all spiritual. This is just like vulnerable mandae. Sharing his heart. He says, we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
[00:20:29] Like most pastors, like, we're the Bible answer man. We gotta be all put together. Paul doesn't play the pastor game. Paul's like, honestly, we wanted to die. It was so bad. It was so torturous. It was affliction. We didn't do anything to deserve this. And we were burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. We were depressed, we were anxious. We were afraid. I've been beaten, and I don't want to be beaten again. It's really hard, and it takes a long time to get over, and it sticks with your body for the rest of your lives. There are things that don't work in my body anymore because I was beat to a pulp on multiple occasions, he would say. And so he's not looking forward to that. It doesn't matter how many times somebody whips you with lashes, it doesn't get easier every time.
[00:21:14] And so he says, indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. And my question when I read this is what happened in Asia?
[00:21:25] Well, he was preaching. A riot starts, he almost dies. He gets imprisoned. He's beaten in Asia. He's slandered in Asia, he's betrayed in Asia. He experiences depression, despair, anxiety, fear, pain, sadness, disappointment, anger, and more. All of this happens in Asia. I don't know about you, but if I had an experience like that, I wouldn't want to go back to Asia.
[00:21:46] And it's interesting because for Paul, it's not just the pastors that are going through this. This is the Christians. This isn't like a pastoral burden. This is the church that is bearing this burden together. So he's not saying like this, like, I'm a pastor, I'm going through this unique thing. He's saying, no, this is what the christians are going through. And by the way, he understands that to a degree, the christians are having to navigate some of the same things.
[00:22:09] When you break down kind of Paul's understanding of affliction, there's three categories of affliction. Number one is broken core relationships. That is painful. When people you love. That's broken. Number two is spiritual oppression. This would look like false teachers and demonic attacks.
[00:22:25] And number three is physical and economic persecution. And it's interesting because, thankfully, largely in America and the western church, we have been spared from physical and economic persecution.
[00:22:39] So when he talks about affliction, this is kind of the category that he's talking about. And what he does is, I call this three laws of affliction. So I want to show you these three laws, and then we'll look at the three laws of comfort.
[00:22:52] The first law is this affliction always has the same purpose.
[00:23:01] There might be more minimally, like, bottom shelf, this verse nine, talking about the affliction. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.
[00:23:18] So, like, if you have had, currently have, or will have an affliction, I want you to just think about this. Whatever else God is up to, he is doing this, allowing this, ordaining this, or permitting this, so that you will learn to rely on God when we are afflicted. I'm gonna say this backwards and forwards in 16 different ways.
[00:23:43] When we are afflicted, it is because God is trying to teach us more and more and more how to rely on him and not ourselves.
[00:23:56] I'm not saying God did it, although if he wanted to ordain affliction, he'd be justified.
[00:24:03] Whatever the happenstance, whatever the scenario, if you're going through affliction and you are innocent, God is teaching you how to rely on him. Have I beat this horse? We're good. We got this. Say it over and over again. Law number two, repeated afflictions change our perspective on affliction. Verse ten. This is written by a man who's gone through multiple afflictions.
[00:24:30] Says he, God delivered us. Talking past tense, he's looking at his past afflictions from such a deadly peril. I have never felt a deadly peril. I'm gonna be honest. This is coming from a guy who's been there, done that, and he now looks at the future. He will deliver us. This isn't a question mark. This is, like a period. This is a stated fact. And he goes on him. We have set our hope that he will deliver us. All right, so the first time you go through an affliction, like, if you're sitting here right now and you're like, I don't think I've ever gone through affliction. Like, I've gotten myself into a lot of trouble, but I don't know that I've ever been, like, kind of, like, innocently afflicted. Right? Wait.
[00:25:08] The first time you go through an affliction, you learn a lot. You're not emotionally prepared.
[00:25:15] Nobody ever trained you. The only way to be prepared for affliction is to go through affliction. So the first time somebody goes through an affliction, right, you're like, I wasn't ready. Praise God. You weren't ready, because the only way you get ready is by going through it. And so if you're, like, 40 and that's your first affliction, praise God, you got through 40 years of life without having to have actual afflictions. The first time you go through it, you learn a lot. Probably undid you a bit. It feels like if you look back on that first one, you're like, that felt like it might have been two weeks, but it felt like forever.
[00:25:45] And honestly, in that moment of that first affliction, you look back and you're like, I don't know that I've ever seen God come through. And then as you kind of look back, you're like, and he did come through. Not in the way I expected, but he actually came through. And if you're being doubly honest, you didn't actually know how to pray in that, other than maybe Jesus end this. That was, like, the extent of it. Like, really your thoughtful prayer in that.
