2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Well, good morning, everyone, I have the joy and privilege of opening God’s word with you again and if you were not here last week, we started really a two-part message on this passage of Scripture out of 2 Corinthians and it’s a passage that reminds us of God’s character and that he is a God of all comfort. He is the source of all comfort when we are afflicted with any kind of trial.
And if you’re not there already in your copy of God’s Word, turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and we’ll read the passage and just catch everyone up who may not have heard the message last week. But this is a deeply, deeply encouraging passage of Scripture. It is meant to provide comfort or it is meant to strengthen the weak, to bind up the broken hearted, to give spiritual strength to those who need it.
And right now there are just a lot of people in our church who, who do need that strengthening and that binding up and lifting up. And so that’s what we hope to accomplish in this sermon this morning. But 2 Corinthians chapter 1, and I’m going to read verses 3 through 7. Paul writes to the Corinthians and he says, “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 our affliction. So that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
“For just as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort which is working in your perseverance in the same sufferings which we also suffer. And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are shares of our comfort.”
We tend to think of comfort in mere physical terms. We are maybe more materialistic than we would like to admit. That is to say, we act and think in such a way as to ignore the spiritual aspect of our being, the spiritual life within us and many people seek physical comfort to the detriment of their souls. But we find in this passage that God cares deeply for our comfort, and he considers both the physical and the spiritual aspect of our being.
God by no means wants us to be miserable. He is not the God of misery. He is the God of all comfort. But he wants his children to come to him and find a deep and satisfying and satiating comfort that lasts and endures. And he wants those who receive comfort to be conduits, then, to take that comfort to others, and then he wants us all to enjoy the fruit of that ministry. Those are really the three points for this message. But let me give them to you succinctly.
The three points are the source, and the purpose, and the result. That’s maybe an exegetical outline. A homiletical outline is the spring of comfort, the source, the spring of comfort, the purpose point two or the conduit of comfort, and then point three, the result, the fountain of comfort. And we started point one last time and we cut it off in order to go into communion, but we’ll jump back into that.
In point one, look at verse 3 again, out of 1 Corinthians chapter or 2 Corinthians chapter 1, “Blessed be the,” God of the, “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.” God is the God of all comfort that is his essence. All true comfort comes from God, and it says in verse 4, “He is the God who comforts us in all our afflictions.” Several commentators that I read, they argued that the afflictions that Paul is talking about here, the promises of God’s comfort, it’s really only for those afflictions that we suffer for his name’s sake, or that is to say, specifically for persecution, because of Christ, or as Peter puts it, when we suffer for doing good rather than evil.
However, I don’t think Paul is that specific here and really that goes against the truth of the gospel. We know that even when we sin, God in the gospel bring us great comfort. God wants to comfort us when we sin and even when we are enduring painful consequences because of our sin. God doesn’t want us to languish in those things. He wants us to come to him and find true comfort for our souls.
Paul’s vague here, and I think that’s for a reason. I think he’s referring to any affliction whatsoever that we find ourselves in, whether persecution for the sake of Christ or suffering consequences of sin, or really anything in between those two things. It’s unqualified in the text for a reason. If we need comfort in any affliction, even if it’s a horrible situation that we got ourselves into, God is the God of comfort. He is the source of any comfort that we’re going to find, and we need to go to him.
God is the source, and just as our afflictions are varied and many, so are the streams of his comfort that we find comfort in. If we are to enjoy the full force of God’s comfort, we need to tap into all of these streams that flow to us in order to be fully comforted. Last time we started looking at ten different streams of comfort that we can find sourced in God, that we can tap into to find comfort.
And let me just briefly remind you of the seven we covered last time, and then we’ll cover the rest today. So first, truth. Unbelievers, they are comforted by lies, at least temporarily, that is to say, it’s when they’re comforted by unbelievers saying, oh, it’s not really your fault, you’re not responsible for this, you couldn’t help yourself, and so on and so forth. Unbelievers are temporarily comforted by those things, but it’s a fading comfort. But believers, they’re never really truly comforted by that.
Believers are comforted by truth and reality and that is found in God’s Word. So first, we are comforted by truth. Second, or sub-point B, if you were taking notes, protection, we talked about Psalm 23. When we are afraid, we can kind of find comfort in the fact that the Almighty God of the universe is our Good Shepherd and protector. No enemy can overpower him and get to us. We can find great comfort in his protection when we are in fear.
Third: restoration, when we have maybe lost position or health or relationships or the like, we can find comfort in the restoration that we have in Christ. We’ve been restored to God in the gospel, but we will eventually fully and finally be fully restored in body and soul, in Christ, in heaven; glorified with Christ, set free from all the afflictions that we endure now. We can find great comfort in that.
