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2 Corinthians 1:1-11
1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.1 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers,2 of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
[1] 1:5
[2] 1:8
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you would open your bibles to first Corinthians sorry. 2nd Corinthians. 2nd Corinthians chapter 1. We are beginning a new series tonight that will take us a while to go through, but I'm excited about 2 Corinthians. All you have to do is just pretty much flip through your Bible and I bet you have something underlined in almost every single chapter of the book.
Jeffrey Heine:There are some great truths there. We'll be again reading the first eleven verses tonight. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, and by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. Grace to you, and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, with the comfort with with with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Jeffrey Heine:For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too. We've if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Jeffrey Heine:And indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him, we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Our father, we ask that you would honor the reading of your word, that even now the deep truths that we have heard would begin setting themselves in our heart, and through the power of your spirit changing us. Lord, my words are death and your words are life and we need life. So speak to us. May my words fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. Natalie is our middle child. And for a few years, we thought she was also going to be our problem child. Over and over again, kind of Lauren and I's mantra to Natalie was always make good decisions. We need you to make good decisions.
Jeffrey Heine:She would set up a stool on top of a kitchen counter and stand on it. We're like, Natalie can't do that. Make good decisions. She would jump rope underneath the chandelier. You know, Natalie make good decisions.
Jeffrey Heine:She would get out, one time she got out honey, and the other time she got out glitter. I was like, where are you going? She goes, crafts. I'm like, no. No.
Jeffrey Heine:No. No. Make good decisions. And we would say this easily for over a year. We were always saying this to her.
Jeffrey Heine:And finally, one time, she looked at me and she goes, dad, what's a decision? What's a decision? I realized, wow. Wow. All this time, she has not understood me.
Jeffrey Heine:Well, the church of Corinth is my Natalie. Now, actually, Natalie has turned out to be a wonderful child, but the church of Corinth is the problem child of Paul. Paul spent a year and a half establishing a church there. And of all the churches he founded, this was the one that needed the most attention. If you think of churches like children, then then think of them as as the problem child, the one who is always going to need your attention.
Jeffrey Heine:They were the ones always in trouble, or the ones always looking for trouble. They would hang out with the wrong crowd. They would do what all the kids cool kids were doing at the time. They were they were getting drunk at the parties. They were always questioning authority.
Jeffrey Heine:Who gives you the right to tell me what to do? They were the ones who would drive you crazy because it seems like they can never focus. Everything was the Corinthian church, they would have people speaking in tongues, people prophesying, people praying out loud all over one another, total chaos. They were the ones getting drunk at communion. They were the ones telling Paul, who are you to tell us what to do?
Jeffrey Heine:They were that child that needed constant discipline. Children like this are going to break you. They're gonna they're gonna take up all of your energy physically and mentally, and they're gonna bring you to the end of your rope. And that is what the Church of Corinth does to Paul. 2nd Corinthians, this letter is the letter of an exasperated parent.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul actually uses that analogy that he is their parent. Yet he is still hopeful for this child. 2nd Corinthians is actually the 4th letter to the Corinthians. It gets a little bit confusing, but the second or 1st Corinthians is actually the second letter. And 4th Corinthian See, it is confusing.
Jeffrey Heine:And then 2nd Corinthians is actually the 4th letter. It's been an ongoing dialogue here for a while. But Paul has had to just keep in constant touch with them because of everything that was going chaotic at the church and how they were beginning to follow to follow other leaders. They were beginning to abandon the gospel. Now, Paul begins this letter by talking about suffering.
Jeffrey Heine:And the reason he does so is because one of the primary accusations against him as to the, well, why do you have the right to tell us what to do? One of the one of the primary accusations for why he didn't have that right was because of all the suffering that was going on in his life. Because obviously, if Paul was really an apostle, if he was really ordained by God and really had God's favor, then certainly all these bad things would not be happening to him. I mean, why all the whippings, all the beatings, all the imprisonments, all the shipwrecks? They just followed Paul wherever he went.
Jeffrey Heine:Seems like God is against him, not for him. So why should they listen to him? I mean, especially when there's all these other, what he'll call later, super apostles around in which their ministry is thriving. Now, of course, we still think like this today. If a pastor founds a church and it just, you know, explodes in growth, is well received by everybody.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, every week, 5,000 people are downloading sermons off the, off the podcast. When we hear about that, we usually have one of 2 reactions. Either we think, God bless this person. I mean, they must obviously, obviously have the Lord's favor. And so so we we love this preacher or it's the opposite.
Jeffrey Heine:We think the only reason this is happening because the pastor sold the soul to the devil. You know, it's it's just one of those 2. He's he's either really as God's favor or he's really against God, but that explains the growth. But either way, what we've done is we've looked at the circumstance. We've said we could tell a lot about the character and the calling of this person based on circumstance without ever really knowing what's going on in their heart.
Jeffrey Heine:We just interpret those signs to say, well, they they're either really bad or they're really good. The Corinthians were judging Paul because of all the suffering that was hitting his life. Every bad thing you could imagine was happening to him. And now most of you know that when Lauren and I started this church about 5 years ago, our lives got really rough for a period. We suffered through surgeries, broken bones.
Jeffrey Heine:Lauren had a a rough delivery with Georgia and we almost lost Georgia. There was a whole lot of things that kinda hit us all in just like a 2 month span. And I remember it's probably just 2, 3 months after we had started the church. We just finally got Georgia home from the hospital. Lauren had the emergency c section.