[00:26:07] But then the second time you go through affliction, you've learned a thing or two. You actually can look back and see the personal transformation that happened in your own heart and your own life.
[00:26:18] You made a whole bunch of mistakes in the first affliction, and you're kind of resolved not to do those again. And you look back and you're like, I know God is up to something here. He's teaching me and he's training me. You've done this once, and you're like, okay, he came through last time. Is he gonna come through again? Was that like a one off or is this a pattern with God?
[00:26:39] By the third time that you go through affliction, you already know the game. The devil's got like six tricks up his sleeves, by the way, with everybody, and you already know them all at this point. You've seen them. You're like, yep, know that trick? Yep. Know that trick? Yep. Seen that, been there, done that, almost fell for that trap last time. And so you're like, ready. Like, you know all the tricks, you know all the game. You know, you're like, I already like, listen, I got it. Jesus is training me. Apparently, I have not learned enough to rely on him, and this is going to happen for the rest of my life because nobody has ever perfectly learned to rely on God. Amen. And so then we're like, all right, I know what's going on. I actually know how to pray at this point. I'm like, and I've also learned another thing. I have learned that the power of prayer is unbelievable. Not to end the affliction, but to actually get me through it in a way that brings God glory. And so you learn to pray different things, and you realize, like, wow. Like, initially my first affliction, I'm like, get me out of this. I can't handle it. And now I'm like, is that the best you got?
[00:27:35] And you learn and you build strength and you build muscle, and you're like, wow. And you learn what it means to rely on God and to go to his word. And these are muscles you build. No one's good at affliction until you go through affliction.
[00:27:48] So look at verse ten again. He will deliver us. These are words of confidence from a man who's been there, done that over and over and over again, got himself into situations, or found himself into situations where God, the God who raised the dead, had to show up and never in the right time frame, because for Paul, some of these circumstances, he didn't get freed from them until after he was beaten to a pulp.
[00:28:09] Think about that.
[00:28:11] But he looks back and he's like, at the end of the day, God is good. God is faithful. He delivered me. He'll do it again. And he can look at the corinthians and be like, I know the affliction you're in. I know it. I've been there. I lived with you for years. God's faithful, God is good. And the confidence that he has now, I want you to see this. Then we're going to move on to comfort. There are some measures of faith and maturity that are only achieved through repeated afflictions.
[00:28:37] So if I were to, like, before I put this on the screen, if I were to say to you, raise your hand, don't do it, but raise your hand. If you want to be more mature and you want to be spiritually strong, you'll be like, yeah. And I'm like, well, afflictions is the pathway.
[00:28:50] No.
[00:28:54] And God knows this. This is how maturity grows.
[00:29:00] Maturity doesn't grow when everything's easy. You can grow. Don't get me wrong, but, like, you know, those exponential periods of spiritual growth, those happen in affliction law number three. Repeated afflictions train the soul and the power. Prayer. The first affliction, you try to fix it with human power. This is a story told over and over again. The second affliction, you learn to let God deal with it, and you're figuring out how to pray. By the third affliction, you understand the power of a community that comes alongside of you and holds you up and prays for you. And they enter into this burden, and it always goes on longer than you want. But you're with the people of God. And if you're with the people of God and God's spirit is in you and the word of God is your guide, you're like, I think I can do anything.
[00:29:45] And then there's the fourth and the fifth and the 6th.
[00:29:49] And that's where ministry really starts to happen. Which brings us to the comfort.
[00:29:55] The question stands. I mean, how do I get through affliction? And the answer from Paul is comfort. It's a weird answer.
[00:30:03] The answer I wanted was, I get through affliction by God ending it. That's not what Paul says or teaches.
[00:30:12] For Paul, whatever form comfort comes in, comfort is almost always the alleviation of affliction, not the eradication of affliction.
[00:30:22] It's sort of like ibuprofen. It doesn't get rid of the problem, but it definitely mutes it so you can function.
[00:30:30] That's not the definition of comfort I want at all.
[00:30:35] But this is the story of life, the story of scripture, and the story of our experiences as men and women and students and children who love God and have to deal with life and sin and everything else.
[00:30:48] Here are the three laws of comfort from the apostle Paul. Law number one, all true comfort. There's a lot of fake comfort, by the way, right? A lot of fake platitudes, a lot of false promises, but all true comfort is coordinated by God himself. Look at verse three. We're gonna go back blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our affliction. Whatever form the comfort comes in, it began in the heart of God for you, which is so great if you're afflicted.