Fourth, in God’s justice. We find comfort and justice first and foremost when we think of the joyous thought that God’s justice for our sins has been satisfied in Christ as our propitiatory sacrifice. All of our sins have been dealt with on the cross. Justice has been satisfied. We find comfort in justice as well when we struggle with sin committed against us or against others that we love. People sin egregiously against other people and some people seem to get away with it on this earth. We find comfort in God’s justice that those who sin and do not repent, they will receive judgment and justice fully and finally by from God.
Fifth: peace, we find comfort in the peace we have. We find comfort in the objective peace we have with God in the gospel, but we also find comfort in the future peace we’ll have in heaven and also the subjective peace we have now with one another as we live together in this society of the church. We find great comfort in the the peace we have in the relationships that we have, even if we do not find such peace in our relationships with unbelievers.
Sixth: Faithfulness, when we doubt or we question whether God will come through on his promises, we feel wrongly about our affliction. Maybe we even doubt if God cares. We can be reminded that just as God was faithful to Abraham to bring about all of his promises to him, so he will be to us, his children. He will be faithful to us. This is a comfort to us. We have so many examples of this in scripture. Most people are probably familiar with Jeremiah 29:11. It’s probably one of the most quoted verses, “For I know the plans I have for you declares Yahweh plans for peace and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.”
God said that to Jeremiah the prophet to tell the people, and he, he had Jeremiah tell the people that not too long before God brought the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and take Israel into captivity. God was essentially front loading some comfort for Israel, reminding them of his faithfulness. He had plans for them, even if his plans for them looked very different than the plans that they had imagined for themselves. God is faithful to his people, and regardless of the afflictions that we endure, He will be faithful to us, even if we don’t feel like it, and even if we’re not faithful to him, He is faithful to us.
Seventh sub-point G: Redemption, when we are tempted to think in our affliction that God has given us a burden too heavy to bear, we can be comforted when we remind ourselves of what we have been spared from. We deserved to be crushed by God for our sins, eternally punished, yet he spared us from that, and whatever burden he has given us instead, is infinitely more bearable than eternal suffering in hell. We can renew our mind with this truth of God’s redemption of us and it will strengthen us in whatever affliction we are enduring.
Eighth, and this is where we get into a few new points. Sub-point H: Freedom, if you would turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 61. Isaiah chapter 61, we find the Lord talking about comforting Israel and in that context, he talks about the freedom, those who are downcast, really enslaved. He talks about the freedom that they receive and the comfort of that. Isaiah chapter 61, I’m going to read verses 1 through 3. So Yahweh speaks through Isaiah the prophet, “The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me Because Yahweh has anointed me.”
You’ll, you’ll notice the often quoted in the New Testament verse, “To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to captives And freedom to prisoners, To proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh And the day of vengeance of our God, To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a headdress instead of ashes, The oil of rejoicing instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead the spirit of fainting. So they will be called the oaks of righteousness, The planting of Yahweh, that He may show forth His beautiful glory.”
So those who have been redeemed by Christ, they have also been set free from the power of sin, the worst affliction and the worst tormentor. We no longer have to obey sin. We no longer have to obey its lusts. And when we are as Christians struggling to mortify sin in our life, maybe we feel we’re downcast because we feel as if we can’t overcome this sin. We can be comforted with this fact that if Christ has redeemed us, we have been set free and we are free indeed. We do not have to obey its lusts.
Christ has set us free, just as Isaiah prophesied of being set free, lifting up the binding up the broken heart, proclaiming release to the captives. This is a great comfort to us. It strengthens weak knees. It lifts up the downcast struggling in sin. Christ has set us free from the power of sin, beloved. So let us be free indeed and walk in that and find comfort in that.
Ninth and this one flows from this as well. If you’re taking notes and you did sub-points in letters, this is letter I: Repentance, we can see it in this chapter as well where Isaiah talks about comforting those who mourn. But flip over to the next book in Jeremiah to chapter 31. We see this as well. And in this chapter really in some of the other ones that we read through last week. But we ought to also find great comfort in our repentance.
Jeremiah 31, I’ll begin in verse 10. Just read through a few verses. Jeremiah speaking to the people, he says, “Hear the word of Yahweh, O nations, And declare in the coastlands far away,” that that means to all the Gentiles, to us, “and say, ‘He who dispersed Israel will gather him And keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’ For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob And redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
“‘They will come and sing for joy in the height of Zion, And they will be radiant over the goodness of Yahweh- Over the grain and the new wine and the oil, And over the young and the flock and the herd; And their soul will be like a watered garden, And they will never waste away again. Then the virgin will be glad in the dance, And the young men and the old, together, For I will turn their mourning into joy And will comfort them and give them gladness for their sorrow. I will fill the soul of the priests with richness, And My people will be satisfied with My goodness,’ declares Yahweh.”
