Pugh Bibles, to page 1558. Today we'll be looking at 2 Corinthians. Chapter 1, verses 1 through 11, page 1558. 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, 1 through 11. When Pastor Smith asked me to fill in for him today, This scripture came to mind because I have known that here lately a lot of us have been suffering. And I wanted to go into this passage. Let us hear the word of God. 2 Corinthians 1-11, page 1558 of your Pew Bible. 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 Achaia. Grace to you 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 mercy 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. For as the sufferings of Christ abounded 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 sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation. For we do 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. Let's pray. Lord, we do ask that you bless this study of your word that as this sinner comes before you and prepares to present it, that it honors you and that it feeds us. Lord, those things can only be done by you. So Lord, be with us at this time. May you be praised in Jesus' name, amen. So as I was saying, Pastor Smith asked me to fill in, and I thought of our congregation. So many things have happened within the last year that just came to this. Larry, with his passing and his suffering from congestive heart failure, he suffers no more. There are those of us who've had surgeries and things that have caused pain and kept us from bouncing back. And there's those of us who just have chronic pain, just never seems to go away. And so as we see here, as Paul writes to the Corinthians here in the second letter, we have another one in scripture, and there's also another letter that's been lost, but as we look into the second letter to the Corinthians, we see that he opens up with this classic greeting, And he goes right in to talking about how much he has suffered and how he's relied on God in this time. And so as we open this passage today, I do hope to lay that out for you. But notice in his classical greeting, he says, grace and peace to that church. So how does a person find grace and peace in times of suffering? How does someone find grace and peace in the face of constant suffering or even in the face of death? So as we look through this passage today, we see that Paul gives us three encouragements for Christians to find grace and peace in God during their suffering. Let's first look at the character of God in suffering. Now, some of us may be aware of the dad who, if you played ball or anything like that, and you'd fall and, you know, scrape your knee, and he'd say, oh, you know, get up. Walk it off. Right? Or maybe you've seen the movie where you've got these soldiers there. running through a field and a mortar blows up by them and they just barely escaped the shrapnel and they're laying down there, you know, seeing, making sure they're okay and the next thing you know the sergeant comes over and he's like, get moving or I'm gonna kill you myself! You know what I'm talking about. Now of course the pain that we're dealing with today doesn't, it's not like the baseball pain, but We get the idea of that sort of personality when it comes to pain. My children may even tell you I'm very similar to who I just mentioned. But Paul's concern here is ongoing pain, the pain that happens within the church and how we deal with it. And then also not only our own dealing with it, but then who it is that we turn to in this time. Notice he says that God is the comforter who comforts us. In other words, he is the source of our comfort. And so what kind of source is he? What kind of source of comfort is he? Is he just one that kind of stands off to the side? Or is he one that just kind of, you know, pats you on the head and says, I got your back, Hoffs. We're good. You can go. No, no, it's not that type at all. Notice that Paul says, bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, in this time of suffering that Paul's getting to, he says, bless be God the Father. God's character in our suffering is praiseworthy. He does things within the Christian life during suffering that brings awe to us. See, he attends to us, he holds us close as we'll see, and our response to it is, oh, blessed be you, mighty God. Now let's talk about what Paul is experiencing, why he starts to open up in this way. In verse eight, you see that he writes that he had trouble in Asia. And it's actually the same Greek word that he's using in verse four. Some of the translations translate those two words differently, but it's the same Greek word. So we're seeing that we're dealing with tribulations, troubles, pains, And so what Paul is talking about here, as you see, he says that in his troubles in Asia, there's a lot of speculation about exactly what he's talking about there. If you go and look through the ministry of Paul, I mean, there's things that happened to him in lots of different places. A lot of people believe, a lot of commentators believe that what he's referring to is, if you go back to Acts 19 verses 23 through 41, Demetrius the silversmith, there was a riot, and it really did a big number on Paul. But I think that Paul is actually getting something even deeper than that. If you go back into chapter one of, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 32, Paul talks about how they have been fighting things that are like, wild beast. And so he's expressing that there's this great trouble that has been following him throughout the ministry there in Asia. And as he's talking to the Corinthian church here, he's laying it out again. And he's saying, even though we've gone through these things, God was our comforter. He was there. And we'll also look and see in verse 10 that this is not something that Paul thinks