[00:31:23] The teaching is that God sees you, that God is presently orchestrating your comfort.
[00:31:33] You're gonna need to open three things to experience God's comfort. Number one, you will have to figure out how to open your heart to God if you're hard hearted toward God, if you're like, the comfort's gonna have a hard time getting in, you have to figure out how to open your heart to others by asking them to pray for you.
[00:31:50] You're gonna have to figure out how to open your eyes, because if you get your head out from your victim mentality and look up and you just ask, what are all the small ways God has been encouraging me and building me up and all the little things like, you're gonna start to see, you gotta open your eyes. God's actually providing measurable comfort in so many different ways. Sometimes you need someone to help you see that. So it's okay to go to somebody and say, can you give me a reality check? What are all the different ways that you see goddess comforting me in the middle of this affliction? Number three, you gotta learn to open the word, because the word is filled with stories and teaching and training on how to actually deal with affliction to the glory of God. Law number two, the comfort of Jesus is abundant if we lay aside our demands. Look at verse five. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, he's like, is following Jesus hard? You better believe it, right? And he's like, there's a lot of suffering, particularly for the corinthian church. So through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too, meaning that God's not just like a stingy comfort giver, he's like, no, I'm going to make sure you have more than enough comfort alleviation to help you endure to the glory of God.
[00:33:12] Here's the challenge why so many people aren't able to actually receive comfort.
[00:33:17] Because we are demanding of God that he takes the pain away, the circumstance, the thing.
[00:33:23] And as long as you make demands of God, you're not going to be able to hear what God is actually up to in that moment. And so, like, lay down the demands. Stop wagging your finger at God. It will not be effective. God's not like, ooh, they're threatening me. They might leave me. Like, he's not moved by your manipulation, just like a good dad or mom isn't moved by a child's threats and manipulation.
[00:33:46] Stop the demands. It is ineffective for what you really need and want.
[00:33:53] Law number three, your current affliction will not be wasted unless you waste it. And you can look at verse four, he says, so that we may be able. Why is all this happening? We may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction. With what? With the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. So whatever this comfort thing is, whatever I got right, inevitably it is here. So that as I work through this, I'm gonna have the ability to actually be comfort. In the name of Jesus, be sent by Jesus for someone else's comfort. In verse six, he says this. If we're afflicted, it's for your comfort and salvation. Listen, I want you to get to a point where you're like, listen, if I'm afflicted, it's for you. It's not even ultimately for me, it's for you. If you're afflicted, it's not ultimately for you, it's for someone else. And you get this idea in your brain that it's a total mind shift where you're like, wow, this is preparation for future ministry. What?
[00:34:50] That's a different. I mean, when you are literally in it, you're like, get me out. But God's like, oh, no. Paul's like, oh, this is always about that. Oh, every time there's ever been an affliction, you wouldn't believe the amount of opportunities when I got out of it that got raised up where I could actually comfort people as well. So now Paul has this idea. He's like, whatever hardship I'm going through, apparently someone else is gonna need to learn how to rely on God through that. So I guess, like, this is gonna be ultimately for somebody else. Isn't that like a mind shift in how you see affliction?
[00:35:21] I love this. If we're afflicted, it is for your comfort.
[00:35:26] So here's the challenge with ministry and affliction.
[00:35:30] So many of us in our rush to get through our affliction and get over with, like, we want it to be done. We want to be on a better things. We want to tell our story. And I'll be honest, I really. I don't think the best ministry happens while you're in the middle of it.
[00:35:46] While you're in the middle of it, it can be really tempted to become a victim in the middle of it instead of an overcomer. I think some of the best ministry happens as we get out of it and we heal from it, and then we can look back. And I think this is just so utterly important. Until we're prepared to give words and to teach people how to rely on God and not ourselves, the best ministry won't happen. And this brings us to our so whats number one?
[00:36:12] Affliction.
[00:36:14] Learn the art of relying on God.
[00:36:18] Heres some just practical advice. Number one, do not sin. Fair enough. It won't make things better. Don't rage. Don't go passive.
[00:36:28] The more you sin, the harder it's gonna get and the longer it's gonna last. Because we're digging our own grave at that point. When you understand that all affliction has a shelf life, it has a limitation, it has a period, it has an end date, right? The Lord knows it. Not much you can do to like shorten that. And so when you realize that God's kinda sovereign over that stuff, then at the end of the day, here's what we do. We just say, I'm gonna choose not to sin in affliction. Fair enough.