One day Israel is going to look upon the savior that she crucified, and they will mourn. We have the same promise from God that Jeremiah gave them here, that God will turn all true mourning into joy. All true repentance he will comfort. Several months ago, we went through Matthew chapter 5, verse 4, which most of you are probably familiar with. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Those who genuinely mourn over their sin and work out repentance in their life, they are comforted.
When you sin, when you then confess and seek forgiveness, and you remind yourself that you have been fully and finally forgiven in Christ. You seek to walk in the freedom that you have in Christ. You work out repentance in your life, this ought to bring you great, great comfort. As you work out repentance and you grow in the fruit of the Spirit, you find great comfort in this, that you truly are his child. You’re not overcome by sin. You truly are free from sin and when you walk in that, that brings a great comfort into your life.
This leads us to the tenth point, sub-point J: Jealousy. Jealousy is often conflated with covetousness. Covetousness is wanting what someone else has. Biblically, jealousy means to be protective of what is one’s own. Flip over to Zechariah, right before the New Testament. Zechariah chapter 1, I was reading with my family just the other day in family devotions out of Deuteronomy and we were reading chapter 4 and we came to verse 24 that says, “And Yahweh, your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
And when we read that one of my kids was like, What? Kind of just taken aback at that; perplexed, God’s jealous? What? Yes, God is a jealous God. He is protective of what is his, and that is the comforting truth we find here in Zechariah 1 verses 12 to 17 says, “Then the angel of Yahweh answered and said, ‘O Yahweh of hosts, how long will you have no compassion for Jerusalem in the cities of Judah, with which you have been indignant these 70 years?’
“Yahweh answered the angel who was speaking with me with good words, comforting words. So the Angel who was speaking with me said to me, ‘Call out, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. But I am very wrathful with the nations who are at ease; for I was only a little wrathful, but they helped increase the calamity.”
“Therefore, thus says Yahweh, “I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it,” declares Yahweh of hosts, “and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.’” Again calling out, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “My cities will again overflow with good, and Yahweh will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.”’”
If you are God’s child, he is jealous for you, and that means he will never let you go as you work out repentance and all these other avenues of comfort we’ve talked about. You can be confident that you are his, and if you are his, you can be confident that God is jealous for you and that means he will never let you go, just like he would never let Israel go.
You can write this just as a cross reference down. We don’t have time to look at it this morning, but Romans 8:31 to 39 just kind of outlines some blessed truths there. We are his and nothing can separate us from his love. He will keep you until the last day. You are his and he is yours. As Zechariah put it there. These are good and comforting words. And as I mentioned last week, as we transitioned to Communion, you can flip back to 2 Corinthians.
But as I mentioned last week, as we transition to communion, all of these things find their fulfillment in Christ. All of these things that we looked at in the Old Testament culminate in Christ. In Luke chapter 2, when Jesus’s parents came to the temple to dedicate him, Simeon rejoiced and called Jesus the comfort of Israel. And this really brings us to our bonus eleventh point here that I didn’t tell you about last week, kind of briefly mentioned it, but God’s presence is a great comfort to us.
That is to say, when it comes to the ministry of being there, Jesus showed up like nobody else. John begins his gospel by talking about the Word being God, and then he talks about “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God, a very God, came and dwelt among us. He was present with us as Jesus ministered. He was among the people, rubbing shoulders with the people. He was touching and healing those who really, they had diseases that made them unclean, and they couldn’t even be, according to the law, touched by other people, no physical comfort from anyone. But Jesus reached out and touched them and comforted people like no one could.
If you are God’s child, he is jealous for you, and that means he will never let you go as you work out repentance and all these other avenues of comfort we’ve talked about.” Bret Hastings
Jesus manifest all of the God of comfort from the Old Testament in coming and being here present to comfort people, teaching his disciples how to do this. The God of all comfort brought comfort to his people by personally showing up and dwelling among his people, bringing truth in the gospel. And when Jesus was about to depart this earth, he told his disciples that he was going to go away. That brought them deep sorrow. But then Jesus told this to them to comfort them. He says, “But I will tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away,” the parakletos or the comforter or the Holy Spirit, he’s talking about the Holy Spirit. “For if I do not go away, the comforter will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.”
So not only do we have Jesus with us, among us, did the disciples there, but now, as Jesus had departed and ascended in glory, the disciples and now we have ever present with us the Holy Spirit inside of us as a seal of our redemption, that he might administer this comfort to each of our hearts at the appropriate times. We are so blessed, beloved, all of these are different avenues of God’s comfort that we can dwell on, meditate on, renew our minds in the God brings us comfort through. But God does not comfort you, solely so you can be comfortable.
