A Christian should count on suffering in this world. This same Christian should take comfort in God’s presence in those times. That’s the opening message of 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians is called 2 Corinthians, because it is the second of two surviving letters addressed to this church from Paul. The reality is that this is the fourth letter from Paul to Corinth. Why is this important? There is a great deal of history between Paul and this infant church in Corinth. Because of this history, the tone of this letter is one of great emotion. At the same time, this letter is inspired by the Holy Spirit. When God reveals a word to and through the mouthpiece of a person, that person’s emotions are included in the final product. We can take comfort in the fact that God spoke through real people, with real hearts, to communicate divine truths from our divine God. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. As we journey through this book together over the next several articles, we will be examining the local context of the church in Corinth and her relationship with Paul, and how that context mirrors our own context. In such an examination, may we experience transformation in our own hearts and churches. Maybe you are a pastor, preacher, teacher? Maybe you are a congregant, church member, regular attender, et cetera. In all of those cases, there is applicability here for you. May the Holy Spirit minister application to us and transformation, that we will be conformed to the image of Christ, that he would be formed in us, and that we would all grow together in Christ. With that, let us begin by reading 2 Corinthians 1:1-11. To set the stage for this message, I think a personal story is helpful. I was a Hospital Corpsman with Marines very early in my Naval career. We were stationed in the Mojave Desert. Our Chief got mad at us one day because a couple of our guys messed with this Staff Sergeant’s rank insignia who later got into a lot of trouble with his uniform and informed our Chief about what had happened. Our Chief gave us to the end of the day to fess up who messed with this Staff Sergeant’s collar devices. No one confessed. So, our Chief makes us strip off our uniform tops, leaving our T-shirts, trousers, and combat boots, and he ran us up this vast slope of desert sand towards a mountain ridge. We ran all the way up this ridge and were exhausted. The one thing about that experience that weighs on our study today is what happened on top of that ridge. I remember leaning back against another Corpsman, and his back was against mine, and we just sat there comforting each other as we rested and caught our breath. It takes real suffering to be able to understand and appreciate the value of comfort, which leads us to the main idea for this passage. Comfort and suffering go hand in hand. One cannot know or extend comfort, without first knowing or causing suffering to others. What do I mean by “knowing or causing suffering in others?” The suffering Paul experienced was caused by people. Sure, there was spiritual warfare in the background making good use of un-spiritual, selfish people. But the suffering itself came about because of people. Because we are all sinners, we are capable of hurting those closest to us, and of being hurt by those closest to us. We are called to comfort and be comforted by these same people. That’s what being in covenant community is all about, but it is fantastically difficult. Suffering can be as minimal as hurt feelings or a feeling of offense, or it can be downright criminal abuse. Whether the suffering is small or great, we are called to comfort and be comforted within this same covenant community. To get to this place we need to understand three things from this passage. The first is that, We cannot know God’s comfort without suffering. We look to the source of our comfort as we are touched by the nature of suffering. By nature of suffering, I mean whose suffering are we to focus on? Is it that of the world, or that of our own family, or church family? Or both? Paul’s focus was on his church family, which included Corinth. In verse one, he addresses “the Church of God at Corinth.” Whatever suffering you experience in this world outside the church is not the issue here. It is that suffering that we deal with ourselves in our own house. Paul’s church family began in Corinth and spread to Achaia. The suffering in one’s church is never limited to one or two people, but like yeast in warm dough, it spreads throughout the whole lump. But with this suffering, is given an equal antidote, which is the good news of the Gospel, and this is grace to us, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. In God, you have boundless grace. That grace is pictured in Jesus who has brought peace with God to us. At one time, we who are believers today once lived in a place of great suffering and misery. At the right time, Jesus came and died for the ungodly. Then he rose again. In believing in this grace pictured in Jesus, we now have peace with God. We’re called to demonstrate that same grace, and to find peace, with those we are in covenant with today, whom we continue to hurt, or are hurt by. To sum up this section on the nature of suffering, the nature of suffering is that it’s penetrating, it’s hurtful, and it exists in a covenant community. No one can hurt you like a family member, and that includes a church family member. Outside this covenant community exists people who don’t know God and hate God. Jesus told us in Matthew 5 that we would be hated and persecuted for his name’s sake. That sort of suffering hurts but does not compare to the suffering we cause each other in our own community. When we feel this suffering, we can try and hide it, pretending everything is ok. This may feel intuitively ok, but our passage teaches us to look to the Lord who is our source of comfort. Verses three and four together teach us that God is the source of all comfort. As God exists eternally, his mercy, his comfort, his compassion has also existed eternally. In other words, his mercy, comfort, and compassion are forever. Which is good news for you and me. How often do we offend God with our thoughts and deeds? Particularly the secret thoughts and deeds. God sees them all, yet is merciful to you, has comfort for you, is compassionate toward you. What if he was not merciful, or comforting, or compassionate? You and I together would be consumed in a moment. We can and should take a lesson from God’s eternal comfort. If you are honest about how much you deserve the wrath of God because of the sin you claim is as true for you, as any other, do you refuse to show mercy to the one closest to you? Do you refuse to comfort the one closest to you, or to be compassionate to the one closest to you? A genuine believer, one who is growing in Christ and walking with his Spirit should understand from reading verse four that just as God is always comforting us in our affliction, we should comfort others in affliction. What is affliction? Affliction in the Greek is thipsis and it can best be described as pressure that exists all around and is associated with tribulation. This affliction is like a spherical nuclear device, composed of these perfectly shaped charges, surrounding a spherical piece of nuclear material; each of those charges being programmed to all fire at one time. When that happens, all that pressure fires inward, causing fission within that nuclear material. That’s thispsis. Affliction feels like this when we are fighting our children, parents, spouses, pastors, whomever. It’s never just us and them alone. Satan works it out that this friction is one of many things that happen at one time. Paul’s thoughts on affliction would’ve helped Job greatly. Satan never did just one thing to Job, he attacked multiple things and people, leaving one survivor to bring back the bad news. Having once felt so content and in good shape because he followed God, Job was left reeling, feeling attacked on all sides. That’s what your friend, your brother, your sister, and your spouse feel when you yourself become a source of suffering for them. The reason being your own sinfulness. It is in this place; we turn to God who is characterized by comfort. He is the God of all comfort. In every way we feel afflicted, he has comfort for us. Job never surrendered himself to God, asking God to comfort him. All he did was question why he was suffering. His friends never comforted him, nor did they themselves appeal to God to comfort Job. Instead, they kept blaming him for his trouble. Here in verse 4, we see the correct way to deal with the suffering inflicted on us, and for that we inflict on others, and that is by appealing to God for the comfort that perpetually flows from him. In this, we are called to comfort one another. This comfort begins honestly and genuinely, without question or judgment. If you’re not the direct cause of their suffering, then it can be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a silent presence. If you are the cause, then comfort begins with genuine and contrite apology, coupled with a renewed demonstrated focus on preferring their good over your own. Once we are tuned into the source of our comfort, we must understand that as we are children of God, we are enabled and empowered to comfort others as he has comforted us, which brings me to my next point. We cannot comfort others without suffering. Our comfort of others is never a one-time deal but is continuous. In this comfort, we find purpose. Paul transitions from verse three through verse five talking about the comfort he took in suffering, because the church in Corinth was truly connected with him in Christ. This connection was demonstrated by shared suffering and shared comfort. A lesson emerges in these verses pointing to the purpose of comfort. Oftentimes, we wonder and a
