2 Corinthians: God of All Comfort
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PREACHING CHRIST THROUGH THE BIBLE |
2 Corinthians: God of All Comfort
Today we are reading a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christian believers in Corinth, Greece. Though this letter, composed of 13 chapters and 257 verses, covers more than a dozen different topics, Paul states that a major objective is to provide comfort.
The letter opens with these words:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV
Aren’t we living in a time when we all need comfort? Have you lost parents, siblings, relatives or friends due to COVID, cancer, heart failure, suicide, accidents or other reasons? Are you struggling with your own physical, mental or spiritual health issues? Is your heart saddened by a relational break up? Are you discouraged by your inability to live a pure life? Are you failing to have victory over addiction to drugs, medications, alcohol, sex, pornography, food, shopping, gambling, or work (are you a workaholic?). Maybe all the bad news in the world is depressing you? Maybe you have even considering suicide?
Paul says, he has a message of comfort. When you read this letter you should be asking and seeking and knocking earnestly on God’s door, until you find the message of comfort. Jesus said that the things of the kingdom come to those who forcefully lay hold of them. We need to have an aggressive spirit in order to discover the blessings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Do not give up until you find what God has told you (in His Word) He has for you.
Let’s pray together that we find comfort in the second letter to the Corinthian church.
1. Comfort through caring for others
“If we are distressed, 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 we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.” (2 Corinthians 1:6-7 NIV)
When we are sad, discouraged, depressed and afraid, we sometimes pursue a variety of solutions, including seeking professional assistance or reading books on the topic of depression and/or grief. Many of these resources cause us to look inward to analyze ourselves, our memories, our feelings, our reactions or our behaviors. Unfortunately this approach can sometimes be a dead end, because we end up studying something that is broken, ourselves.
Paul is teaching that we can find comfort when we forget about ourselves and live for the comfort and benefit of others.
When I was a young man my friends and I were complaining about our “misfortunes”. Afterward one of my friends said, “Here we are on a bright sunny day, swimming in a beautiful pool, enjoying so many pleasures and comforts. What are we complaining about!! There are children in cancer wards, dying. There are people who cannot find food to feed themselves. There is immense suffering in the world. Maybe we need to go out and participate in some of the suffering around us and we will find that we have nothing to complain about.” He was right. Since those days we have all found ways to help to alleviate the suffering of others. It changed our entire perspective on our own lives.
We can find many opportunities to care for the poor, the sick, the dying, etc if we ask the Lord to lead us.
2. Comfort from God’s powerful work in us
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NIV
“For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:10, 18 NIV
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:”
2 Corinthians 5:17-18
Why would we include these verses in a sermon about comfort? Let’s think about it.
Perhaps some of us are struggling with habitual failures. We are caught up in patterns of behavior, habits, addictions that we know are harming us but we cannot stop.
Maybe it’s gambling. You started playing one of those seemingly innocent on-line games and now you are hooked. You are losing money and still hooked.
Perhaps you lose your temper with your family and then need to apologize but then you do it again and again.
Perhaps you are having an extra-marital affair. You know it’s wrong but you just can’t help yourself.
Or perhaps it’s drugs. You are highly dependent and can’t get yourself free, even though you know it could kill you.
Or maybe it’s pornography. You want to quit looking at it but you just can’t stop.
(By the way it’s worth noting that Paul admits to his own struggles in 2 Corinthians.
“Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”
2 Corinthians 11:29-30 NIV The root of the Greek word translated as “burn” is similarly used in other texts to refer to actual combustion and sexual desire. Though Paul never compromised his character or his ministry by sexual misconduct or corruption he does admit that he struggles with the temptations that all people live with.)
One of the worst consequences of habitual or addictive sin is that we keep failing and we feel ashamed in the presence of God. Instead of feeling liberated and joyful in His presence we wish to hide. Though we may put on a mask of happiness or piety when we are around others, deep down inside we feel discouraged, depressed, oppressed and even disgusted.
How can this miserable cycle of failure be broken?
Let us go back and look again at the scriptures we just read and see what God has done for us.
A. He makes us stand firm in Christ.
B. He guarantees our future
C. He is working to transform us.
D. He has made it possible for us to lay aside the past and to begin a new life. (And that can happen at any time when we ask the Lord to help us).
““Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV
3. Comfort from looking beyond our present circumstances
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV
There are two very important messages here:
First Paul acknowledges that our bodies have limitations and are subject to ageing, sickness, fatigue and failure.
Paul was an expert in suffering. In Paul’s biographical notes in this letter he describes many sufferings he experienced. These are directly extracted from the indicated verses:
Troubles, hardships, Distresses, Beatings, Imprisonments, Riots, hard work, sleepless nights, hunger, glory and dishonor, bad report and good reports; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed;
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2 Corinthians 6:4-5, 8-10)
Been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, exposed to death again and again.
Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was pelted with stones [stoned], three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled. I have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst; I have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28 NIV)
Secondly, Paul teaches us that the solution to our weaknesses and suffering is to fix our eyes on the unseen things that are eternal.
But how do we “fix our eyes” on things that cannot be seen?
This will take practice and training. If we are always, all day long, looking at our phones, looking at a computer screen and looking at TV, then we will never learn how to fix our eyes on the unseen.
If you do a search for every verse in the Bible that uses the word “eye” or “eyes” you will find several scriptures in the book of Psalms that describe ways that we can use our eyes:
A. Urgently searching
“My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, “When will you comfort me?””
Psalms 119:82 NIV
“My eyes fail, looking for your salvation, looking for your righteous promise.”
Psalms 119:123 NIV
“My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.”
Psalms 119:148 NIV
These three verses all demonstrate that we need to be purposeful and aggressive in our pursuit of God. We need to turn off the email, the Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, YouTube, streaming videos, newsfeeds, sports channels, movies, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, Zoom, MS Teams, text messages, etc etc and take some time to be still and practice seeing the unseen. We must strain to see the Lord through the fog and clouds and smoke of our blinding culture.
B. Changing our posture
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains — where does my help come from?”
Psalms 121: 1
“I lift up my eyes to you, to you who sit enthroned in heaven.”
Psalms 123:1 NIV
These two verses indicate that we need to take action by changing our posture and physically lifting up our eyes. We look upward to the Lord.
C. Waiting on God with expectation
“As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy.”
Psalms 123:2 NIV
Our posture is that of one waiting to serve. We are looking to our master to see his expression, to see the nod of His head or to see Him lift His hand to call for us. We are waiting with expectation.
D. Fixing our eyes on Jesus
“But my eyes are fixed on you, Sovereign Lord; in you I take refuge—do not give me over to death.”
Psalms 141:8 NIV
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Hebrews 12:1-2 NIV
Our eyes should be glued on Jesus.
To summarize this section:
1. We will face many challenges, physical deficiencies, sufferings and hardships.
2. But we can find comfort by fixing our eyes on things that are eternal by:
A. Urgently searching God’s Word
B. Actively and physically changing our posture before God
C. Waiting on God with expectation
D. Fixing our gaze on Jesus Himself
3. The comfort of God’s presence and companionship
“As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.””
2 Corinthians 6:16-18
Here Paul is quoting
Leviticus 26:11-12
“I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.”
And Jeremiah 32:38 NIV
“They will be my people, and I will be their God.”
And Ezekiel 37:27
“My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
And 2 Samuel 7:14
“I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands.”
Since the very beginning of God’s relationship with the Israel and all who would follow Him, He has desired to be a father, dwelling among His people.
Even before there was an Israeli nation and before Moses wrote the Torah, God was revealing Himself as an intimate friend and provider. The earliest writings in the Bible are from Job (probably written about the time that Moses was leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, but written
In a completely different place by a non-Hebrew).
““How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone on my head and by his light I walked through darkness! Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,” Job 29:2-4 NIV
What was it like for Job to have such intimate fellowship with God?
There were no scriptures in Job’s day. His fellowship with God could not include Bible reading, which we heavily rely upon during our meditative times with God.
Did they have conversations?
Could it be that God provided practical care and advice to Job?
I recall my Grandfather in his early 90’s, living by himself, and telling us that he always walked with the Lord. If he misplaced something and couldn’t find it he would ask God to help him and soon afterward he would find the missing thing.
He was really experiencing the presence of God and His daily assistance.
We don’t know exactly what Job meant by “intimate fellowship” but it was clearly something very special and very precious to him.
The reason I chose to use Job as example is because he was an average person just like you and me and during his life he discovered and testifies to a very intimate fellowship with God. This tells me that it is possible, it is desirable and it is attainable.
In closing Paul shares these words:
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”
2 Corinthians 13:5 NIV
As we conclude our study in 2 Corinthians let us examine ourselves. During this year we have been seeking Jesus in every book in the Bible. There are a few references to Jesus in 2 Corinthians but this one is a significant one. It suggests that we should be able to see evidences of Jesus’ life in us. Do you? Are you confident that Jesus is living in you helping you to stand form in faith and character. If not, then let us pray that the life of Jesus will penetrate your heart and fill your life with His salvation, His desires, His vision and His actions.
"Dear God, I am a sinner and I need a savior and a helper. I cannot do the things that I know I should do and I am far from you. But I know that You sent your only Son Jesus Christ into the world to teach us about your love, to demonstrate your grace and to die on the cross to be a final and complete sacrifice for my sins. And then He rose again to demonstrate your power to give us eternal life. Please forgive me, take me into your family and keep me safe and able to obey you, by the power of your Holy Spirit. Let goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life and then bring me safely home into your loving presence forever. Amen."
-Bro. Norm Richardson