His comfort is not meant to be just a source that flows into you, to be a cistern, to be collected and stored and enjoyed only by you. That brings us to our second point, the purpose, the conduit of comfort. Look at verse 4 in 2 Corinthians chapter 1. “So God,” Paul says, “comforts us in all our afflictions so that, the purpose there that, “we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with a comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
The purpose, Paul states for our affliction and receiving comfort is so that, as we are afflicted and comforted, we will be able to comfort those who are also in any affliction with the same comfort that we have received. So the purpose of affliction in the life of the believer is to turn us into a conduit that can then bring comfort to other Christians. We receive that comfort. We absorb that comfort as it passes through us onto other people who need it as well.
But we are not to be beloved cisterns that we just take all of this comfort from people. We have to be a conduit and pass that on and bless other people wiss it, with it. This isn’t a complicated command as we receive comfort from God in our afflictions. God’s people, God’s presence, whatever it is that comforts us, we pass that on to other people who are in similar kinds of affliction. One commentator put, put it this way when he said, “God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.” And Calvin put it this way, he said, “The riches of the Spirit therefore are not to be kept by us to ourselves, but everyone must communicate to others what he has received.”
This isn’t a complicated command. What you have received, pass it on to others. So what hinders us from passing on what we have received? What constricts that conduit of God’s grace from passing it on to other people? What blocks that pipe, so to speak, and keeps that comfort from passing through us to others? On the other hand, what facilitates it, what maybe expands that conduit to allow more comfort to pass through us to other people?
There are many things I think that get in the way and I want to just expose a few of those, try to remove any barriers among all of us so that we might love and care for one another better. So I have four categories of negative and positive pairs, kind of opposites. So we’ll just tackle them together. They kind of go together. Four categories of negative and positive things that will, that hinder and also help in our ability to be conduits of God’s comfort to others.
So the first is ignorance and knowledge. Ignorance and knowledge. Those things that hinder and help constrict or expand our ability. When I was thinking about this, I was trying to think of illustrations just to help make these things a little bit more concrete. But in my fairly short life, the Lord has not seen to afflict me with enough illustrations to fill in all of these points myself. So what I did was I emailed several church members on Thursday who either are or have gone through significant afflictions, and I asked them what it was that others said or did that brought them the greatest comfort in the midst of afflictions.
And so as we go through this, all of these illustrations that I’m going to bring up, many of you are in here. Many of you are actually the ones who brought this comfort to people. I’ve sanitized all of those things to protect the innocent, no names, protect the innocent and the guilty. But if you come back tonight, I’m going to give them a bit more opportunity to maybe share more fully. I think it’d be a great encouragement to our church.
But the first hindrance or help in being a conduit is ignorance and knowledge. And I want to say this up front because our culture right now, it basically says, unless you have gone through the exact same thing that I’m going through right now, you can’t help me. You can’t speak into my situation. You have to have the same exact experiential knowledge and if you’re ignorant of that experience, there’s no help you have to offer. Now there is, there’s, there’s a very small truth to that.
Paul says here in verse 4, that we are afflicted and we are comforted so that we might be able to comfort others who are going through the same things. If there is no truth to that whatsoever, Paul’s point here would be pretty useless. Experiential knowledge often does bring intellectual knowledge of how to comfort someone. What truths comfort people going through similar trials? But even if we do experience the same exact thing as someone else, we can interpret that affliction wrongly, or we can even apply comfort wrongly.
Also, while many people’s experiences of affliction are unique, they are not unique in kind, Hebrews 4:15 says. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin.” Was Jesus tempted in every single way that we are? No, He was never tempted externally by a smartphone, but the text says that he was tempted in all things like we are.
There are kinds of afflictions, kinds of temptations, physical, relational, etcetera, but there is really no totally unique kind of suffering or afflictions that we’re going to go through. The only person who had that totally unique kind of affliction was Christ, the one who was innocent and yet suffered and was sinned against.
So while you may not have the experiential knowledge of, for instance, losing a child, you most likely have lost someone dear to you. And you can sympathize, though probably to a lesser degree, with someone who has lost a child. You can sympathize in kind with them and therefore you can bring them comfort in kind.
And where you have ignorance all together, especially if you’re young and you really haven’t, you’ve had very few afflictions in your life, therefore you have really experienced little comfort in your life. We have the perfect word of God to teach us how to comfort others. We want to be kind and gracious, but if we know God’s Word, we can comfort others.
We do learn God’s Word better and how to do this through our afflictions. The psalmist in Psalm 119 says this. It teaches you when you endure afflictions. It teaches you what you otherwise would not have learned, but that’s what his word is also here for, to teach us what we otherwise would not learn.
I’ll maybe use an illustration from my own life here. When I was 18 or so, somewhere around there, I had a dear friend of mine who committed suicide. He had blatantly rejected the gospel when I tried to share with him not too long before he died. So there’s really no question where he stood with the Lord. And everyone in this church was very kind and comforting to me.
