The God of All Comfort — 2 Corinthians 1-3

0:00 Jeffrey Good morning. Good morning. Now is your chance. You can leave with the kids and they'll never know. Let's open in a word of prayer this morning.

0:21 Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that it's a living word, sharper than any sword piercing to asunder soul and spirit and that we can become part of your family by believing its message. Oh, sinner, believe it. We thank you for that good news. And I pray that you'll help me this morning to convey to the audience gathered here some thoughts that I've gleaned from your word, that'll be helpful to them and that will be accurate and will be glorifying to you.

1:01 We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. This morning, I want to share with you some truths and principles that I've discovered from Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians. Second Corinthians began in Chapter one verse one. I'm sure most of you remember how we got the epistle of Second Corinthians. Paul had in around fifty AD, Paul and Titus and Silas had gone to Corinth and they started preaching.

1:55 This was on his secondary, second missionary journey. And he stayed in Corinth for eighteen months and he preached and he taught the Corinthians. Now, the city of Corinth was a very wicked place. They had much idolatry and immorality and they even practiced it in the name of religion. But many people were saved even though they had these terrible backgrounds and a church was planted by Paul and the others before they left Corinth.

2:35 Well, then later Paul got a letter from some folks at Corinth that there was serious trouble there. There were divisions, some were questioning Paul's authority, and they were false teachers and there was even open sin being practiced in the church and it wasn't being dealt with. So Paul had gotten some questions that these others had sent to him along with their report, so he needed to answer that. And he wrote one Corinthians to straighten out the problems that were there. Second Corinthians was the epistle that followed and to see how the first letter had been obeyed and received.

3:29 It also responded to further problems in Corinth and expresses Paul's love and concern for the Corinthians. This letter is thought to be one of the most personal letters that Paul wrote to a church or to a group of people. He really opens his heart up to them. And this epistle spells out Paul's joy that the Corinthians had accepted his advice on how to deal with that openly sinful situation they had. And he further encourages them to forgive the parties that was guilty because they had confessed and repented of their sins.

4:09 So, the discipline that he suggested worked. They were excommunicated for a time and then there was recovery made from that. Second Corinthians has many wonderful teachings for us to examine and to appropriate. When I wrote that, I thought, are they going to think I mean there's an open sin here and we better get on the wall and deal with it? I don't think that.

4:34 I mean, I don't know, but I don't think so. So I just meant that there's other examples, things of reconciliation that are going to be good for us. So may the Lord help us to accomplish that this morning. Now, I'm going to just take a side trip here for a moment. When I was a young man fellowshipping at Grace Mount Gospel Chapel, I noticed that many of the great speakers that we had, had helpful thing where they picked out some key phrases to outline their message and to make them easier to remember.

5:11 If you noticed over the years, I've tried to do that and with varying degrees of success. So I'm going to give a try today too. I will be mainly using two word phrases, sometimes a little preposition slips in there too to make the English proper. And so starting phrases will both be the words will both be starting with the same letter, I mean, different from each other but the same as I've chosen. And those letters by the way are hidden somewhere in the chapel.

5:46 So you'll have to find the letters first. And you'll be able to identify the phrases possibly and I don't mean out loud, just write them on a paper or something. But see if you can catch them and maybe that'll be like a word search. Now, want you all to close your eyes, no peeking. Come on.

6:38 But I'm going to just consider one for the start. He introduces himself as Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy our brother. That meant that Timothy was with him when he was writing this. Remember some of the Corinthians were questioning Paul's authority. So do you see how that just that first part of that verse that I read, he reminds them that god had stopped him on the road of Damascus.

7:14 Remember that story? He appeared to Paul as a great light and a voice and he spelled out that the just the work that the lord had chosen for the apostles. So Paul calls himself an apostle by the will of God and not of any man. So Paul was a brother called, a brother called by God. Paul's love for the Corinthians shows up in the latter half of verse one, where Paul identifies his readers as the Church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are in Achaia.

8:02 So Paul addressed them as believing Christians. Believing Christians. In Christianity today, there's confusion about what a saint is. Many years ago when Emanus Bible College moved from Chicago to Des Moines, what they had purchased was a Catholic seminary to put their new school in. And it was really interesting to go there because it was complete with every saint statue, I think that there is.

8:44 And they were beautiful and expensive. And when we went there to redo the plumbing because it had been left so long, it was all dried out and needed some work. They had draped all the saints with drop cloths. So that I don't does anybody know what they ever did with all those statues? I imagine somebody wanted them.

9:05 But those are not saints. What are saints? The Bible, if you study it, is that saints are common ordinary Christians, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. When you're called to be a saint, you're called to be a follower of Jesus Christ. A person who's followed the Lord Jesus as savior.