ended. Look in verse 10, he says, Notice that what Paul's getting to here, it's not just a tribulation then, God did deliver them, but it's something that's still continuing now. And it's very important in our thought process here, as we study this and look into it, because it sees there's this continuation of the same great pain, this fighting a wild beast, this trouble in Asia. It is not dissipated. So Paul's getting to here is persecution, that he's talking about these outside troubles, these things that he's been ministering people, throwing rocks at him, you know, being thrown in prison, You know, he'd be chained to a guard there, and every time the guard would go to wipe his nose or something, you know, Paul is having to go along with the guard there. But Paul's getting to just not just that. He's not just talking about himself and his own trials. If you go back up into verse four, notice that he says, all tribulations, all trials and tribulations. So that means chronic pains, depression, diabetes, breathing ailments. Maybe some of us are feeling the pain of past sins still. Maybe some of us do not know that God does forgive things and we're still hanging onto it and it troubles us day in and day out. But God is the comforter of all troubles and tribulations. You see, there's nothing outside of God's ability to comfort us. That's what it means. All things are under his domain. So it's important that we understand that this is part of who God is in the Christian life. As we're going through pains, as we're going through tribulations, that we know that God is a comforter. It's how he also identified himself to Israel. In 1 Samuel, Chapter 10, verses 18 and 19. You don't have to go there with me, just listen. Chapter 10, verses 18 and 19. We see that here, this is where Israel has said that they want a king, like other nations. And God is now addressing the situation through Samuel. And he's talking about his rejection. And who he is as they do this. Now listen to this, verses 18, 19, chapter 10. This is the Lord at Mitzvah, and said to the children of Israel, thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt and delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all kingdoms and from those who oppressed you. But you have today rejected your God, who himself saved you from all your adversities and from your tribulations. And you have said to him, no, set a king over us, and now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans." So here, the Lord, when he's being rejected by his church, his Israel, he reaches out to them, not as someone who's browbeating them, but reminding them of the spirit character of who he is. He says, I am the one who comforts you. in your trials and tribulations. I am the one who was there with you by your side as you went through the desert. God wants his church to know this about him. You see, now we see the God, our God, is not like that dad who did not seem concerned about your pain. I'm gonna read another verse to you. Before I do, I want you to know that the verse I'm about to read to you does not teach that God is a woman. All right? If you don't believe me, you can go to verses like Ephesians 3, verses 14 and 15, where he clearly talks about his fatherhood and those things. But he is not female. He identifies himself as a man here. He's merely talking about how he covers us, what he is like. If you turn to Isaiah 66, verse 13. Actually, let me go up to verse 12. For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her, Israel, like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed on her sides, shall you be carried and be dandled on her knees as one whom his mother comforts. So I will comfort you and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. So God's character to Christians who are suffering is he's our comforter. He is our holder. He's our caregiver. He's the one who is there by our side. He's the one that holds us close and brings us through these things. But notice too that Paul, as he writes this back in 2 Corinthians 1, he doesn't leave this all up to God. He also discusses the character of the church and our suffering. You see, it's because God comforts us, we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble. The church acts in the Father's image because He is our God. See, it's consistent that, first of all, it's consistent that someone who is a Christian still suffers. Look at James 5, 10. James 5, verses 10 and 11. I think Elder Dutt read from chapter five earlier today for us, a little bit later on, but look, it says, oh, sorry, that's Peter. James chapter five, verses 10 and 11 says, my brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering. and patience. Indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. So see, we see that God right here talks about how even back to the prophets, there was suffering. And here we are now discussing suffering in the church. It is consistent. There are false doctrines out there to teach you that if you're a true Christian, you're not gonna hurt. You're not gonna have pains. And it gets themselves into quite a hard place when one of them winds up with cancer or something very scary like that has happened. But the truth is, Christians do suffer. And this is why. Look at verses five and six. Notice there, this reveals that we are joined to Christ in suffering. It says, For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we're afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same suffering which we also suffer. Or if we're comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And even to go on, Paul even writes about this in Philippians 3, verse 10, he talks about how that the church is a fellowship of sufferings in Christ, and that we are even conformed to his death. So as we sit here in