It was actually kind of ironic, because it was a very Armenian church at the time, but all those who talked to me and comforted me, they all all of the sudden became Calvinists and they started comforting me with the sovereignty of, of God, that there was nothing else I could have done for this person. And as far as I remember, none of those people who had comforted me experienced the same thing, but they had the knowledge of God’s Word, who God was, his truth, and they knew how to apply it to my heart.
And so if you’re younger and you know someone going through a trial that you haven’t yourself experienced, you aren’t exempt from providing comfort just because you haven’t been through anything. That just means you got to try harder to mine those truths from God’s Word, to think deeply and compassionately how to apply those things to others. But don’t shy away from it and use ignorance as an excuse to not bring somebody else comfort.
One church member that I solicited comments from said what stuck out the most to them, what brought her the most comfort, she said and I quote, “was the willingness to inquire, to seek out and then offer simple bits of Scripture and truth about the Lord and just bits that they’ve learned and shared with us.” Nothing particularly dramatic, yet it was persistent.
You’re never going to write the perfect message or have that perfect phone conversation that is so phenomenal it is going to relieve all of their affliction and discomfort forever. But what it is, is just offering simple bits of truth and that’s something every Christian can do.
One member said in his great affliction, beyond just those simple bits of truth, he looked up to a senior saint that he knew was faithfully enduring afflictions, and he was actually encouraged by this older saint that was enduring the same or similar kind of physical afflictions. And maybe you don’t have the knowledge or experience you, you can see this person suffering and being afflicted and you don’t have that same knowledge and experience.
But when you see them suffering like a Christian and you admire them for that, then just note that and tell them how it’s affecting you, how you’re encouraged by how they’re just walking faithfully through their trial. And this can be a a great source of encouragement and comfort to those who maybe they don’t feel like they’re walking faithfully, but it’s a great source of comfort when we see them doing so. And we tell them.
If you’re older, you’ve had plenty of afflictions in your life. Maybe you’re younger and you’ve had a lot of affliction with many things in your short life. Don’t be a, a cul-de-sac or a dead-end cistern and just collect these things. But take all of that comfort that you have received in the midst of affliction and pass it on to others. But I must commend you, Grace Church, because when I received emails back from these members that I solicited comments for, I was absolutely blown away by the number of people that they mentioned, the number of different people that they mentioned from our church.
I was so encouraged to hear how so many of you have been so faithful to already be performing this ministry. So well done. Keep it up and excel still more. Gather others around you who are younger and teach them how to do the same things. So the first hindrance in being a conduit of God’s comfort is ignorance. But you can expand your knowledge by the use of God’s Word.
The second pair of a hindrance and a help is fear and love. Fear can choke our hearts and cut off the comfort that we would otherwise take to people. This can be a fear of how someone might respond if you say something that you know they need to hear that maybe they don’t want to hear. One of our members said that what brought her the most comfort was that other members, and I quote, “gave me biblical perspectives that I needed to hear, even if I might not have wanted to hear them at the time. They cared enough to tell me hard truths, but without harshness or shaming. And they gave me hopeful truths too.”
This member was dealing with some anger towards another person. And when you’re trying to comfort somebody who’s angry, it can it’s natural to be fearful about how they might respond, if you’re confronting them in order to ultimately bring comfort to their heart. But we have to push past that. We have to love that person and speak the truth to them in love. We have to fight fear with fear. Jesus said in in Luke 12:4 and following, he told his disciples, “do not fear those who kill the body and after that have no more they can do. But I will show you whom to fear. Fear the one who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”
You fight fear of man with fear of God when you’re tempted to shrink back from saying what needs to be said and in order to ultimately bring that person comfort, fear God instead. Let your fear of God drive you to push past what else you fear. If you love God and you want to obey him, push through your fear of man and love God and love that person well. John says in 1 John 4:18, “Perfect love casts out fear.”
So, beloved, let’s love God and love one another well, by pushing through some of that fear, that fear really chokes our ability to let comfort pass from us to others. And I would add to this as well, even mild social fears, social anxieties, as they’re labeled today. Maybe the Lord has put it on your heart to reach out to someone else. But you think, you know what? I just really don’t know that person. How will they take it from me? How will they respond? I don’t want to be intrusive.
And I would say just let your love for any church member here maybe that you don’t know well, let your love for Christ motivate you to pushed past that uncomfortability to bring them the comfort that you have received. Chances are the Lord has put that on your heart for a reason. So ignorance and fear hinder us from comforting others. But knowledge and love, they actually expand our ability to pass comfort on that we have received.
Third is pride and humility. Sometimes we can actually be too proud to help someone in need. Maybe we think you know what this person got themselves into this mess, they can get themselves out. When Paul wrote to the proud Galatians, he told them in chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, he said, “Brothers, even if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each of you looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
And then Paul goes on to address those who maybe they thought they were above this ministry, in verse 3, he said, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” So if you’re ever tempted to think I shouldn’t have to do this or you think certain ministries are beneath you, just remember that you’re a slave of Christ and no ministry is beneath a slave.