9:29 Now, the world says, that's a sinful person who can maybe even do miracles. Think to be canonized, you have to do a couple of miracles. But this body of flesh that we inhabit is not sinless. Now, we are seen positionally by God in Christ as sinless and holy, but our everyday practice doesn't reflect that kind of goodness. So what Paul was asking, well, let read you verse that will nail down whether we're sinners or not.

10:12 This is first John one:eight-ten, three verses. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Does anybody not understand what that means? If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, make him a liar and his word is not in us.

11:29 All flow from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. God is the source. Christ is the channel. So this is God's blessed commitment to believers that he is going to be with us and care for us and give us his grace and his peace. Moving on to a little further in Chapter one, we arrive at verse three.

12:02 Now, Bob, I hope you don't mind. I'm just going to talk a little bit about you from the enjoyable time we had last week with the people that came up here was an open Sunday and Bob was one of those folks. And think the Lord really moved and orchestrated some excellent thoughts from these folks that were up there. Bob told us about being somewhat depressed and how the Lord had brought him out of that painful time and comfort him by praying with a prayer and reading of God's word. And I thought, oh no, I was sitting there and I thought, oh no, Bob's going to preach my sermon for today.

12:39 But he didn't. He just helped lay a good foundation for it because he spoke of the comfort that God can be in our any state of mind, when we're depressed. Anybody never been depressed? I was too. I am too.

13:05 So, I think that all actually it confirmed in my mind that this is what I ought to talk about because I think it sort of builds on what Bob told us. Now, we look at verses three and four of Second Corinthians Chapter one, we have a wonderful insight into the benefit of comfort. The benefit of comfort, especially by God in our suffering. And here's what it 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 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. So you see the purpose of the suffering in your life sometimes is to let God comfort you and to prepare you to comfort others with that same comfort.

14:07 Now, note in the margin of your Bibles that some of you might have found this that consolation, the word translated in some verses consolation also comes from the same word as comfort. And in fact, remember the verse in John fourteen sixteen through 18 that talks about God Christ sending another comforter or another helper, same word, helper, comforter, consolation. So, God the Son, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, all are doing comfort work. The spirit being called the comforter who not only shall be with you, but shall be in you. So, he's the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.

15:11 I share Bob's suspicion that there's a lot of suffering going on out there too that we don't know about. Because I know I'm pretty good at faking it too when I come to church if I'm not feeling up to par, I smile. There's a lot of suffering going on in the local body of Christ. There's much tribulation. There's relational tribulation, financial tribulation, medical tribulation, and spiritual tribulation.

16:17 God chooses to comfort us in all our tribulation, not out of our tribulation. Did you notice that it says in your tribulation, I'll comfort you, not pull you out of it, which we prefer obviously, but that's not the best thing for us. And the reason, he has a good reason in verse four, we can comfort others, those who are in any trouble and comfort them with what? With the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God. No one can comfort you as well as somebody who's gone through the same thing that you're experiencing.

16:57 When people come up to you and say, oh, I know just how you feel, They might not really know that because they never had a baby crying all night or something. But the ones that have can really empathize with us because they know what we're going through. They know what it's like to testify of God's comfort if they're believers. Now, the seventh verse of second Corinthians one says this, And our hope for you is steadfast because we know that you are partakers of the sufferings, as you are the partakers of the sufferings, so also will you partake of the consolation. Remember I said consolation meant comfort.

17:43 So this is what we have in Paul's writing and I call this a boast of consolation because it was steadfast hope and it's a hope based on the character of god that as you partake of the sufferings on account of your faith in Christ especially, so also you will partake of the consolation of god. So it's the boast of consolation that Paul makes because he knows God will do it. Now, I'd like to jump forward to examine Paul as the beloved counselor to the Corinthians. And I'll start in two Corinthians two and I'd like to read eight verses there. But I determined this within myself that I would not come to you in sorrow.

18:42 He's talking to the think of him addressing these Corinthians. For if I make you sorrowful, then who is it who makes me glad, but the one who is made sorrowful by me? And I wrote this very thing to you, lest when I come, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. You didn't know that Paul had a southern accent, did you? Well, he does, but you all.

19:17 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have also abundantly for you. He's opening up his heart to these people. He says, look, I didn't want to make you sorry, I want to make you happy. But if anyone causes grief, he's not grieved me, but all of you, not to be too severe. This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man who was doing that open sin.

19:51 So that on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest one less perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. So Paul saying, here's this guy sin, he repented, he confessed, he repented. Now, we have to forgive him and comfort him because he's in a very a position that's very likely to cause him very great harm if he isn't rescued out of that because he's he's so full of anguish and sorrow at his sin and what could happen? Well, we'll read that in a moment but he says, comfort him and forgive him so that he isn't swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him.