pain, we must remember that our Lord suffered, and that we have fellowship in that. And we see here in verse six as well, notice that we not only suffer for ourselves, but we suffer for others. As I read this, I think of a young lady named Cassidy Kelliger. You can Google it if you want. But Miss Kelliger gives her testimony, and she talks about Very early in life, she's an atheist. She's raised by an atheist. And she actually talks about how she hated Christians and worked against the kingdom of God. She's a vegan and she would dress appropriately in places and hand out vegan hot dogs. She was not interested in sexual purity. And she lived a life that was anything but Christian. And then one day, she started having these great stomach pains. And she would try to eat. She couldn't hold it down. She'd go to the doctor. He couldn't figure it out. She got to where she would try and drink water. She couldn't take it. It would bring her into great pain. And finally one day when she went to the ER, they diagnosed her with Crohn's disease. And it didn't improve, it kept getting worse and worse and worse, she'd lost so much weight. And finally, she'd come to the point of where she had accepted death. And one day she woke up, she said that she was not gonna make it through the day. She told her mother bye. She told some friends by and she's laying there that night. She's getting ready to go to sleep and she's hoping like everything that she does not wake up in the morning. And this nurse walks in who she had not seen before and sits down next to her and says, talk to me about what you've got going on that she didn't want to connect. Well, finally, she opened up to this nurse and the nurse says, I got to tell you, you're in a place where nobody can do anything for you. Only thing I got for you is prayer. Give me your hand. And she's like, I'm not gonna pray with you. She said, you don't have a choice right now. Give me your hand. And she prayed. The next day, when Ms. Kelliger woke up, she was touched by what that nurse had done for her the evening before. One, the nurse had put her job on the line by praying for her in that fashion. but two, that she cared for her that much that she would pray for her in that time, a person that didn't know her. It comforted her. And it started churning Miss Kelliger, that moment, to be loved like that. And her Salvation did not happen overnight as one might say she went through some more things And then she realized the reason why what she had felt that night Was not now is because she had not connected to the very one that that nurse had prayed for that night That was a relationship with Jesus Christ and now miss Kelliger Talks about the kingdom God she has a bag and She has a continuous IV into her arm, but she still praises God. And she uses her pain to go on social media to connect to people and show them how God is working through her, through her pain. So amazing. Let's see, and Paul, in this same case, gives us an example of how the church exhorts one another in times of suffering. In his own life, while he's suffering, Titus comes out to join him. in Macedonia, and it's in 2 Corinthians 7, verses five through six. And as Titus comes and sits down with him, he feels the comfort of having a member with him. So the outcome of this is that we as members of the church who are suffering can comfort one another, just as God is our comforter, and suffering helps us be molded into the image of Jesus, and so we too are comforters. God allows suffering so that it is, just like as Thomas Watson said, it's his rod as a pencil to draw us in Christ's image more lively upon us. Let's see, and here's another thing that we must keep in mind. As Elder Dutt read to us earlier in Matthew 27, that Christ suffered. So our God is not aloof. He's not indifferent. He not only understands of it from our creator and knowing understanding of the curse of the fall of those effects, he himself has experienced pain. Think of the whips as they tore into the skin on his back. Think of the crown of thorns that was pushed down upon his head and tore the skin and the blood flowed down. Think of the nails as they were driven through his wrist and his ankles and the muscle and the sinew were crushed under that. And he did it for us. He did it for you. He suffered. And the very suffering that we're going through now, he suffered to deliver you from. See, we Christians, we like to think of our glorification here and now. We like to think that we're already in a state of salvation and we don't have to go through these things anymore. No more tears and no more pain. The Lord does promise that, but he does not guarantee that here. Suffering forces us to think of the here and the now. It forces us to grow in our sanctification. Remember the curse that we have been delivered from by the suffering Savior. and forces us to endure as we cling to Christ and find peace and grace in our suffering with him. And Paul asked Jesus to take away his thorn in the flesh, the very thing that was causing him to suffer. Jesus answered and said, your grace is sufficient for you. My grace is sufficient for you. Suffering is consistent with Christianity. The church must be consistent and be comforters in the image of the one who comforts. Notice here in our passage that Paul not only gives us the how of the church's character, but also the why. We just looked at verses five and six. We see the reason that the church suffers is because Christ suffered. This is why we remember this in our suffering. First of all, the Christian God, as I said, is not aloof. And because the suffering in him is abundant, it overflows to us throughout his kingdom. And we experience the comforting of God in our suffering. And we share that comfort with one another. And we strengthen each