Don’t think highly of yourself if you think yourself something. Paul reminds us here that you’re really nothing but a slave. Pride hinders our comforting ministry, but humility, it opens up all kinds of opportunities. One member said that she was encouraged when another member just offered to come clean her toilet. I didn’t think that that was going to be something that made the list.
If you’re a newer Christian and you don’t have a lot of knowledge and experience of comfort yourself, you don’t have a lot to offer. You can do simple things like that for people to bring them comfort. When you’re humble, it greatly expands your ability to bring comfort to people.
There’s also another subtle form of pride that I think can hinder bringing comfort to people, and that is when we think that maybe people, they already know certain things themselves or should know certain truths themselves. I know personally that I have refrained from saying something, because I thought that surely this person already knows this very simple truth I’m thinking of. Except that’s what it means when Paul says renew your mind. It is repeating simple truths to ourselves and sometimes other people need those simple truths repeated to them.
Sometimes we know things in our head and we need to repeat them to work them down into our heart. One member said that another woman was deeply used in her life because, and I quote, “she used Scripture as a guide to direct me. She was my flashlight to show me the way when I felt like I was wandering in the darkness or maybe like a lighthouse when lost in a stormy sea.”
So when people are in the midst of affliction, often times their minds are, are clouded, they aren’t thinking clearly in the midst of grief and affliction. They probably, many of us probably, feel this way, that we don’t even realize that, that we’re wandering around in the darkness or drifting in a storm at, lost at sea at night. And when we take just very simple truths and we repeat them, it’s like that lighthouse where the light turns and it flashes. It’s like a repeating blinking light indicating the way. And so while you might feel this person already knows that, tell them anyway. They may know it, but they may be lost in the dark at the moment, and they might need to be directed and reminded of the way, the truth.
But don’t let that pride get in the way. Don’t think more highly of yourself. Don’t assume what other people know. Be humble. Give the comfort that you have received from the spirit in your own heart. Be the conduit to pass that on to other people. Be willing to reach down, even into the muck and the mire to pull someone else up.
Another way that this comes to mind is even having uncomfortable conversations. Maybe in your pride you’re like, well, I was comforted in that thing, but that’s a little awkward and uncomfortable to talk about, so I’m going to shy away from it. I had just one of these conversations this week. Some things are uncomfortable to talk about, and maybe we’re embarrassed about the things that we’ve struggled with in the past. Don’t let pride get in the way of passing on the comfort that you received that that person really needs.
Fourth and finally, what hinders and helps our ability to comfort others is distance and presence. Nearly every member who responded to me this was in their list that other people were present in their life. For one, one of the members that I emailed, that’s the only thing he listed. He said another member of our church just showed up for him every day, and he said this other member didn’t necessarily know what to say, but him just being there was a comfort.
The purpose of affliction in the life of the believer is to turn us into a conduit that can then bring comfort to other Christians.” Bret Hastings
It’s hard to be a conduit of comfort to somebody else when you’re at a distance. Another member said that a couple ladies at the church and I, quote, “invested hours and hours in helping me work through my pain and anger as righteously as possible. They opened their homes to me, listened well, gave me biblical perspectives that I needed to hear.”
Beloved, it’s a big deal if we just show up for people, just as Christ manifests. Sometimes that’s not appropriate or even possible. However this little device we have as a that we call a phone that does a lot more than that. It allows us to be present and a lot nearer than otherwise possible. We can send notes of encouragement, make phone calls of encouragement without great cost of anything, and we ought to utilize that more than we do.
Another way to be present is just to, to let people know you’re praying for them. One member that I solicited comments from said that she was so encouraged one day she came to church and she had a conversation with another church member that she had never really talked to before. But she said that this church member that she never really talked to before told her that her family prays for her every night.
Affliction makes us feel isolated and alone. In the presence of others, or even letting others know that you’re praying for them. It can provide the greatest comfort that you’re not alone even when you feel alone. Our presence and our prayers help others to be reminded that they are also connected to the head that is Christ.
We’re all in fellowship in his body. No one is alone. So, beloved, this is a very simple command to comfort others with a comfort with which we have received and been comforted by. But many things can get in the way of that, ignorance, fear, pride, distance. Let’s mitigate against those things and increase our capacity to comfort others by cultivating humility, increasing our knowledge, loving God and one another better, and being present in one another’s lives, especially when it matters most. And when we do this, there are some lovely, blessed results.
And that brings us to point three: the results, the fountain of comfort. As we think about a a source of water traveling through a conduit or a pipe, where it comes out is the fountain, that’s what I’m referring to. Just like the the water fountain over here has a source, has pipes, that’s where really all the blessing comes.