21:07 He remembered the anguish of heart and tears he shed over the problem in Corinth because his love is love for them. Most elders can identify with this if they've been on the job very long. It's so heart wrenching when you've got to go confront somebody about something and you have to do it in love and There's a lot of tears before But Paul feels they were grieved more than he was. Paul confirms to them that the corrective action they took was appropriate, The excommunication they did. Because the man repented and asked forgiveness, now he should be forgiven and comforted.

22:03 And it says in the next verse 11, lest Satan should take advantage of us. The word I was groping for before, he was vulnerable to that kind of attack. He was vulnerable. And we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. You'll notice in verse seven, the admonition to comfort the one after an effective discipline action.

22:28 That's a principle we can gather. Forgiven saints must be comforted. Be comforted. Forgiven saints must be in order to give healing to them. Now, we're going to go on to chapter two of second Corinthians and begin reading at verse 12 and read three verses.

22:54 Furthermore, when I came to Troaz to preach Christ's gospel and the door was opened to me by the was opened to me by the lord. I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus, my brother. But taking my leave of them, I departed from Macedonia. Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. I wonder if someone could get me a drink of water.

23:27 I'm really drying up and I don't want to put a cough drop in because I might swallow it. But if somebody could just get me a cup of water, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Try the last till the water gets here. All right.

23:42 Second Corinthians two twelve to 14, I read. What do we notice here? First, we notice that the Lord opened the door of service for Paul in Troas to preach the gospel. As a side thought on this statement of Paul's, it's up to you and me to find these open doors that God has opened. Be on the lookout for an open door.

24:11 It's like the guy that the crook that never could find a policeman because he wasn't looking for him. We're not finding open doors because we're not looking for him. And how do you recognize them? Well, sometimes please are made from this stage that, well, we really could use some help in Sunday school or we really could use more people volunteering for something or other. That might be an open door of service for you.

24:42 Many of you are walking through those open doors of service too and we really appreciate you doing that. Thank you. So, Paul continues to search for oh, thank you so much. So Paul continued to search for Titus in Macedonia because he wanted to know what was happening in Corinth. Notice verse 14 especially.

25:56 I immediately thought as I was reading this, Lois gets these candles, big ones, and they're scented and they even have two wicks or more. Well, she just lights one of those on the dining room table and pretty soon, the whole house is maple or cinnamon or something. It just diffuses itself and it's throughout the whole place. And we're like that. We're like that in the sense that we've been led in triumph in Christ and through us this fragrance is being diffused and is a fragrance of his knowledge.

26:39 It's kind of a must be mixed metaphors there. But we all understand what a fragrance is, it's something that pleases a smell that pleases us. And his of his knowledge, it's associated with the knowledge of Christ and it's in every place. These candles are even a better example than I thought because then I realized what do you do to make a candle make a nice smell? You light it and it gives light.

27:15 And what is light? When somebody gets an idea in the funnies, they go put a light bulb above their head. That's symbolic. Light is symbolic of a new understanding, a new idea. And so, not only is this candle diffusing the odors, the odor, the fragrance of knowledge of Christ, it's also turning on the light in our minds to know about Christ.

27:40 So, the whole room is even better because it's not only smells good, it's lit up. And so I call this the breath of Christ. The out breathing of Christ to us is a wonderful picture of what he does for us. Christ's knowledge diffused in every place. But there's a funny thing about fragrances.

28:13 The beauty of it is in the nose of the sniffer. The beauty of a smell is in the nose of a sniffer because I used to have some coworkers and this one lady wore perfume boxwood or something like that. And I my eyes would start to water whenever she walked in and I'd choke up. It makes me want to have another drink. And I finally had to ask her, could you please buy a different kind of perfume because I'm I can't get anything done when I'm exposed to that.

28:48 So one man's fragrance is another man's. Let's look at second Corinthians two fifteen and sixteen. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ coming among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. So as we come along, we're received two ways. Some by those being saved and one way by those who are perishing.

29:26 To the one, we are the aroma of death leading to death, that's those that are perishing. And to the other, the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? How can we handle the job like this being a wonderful representation, a fragrance of Christ and his knowledge. Well, we can't by ourselves, but with God's help we can.

29:54 And so, We ought to consider what what kind of aura do I have? Do do I am I am I putting and diffusing among those here an odor of Christ, the knowledge of Christ. And let's pray that God will give that to us. The fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing an aroma of death leading to death. Thankfully, God is only the only one who can save.

30:39 So it's not up to us, it's up to him. It's only that we be found faithfully sharing the good news. We start now to consider the concept of being commended, being commended, because Paul is talking about commendation in the sense, not in the official sense of someone commending someone to go out as a representative of meeting, but like, say, often I did this, I went to other cities on business and I'd go to a meeting I've never been to before. And I used to like to have a letter that said, this is brother Carl, he's in good fellowship here and please take care of him as befits believers in the Lord. Very simple, but it's a nice thing.