other's faith as he strengthens us. And it grows his kingdom, just as Miss Kelliger uses it to grow his kingdom. And as his suffering overflows to us, his comforting presence overflows to us abundantly and overwhelmingly. So we've seen the character of God in our suffering. We've seen the character of the church in our suffering. Paul also talks about the character of faith in suffering. Notice in verse nine, Paul says, we have the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. The suffering, the persecution that Paul and the others went through was so great that they felt like it was their time to die. And Paul felt that his only deliverance from his trouble was death. And Paul gives us the reason for the suffering of his son. He says that we should not trust in ourselves. Suffering drives us to that place where we see that we don't have hope. We don't have the strength to get through everything in this life. We have no other place to turn. How many times have you gone through some sort of affliction and think that you yourself can fix it? Or how many times have you yourself thought you were alone in your suffering and forgot that God knows your suffering and wants to comfort you? How will you not know the answer of what suffering is, or what is growth, unless you walk with God in it? We have nowhere to only turn in our suffering, but other than to have faith and trust in God Almighty. Notice that Paul also acknowledges this with the Corinthians, that faith in verse 11, he says, you also helping together in prayer, See, we all pray that God will help us, but do we pray for those who are suffering that we know? See, we're supposed to. We do this corporately on Sunday, just here as we did earlier. Every week we give Pastor Frank our woes and our aches and our concerns, and we turn it to God. But do we do it Monday through Saturday as well? In our prayer closet, do we go to God and say, I know someone that's hurting, and I know that you are the great comforter, and I turn them over to you. See, and this prayer that we're given for one another should be an encouragement to us. I know today we hear of an unbelieving and mocking world who mocks us about such things. In fact, I remember being distinctly mocked by a longtime friend of mine when the Sandy Hook school shooting happened. And I was on Facebook, and I had said, I do pray for those families who have lost a child. I can't imagine the pain that they're going through. God, please be there for them. I reached out and touched them, and he found it. And he said, that's all you got for them? He said, do you think that's really gonna help them? You just sit down on your knees somewhere and pray? I replied back, it will, the way God wants to, because he can do things that I can't possibly do for them. And so as we see that this prayer, this time as we turn to a God who can do things in our suffering that no, we can't do for each other, it is way the church has been doing this since the scriptures were being written. See, what my friend doesn't know is that prayer was given to us to express our faith in God who can fix these things. provide comfort for us, real comfort, that no man can. See, prayer in the church is a God-given tool to help one another in times where we do not have the ability or resources. It is for those deep things, the severe things, the things that reveal how weak we really, truly are. Prayer is a part of our faith. This expression of caring for one whom we ourselves cannot help and putting them in the hands of a God who can do so many wonderful things. But there's also vindication for us here. Look, there's a vindication for those who trust in God of all comforts in their suffering. Notice in verse nine, because we pray to the God who raises the dead. I've heard stories, spoken to people where God has put on trial for those who suffer. It has been part of today's study to look at why Christians suffer when we share in Christ's suffering. But the trial in God is because people truly do suffer. And it's for the Christian that because you suffer, your resurrection will be all the sweeter. God will vindicate himself. by resurrecting you, and there will be no more pain. See, you may not have your pain in it here, but one day it will. May the tribulations won't end here, as we were just saying, but maybe the pains of this life won't go away, but God will vindicate you just as he did his son by raising you from the dead, if you have faith in him. And then there will be no more pains, no more torments. The suffering abounds now, but the comfort will abound for eternity. So to conclude, the suffering Christian finds grace and peace by having faith in God of all comforts, who will one day raise you from the dead. The Christian finds comfort in the church while we encourage one another in prayer and in presence for each other before the God of all comforts. And when the Christian suffers, they know that they will one day be vindicated by the resurrection of the dead for those who believe in Christ. And maybe the pains won't leave you in this lifetime, but in Christ, there comes a day when they will be no more. No more pain, no more tears. God of all comfort will deliver his promise, the resurrection, and how sweet it will be. Let us pray. Lord, we do thank you that you are the God of all comforts, that you do resurrect us from this fallen world, and that all these things, these persecutions, these tribulations, this disease that eats on us will one day be no more. And we thank you that you sent your son on the cross to suffer for us, to deliver us from these things that we deserve. But by your promise, we find grace and we find peace. I'm blessed to be you because you do do a mighty work and your promises hold true. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.