There’s this fountain on the end of it, but the results of a church tapping into the source of God, the God of all comfort being conduits of that comfort, passing that on to others, there is a result of a bursting forth of comfort for all of God’s people. As we look at the rest of these verses in 2 Corinthians, I see five results of a ministry like this.
The first one is comfort or maybe better yet, where there is a church practicing this, there is a super abundance of comfort. Look at 2 Corinthians beginning in verse 5, “For just as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort.”
So there, there are some strange views regarding what the suffering of Christ refers to here and I’m not going to mention those. I’m just going to tell you the one that that has strong evidence for it and that is to take this, the sufferings of Christ as a subjective genitive, that means Christ is the subject. These are the sufferings that Christ endured himself. Suffering, here is the word, pathema, which we get our word passion or suffering from, to be affected.
Jesus told his disciples in John 15, that if the world hates him, it would hate them. Paul definitely experienced that. All of the apostles did, and when Paul was writing to the church at Rome, he told them in Romans 8:15 to 16. He says, “The Spirit himself testifies with our Spirit that we are children of God, and if children also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer,” same word there, “with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.”
This isn’t talking about the atoning suffering of Christ. Christ paid that. There is no more of God’s wrath left that’s paid for, but it’s referring to all of his suffering that he endured, as an enemy of Satan in the world. There is also in this, in verse 4, this word, abound, perisseuo. It means to overflow. Christ’s suffering abounded to Paul and Timothy. That’s the, we, there. It overflowed to Paul and Timothy as they continued to suffer as ministers of the gospel.
One commentator put it this way when he said, “He, Paul, not only preaches Christ crucified, but he lives it and his suffering brings him joy because he recognizes it to be an irrefutable confirmation of his close tie to his Lord.” There’s a close identity when you suffer for Christ’s sake, it confirms that you are his.
But Paul is talking about the abundance of sufferings that they’re enduring produces an abundance of comfort. And he says just as the sufferings abound and overflow to us, so also the comfort, as the Spirit testifies that we are his, that we suffer for him. This comfort overflows, is passed on from Paul and Timothy to the Corinthians.
So the first result of being conduits of God’s comfort is that there is a super abundance of comfort passed on. There’s plenty to go around. In other words, as everyone’s bucket is filled up with comfort and it’s overflowing, we have to find some other vessel to pour it into. So just as we have received comfort and our cup overflows, we look for somebody else to to pour it into. There’s no shortage of comfort when we seek to comfort one another like this. We’re all pouring comfort into one another and there’s a super abundance to go around.
That brings us to the next result and that is salvation. Look at the beginning of verse 6. “But whether we are afflicted is for your comfort and salvation.” You may not remember how Paul ended up in Corinth, but it was is a long line of afflictions. He was beaten and imprisoned in Philippi with Silas, and they were hounded by the Jews in Thessalonica so severely that they had to be sent away at night. This eventually led to Berea and Athens, and then they ended up at Corinth.
But Paul’s life was a life of affliction that led him to preach the gospel to the Corinthians. And one result of being Christians, being conduits of God’s comfort that we have received, is passing it on to others. One result is the salvation of souls. God’s comfort as we are all passing comfort to one another, as we are overflowing with comfort that’s going to fall on to even unbelievers in the form of the gospel and there is going to be the result of salvation.
God’s gospel is going to take root in some and if we are being faithful as ministers of comfort, one result is the salvation of the lost. Third, if we keep reading, third is perseverance. Again, verse 6, Paul says, “but whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort which is working in your perseverance in the same sufferings which we also suffer.”
Paul tells the Corinthians really that whatever he goes through, whatever he’s enduring, whether it’s suffering or whether he’s being comforted, it is for their benefit, because just as Paul has received comfort in his afflictions or whatever he has received from the Lord with regard to comfort turns into comfort for the Corinthians.
Paul says, regardless of what I go through, it’s for your benefit. And this is likewise true for us because whatever Paul was afflicted by, which was a lot, or whatever brought him comfort from the Word of God, which was a lot, it is for our benefit as we hold his testimony in our hands along with all of the other apostles and our Lord himself.
All of these comforts we find in the New Testament expanded on from the Old Testament overflowing into our hearts and as our cups overflow, we pour that comfort into one another’s vessels. And the result of this is it increases endurance in us and one another. Lenski says of this, “The divine comforting operates in perseverance by strengthening and increasing it.”
So as we are afflicted and we are comforted, we then know how to comfort our own hearts in that situation if it comes up, but we can also comfort someone else in that like affliction, and all of us will be strengthened. Our endurance will be strengthened and increased as we comfort one another in these things and teach one another how to find comfort in various afflictions.
When we go through other afflictions or we comfort others, we all grow in our capacity to comfort one another, and we all grow an increase in our capacity to endure affliction. As we do this ministry of comforting one another it results in increasing our capacity to endure and persevere through any affliction, and as we strengthen, an increase in our ability to endure that leads to the next result, which is a great confidence.