32:08 That means they believed that you had to trust Christ as Savior, but you also had to keep the law, Keep the law. And they were starting to spread that error in the church in Corinth. So, in Corinth, the troublemakers were asking the question, who is Paul and who gives him authority? And Paul answers that accusation in chapter three verse one of second Corinthians. It says, do we begin again to commend ourselves or do we need as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?

32:51 He's saying, you don't know whether you want me to give you a letter or take your letter. Oops, I just broke it. I fixed it. Which way do you want these letters to go? Are you commending me or am I commending you?

33:06 He says, it's confusing. First Corinthians... Second Corinthians three:two-six, he's going to talk to them about commenders. I call this battling commenders. Boy, that's a stretch, isn't it?

33:29 But there's them asking for one kind of commendation and he's saying, look, I've got commendations. Let me explain to you what my commendations are. You are our epistle written on our hearts, known and read by all men. It's you, you are our epistle, our letter known and read by all men. There's a lot in that verse.

34:00 You know, we're all read by men, what our character is like, what our words are like, what we like and what we dislike, what's our relationship to God. We're all read by people in that way. They are understanding us by what we do and say. You are our common day, our epistle written in our hearts. So it's written in Paul's heart known and read by all men.

34:31 Clearly, you are an example, an epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but on by the spirit of the living God, but on tablets of... Boy, I've got that. Let me start again because I really garbled that up through verse three, chapter three. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ ministered by us written not with ink but by the spirit of the living God not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh that is of the heart. So Paul is saying that our work among you is like writing messages on you.

35:14 You changed your heart when you got saved. People notice that. You changed your life. People notice that. But it's not on tablets of stone.

35:24 What's he referring to there? The law. Moses went up on the mountain. God cut the stones into letters, that was the law. Paul went to Corinth, he preached the gospel and he cut some letters on the hearts of the Corinthians and those are read by all people.

35:48 And we now have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but the spirit for the letter kills but the spirit gives life. Isn't that true when people become legalistic? This is what the word say, this is what we got to do, But you know what?

36:24 God didn't mean it to be not interpreted with all the rest of his thoughts and words, and you're going to do harm, like the couple back there in Corinthians that they said, excommunicate them for a while and then restore them. Well, what that sin they were doing was probably under the law, a capital crime and they should have been taken out and stoned. And that's the letter of the law, but that kills. What happened? They were told about their sin.

37:02 They repented. They were restored. Which is better? A repentant live sinner or dead sinner. Lost for service, lost for god.

37:16 I'm not I'm not saying diminishing the commandments at all but I'm just saying they have to be administered with spiritual insight by spiritual people. And if it's the spirit of the law is accomplishing what the law intended to accomplish. Sometimes, we have a phrase for a law. You pass a law like congress does and it had some result you didn't anticipate unanticipated results. And it's disastrous.

37:54 Oops. Well, it's the law. Well, let's change it. Let's change it and make it right. Let's not just try to live with a bad a law that can be misunderstood.

39:02 Notice God's salvation changes our hearts and it changes our love objects. We no longer love the things of this world, but we are primarily to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Christ empowers us to have trust towards God, says in verse five. But this power to trust God through Christ is not of ourselves, it's a gift of God. Remember Ephesians two:eight, nine, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast.

39:43 It's a gift of God. This God has made us adequate ministers of the new covenant, salvation by grace through faith, not of the letter, but of the spirit. So, there are two different covenants, aren't they? Covenant of the law, covenant of grace, faith. So, I call this and this will be my last one, battling covenants.

40:18 They're fighting for us. Satan says, Oh, yeah, take the law, but follow every bit of it and don't associate with anybody that doesn't do the same thing and teach everybody you know how to follow that law and you can trust Christ too, but make sure you follow the law. But the letter of the law kills, the spirit of the law gives life. Well, you know what, we've got a lot of material left and no more time. So that'll be my next sermon if I get to have one right there.

41:41 There are going to be rough days ahead for believers, maybe more rough than we could imagine now with some of these predictions are coming true about the things that our government is doing with the economic situation when you study them are terrifying. Printing money with no backing, all those things that whenever it was tried, it's been tried like four or five times historically, and they've all been miserable failures. Germany after World War II just printed money and it ruined the country. I'm not going to go there anymore. But there's going to be plenty of opportunity for us to comfort one another and help one another in the days ahead and thank God He's our God of all comfort.

42:33 Let's pray. Thank you, loving Father, the God of all comfort for working with us and in us to perfect us into the image of your son our Savior. Lord Jesus, thank you for redeeming our souls and for sending another comforter, the Holy Spirit to live in us and to grow us into sons and daughters of God. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

43:11 Thank you for your attention.