[00:36:52] Learn to pray. Number two, the opposite of prayer is ruminating. Has anyone's life ever been better by ruminating, by the way? No. Good.
[00:37:02] Number three, you learn to ask others to pray.
[00:37:08] Number four, you build the muscle of endurance.
[00:37:12] Oh yeah, I messed up the numbers so well, I'll face it. Next service.
[00:37:17] Number four should be build the muscle of endurance.
[00:37:21] Number five, get helpful help. This is a phrase that my wife uses all the time. People get help all the time, but it's bad help. Get helpful help. Helpful help that helps you. And here's how you know if the help is not pointing you to learn to rely on Jesus and not themselves, it's not help. You know that savior complex we all have or like, I want to be the one that helps. It's ironic, because the process of bringing comfort to somebody is the process of teaching them how to go to God and how to go to his word. And I'm coming alongside of you to bring you comfort to teach you not to rely on me. I don't want to be the Holy Spirit. I don't want to be your Jesus. I make a terrible holy spirit and I make a terrible Jesus. I need to help you come to God and teach you how to rely on God. And the best way you can learn that is by learning to rely on God, by going through your own afflictions. Let me just tell you guys, I get to hear a lot of stories, and there's a lot of affliction in this church. There's a lot of affliction in this church. By the way, it's not just this church. It is every church. When you trusted in Jesus, you became the target of the demonic realm. You became the target of an entire world who has an ethos and value system that is contrary to yours. And you, by your sheer connection to Jesus, stand as a threat to them doing whatever they want, whenever they want. So welcome to being a Christ follower. The moment you became a Christian, you began a life where you made an enemy of the demonic realm in the world.
[00:38:45] And affliction, it looks different in every culture, in every space, because even as I'm saying this, I guarantee the vast majority of you just got out of an affliction, are in an affliction, or you're like, I see an affliction on the horizon, like you're watching the pieces come together.
[00:39:04] Comfort number two, your past affliction is often the training for your future ministry. I think this mind shift is so huge that what you're going through is about you, but it's not only about you.
[00:39:20] Here are just three essentials. If you want God to send you into someone else's affliction, three things you have to know. One, you must be willing and available, which means you're going to have to get comfortable at the right time learning to tell your story. Number two, I have to be trending healthy as opposed to victim mentality.
[00:39:42] Victim mentalities teach people how to rely on themselves, not on God. They make you the centerpiece of the story.
[00:39:49] And the final number three, I must point people to rely on God, not me. You have to be convicted in your soul. What you need is not me. I'm a conduit that is pushing you and teaching you and helping you learn to rely on God himself. I am not Jesus. I am not the holy spirit. My job is to push you back toward him so that he can be your God, so that he can do the work, so that your relationship with him grows. There is one hero in your story, and it's Jesus. When you're in victim mentality, you're the hero of your story, you're the main character. And so this point of healing and ministry, we get to this place where we're like, listen, jesus is the main character of my story. He is the hero of my story. He is the God of my story. And when you want to come alongside of somebody, you gotta be ready to point them to Christ and teach them the skills you've learned in the middle of your affliction.
[00:40:46] Lastly, so at number three, suffering without the Holy Spirit, it's unnecessary misery.
[00:40:53] You don't have the Holy Spirit until you personally trust in Christ.
[00:40:57] If you're a Christian here, you know exactly what it means to suffer affliction with the presence of the Holy Spirit. But if you are here, I just have great news. God loves you. Jesus died for your sins and was raised from the dead. And one of the greatest gifts to everybody who trusts in him is the Holy Spirit. By the way, who is our helper? The word helper, it's derived from the same word as comforter. This is how the Holy Spirit is identified. The comfort you actually need comes from the helper, who is the Holy Spirit. If you've never trusted in Christ, I just have great news for you. You're a sinner. You already knew that. But God offers you forgiveness if you will trust in Jesus Christ. If that's a decision you want to make, please come talk to one of us. We would love to encourage you, comfort you, and help you take a next step as you learn to follow Jesus. Amen. Village church. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you that every one of our stories has been, is, or will be filled with affliction. Because you are forming us into a people who are more like Jesus.
[00:41:59] I want to thank you for your grace and your patience with us. You were just so unbelievably kind. Lord, teach us. Teach us to bring you glory and affliction.
[00:42:10] Teach us to learn to rely on you. Teach us to help others do that. And God, we don't want to be in a church filled with drama, but it's also just part of the nature of things. So God, help us rise above that and be not drama makers, but peacemakers and peacekeepers. Lord, we love you. We pray all of this, and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