Look at the beginning of verse 7, “And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our suffering, so also you are sharers of our comfort.” So when words of truth strengthen us or another that we are trying to comfort, rather than turn them away, this gives us great hope that such a one is really a Christian and in the Lord.
When Jesus told the parable of the soils, if you remember, there were two soils that had apparent growth. That is, the rocky soil and the thorny soil. There was an appearance of growth there. There was an eager reception of the Word, but there was no enduring result. One of those soils typified the person who eagerly received the word. But then the cares and the love for the world choked it out, and that person fell away. Sin and love for the world choked it out. There was no fruit, revealing that that person never really knew the Lord.
The other fell away when persecutions came. So when people endure affliction, whether it’s enduring persecutions for the sake of Christ or they don’t go after the world and love the world, but they love Christ and they remain faithful to him. They persevere through all kinds of affliction. This only increases our hope and certainty there, that we know him and we are truly his.
Our certainty of hope, it is only increased for ourselves and for one another as we minister to one another. Our confidence in others is only bolstered as we pour this comfort into one another and they find comfort in the truth of God’s Word, and they are strengthened and they persevere. This gives us, as Paul says there, a firmly grounded hope that they do know the Lord, that we do know the Lord, because we really do find comfort in truth and we are persevering in these things.
And finally, fifth, the fifth result is fellowship. Our hope for you is firmly grounded knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you’re sharers of our comfort. The word sharers there is the word koinonos or companion or partner. It’s the word, same word we get the word fellowship from.
As we suffer together, as we comfort one another, it makes us stronger and stronger partners because we’ve shared in the same kind of suffering. We’ve shared in the same ministry laboring alongside one another. There’s a reason that there are so many groups, you can even think of like rehab groups, AA, or grief groups. When you go through similar afflictions, things bring you closer.
Those kinds of things bring you closer together. And when we go through afflictions as Christians, and especially when we engage in comforting one another, for whatever reason, whatever reason we comfort one another, there is a close bond that cements us together. This fellowship that we have in Christ, sharing our afflictions, sharing our comfort cements us together, makes us stronger and stronger partners in the gospel that we have.
As we do this, we only grow closer. We grow in our affections for one another. And Paul wrote them telling them, look, we’re in this together. He even told the the Corinthians, he said, “you are shares of our sufferings.” That is Paul’s referring to him and Timothy, all the things that they suffered for the sake of the gospel.
The Corinthians are united to them in the gospel and they’re sharers of those sufferings. Paul said we’re all in this together. Just as Paul was closely identified with Christ, because of his sufferings, Paul wanted to comfort the Corinthians by telling them that they are sharers in those same sufferings. Thus, they should also be confident of their salvation as well.
When we find ourselves in like company with all these heroes of faith, suffering and being comforted by the same truths, it reminds us, even if we really are alone in this life, we’re never truly alone. We stand on the shoulders of all these men. There are hosts of men throughout history that stand with us, so to speak, as fellow co-laborers and sharers of affliction.
So beloved, as you receive comfort, as you act as a conduit of comfort to one another, just as you have been comforted, or as the Word of God teaches us, and we pass that on as our cup overflows, and we have a super abundance of comfort to go around. Everybody’s cup is overflowing.
We have to continue to look around and find another vessel to pour into. It results in the salvation of some. It results in the increased capacity we have to endure, which only increases our confidence that we know the Lord and those around us know the Lord. It increases our hope, and we only grow closer and closer together.
Beloved, knitted together, cemented together in our love for God and our love for one another. That sounds like a community I want to be a part of, does it not to you? Sounds like a place I want to invest in and be a part of. And I think that’s where we are today and we’re growing and learning. But let’s excel still more beloved. Let’s continue to do this together. Let’s pray.
God, you have filled all of us in in the gospel alone. You have provided so much comfort that overflows to people beyond that many, many blessings in life. Many, many people have endured afflictions and they have come through those things and they have an abundance of comfort to offer others. We have a super abundance of comfort in your word alone. And I just pray that we would know that better, that we would take the knowledge from your word, the experiential knowledge we have in our own sufferings in what comforts us, that we would be faithful to pour that into the lives of other people. I know many here are.
We pray that we would just grow in our love for you and one another to do that even better. And we just pray that all of these results would be a reality here at Grace Church as we continue to work those things out. That there would be a super abundance of comfort to go around. Just so much that we have to look for somebody else to pour into because we have so much in our hearts. We pray that that would result in the salvation of some. We pray that that would only magnify the fact that we know you as we continue to persevere in those things, that it would increase our hope and certainty of our own salvation and those around us. And pray that you would continue to knit our hearts together as we do this, Lord. We pray that you would make this a a reality in our church. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, Amen.