Jeffrey Heine:She couldn't really move, and I'd gone up in the attic to get something. And, and all I remember is I'm in the attic, and I'm not even I'm about to come down, but I'm not even on the steps yet. And And I just kind of look down, and I say, hey, Lauren. And the next thing I know, I'm laying down in the attic, kind of confused as to why I'm staring at the ceiling, and and I feel my head, and there's just blood everywhere. I'm like, what what in the world happened?
Jeffrey Heine:Because at the exact moment that I was looking down the attic steps, a bolt popped off of the hinge that was the spring loaded. And so, the hinge comes up and just cracks me right there. 13 stitches. You could see my skull. And so I'm just laying out there like, you know, who who does this happen to?
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. And so I'm thinking I'm gonna bleed out. I don't even know what's really happened. And so I yell at Lauren. Lauren, you gotta come.
Jeffrey Heine:You gotta get a ladder. I can't get down the steps. I'm bleeding out up here. Lauren just had a c section. She's like like, she's gonna be able to get a ladder.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I'm I'm looking down there and, blood drenched bunny rabbit towel. And I'm like, you got to get a ladder. And Lauren just sits down and starts crying. She can't do anything. And so I just have to jump, so I jumped down.
Jeffrey Heine:And and we go outside, you know, and we're just sitting on the front steps, and I'm thinking, I'm so glad I do not believe in the prosperity gospel. I mean, things can't possibly get worse. And then just a few weeks later, a tree rips through our house and does $90,000 worth of damage. And it was just kinda like thing after thing. And there's this temptation to think, wow, what am I doing wrong?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, God's obviously got it out for me. And that's what the Corinthian church was thinking about Paul. Something's got to be wrong. I mean, bad things, random bad things. Who has 3 shipwrecks?
Jeffrey Heine:Okay? You do, Paul. Why? God's against you. And so, they were refusing to follow him.
Jeffrey Heine:So Paul begins his letter by confronting this issue of suffering. And he says, yes. You're right. I've suffered. I've suffered terribly.
Jeffrey Heine:And you know what? You don't even know the half of it of what I've suffered. But the reason god has allowed this to happen to me is for your comfort. He was teaching me something so that I might teach you something. Suffering is actually proof of my apostleship.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't throw it out. Over and over in the the these first few verses, Paul talks about the comfort of god. The word comfort is is used about 30 times in the bible. 10 of them are right here in 7 verses. Comfort.
Jeffrey Heine:Comfort. Comfort. It's kinda easy to figure out what the theme of this section is. Just just look at it again. Verse 3.
Jeffrey Heine:So that we may be able to comfort those in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken for we know that you share in our sufferings.
Jeffrey Heine:You also share in our comfort. Over and over again, comfort, comfort, comfort. Also suffering, he uses 5 different words for suffering here. He's gone through a lot of suffering, but the result has been a lot of comfort. So how did god comfort Paul?
Jeffrey Heine:Over and over again, he's comforted, but how? Does god just, like, give him an advil or, you know, or does does god say, I'm gonna I'm gonna make your next flogging hurt a little less? God comforts Paul not by taking away his sufferings. He comforts him by being with him in the midst of all those sufferings. But he never takes him away.
Jeffrey Heine:He takes Paul through them. You know, in John 14, Jesus calls the spirit that he gives us the comforter. He is the comforter. And this is how Paul was comforted because the great comforter, God's presence, would come to him during these times. And so he's experiencing Psalm 23, you know, Yea, they'll walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Jeffrey Heine:I will fear no evil for thou art with me. His presence is with me. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me. It's the presence of god through suffering, not avoiding suffering. And Paul understands here, hey, the more suffering I experience is the more comfort I experience, and the more comfort I experiences, the more comfort I can give.
Jeffrey Heine:So bring it on. Suffering for a Christian destroys every little comfort you've come to enjoy. You know, comfort with a little c, like the comfort you find in money, the comfort you you find, with your health or with the latest new gadget, whatever it is. Those are all comforts with a little c and suffering comes and takes those away And God replaces them with the big c comfort himself. You don't need those things.
Jeffrey Heine:Suffering loosens our grip on everything that is transient until we trust in him wholly. Martin Luther, he understood this. He talked about that there's 3 tools. He calls them 3 pillars that God uses to teach the Christian. The 3 pillars are ratio, meditatio, intentatio.
Jeffrey Heine:Prayer, meditation, and suffering, he said, are the tools that god uses. And he said, of those tools, suffering was the greatest tool God used in his life. And Paul goes on here to say, he actually suffered a lot more than they were aware. Look at verse 8 again. For we do not want you to be ignorant.
Jeffrey Heine:They've already heard a whole lot. But he says, we don't want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. We don't know who this we is. He was with some other people. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Jeffrey Heine:Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. I'm about to tell you something that's really profound. I hope you, you write this down. You know, you could go ahead and write it in ink in your Bible. It's this suffering isn't easy.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? Suffering isn't easy. I feel like that has to be said because if you grow up in Christian circles and you're always hearing, you know, God's the God of all comfort and God's gonna take care of you when you're in the midst of this and you're always hearing it, you kind of think that, you know, suffering is supposed to be really easy. And then all of a sudden, suffering comes and it feels like a punch in the gut. Like, God, that that wasn't the kind of suffering I thought, you know, we had an agreement on.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm talking about like the no skim milk in my decaf latte kind of suffering. And and you're here giving me this. Suffering isn't easy. Don't ever fool yourself and think, oh, this is going to be easy. God's just going to always gonna be the God of all comfort, and I'm just going to breeze right through this.
Jeffrey Heine:It wasn't easy for Paul, and it's not gonna be easy for us. And Paul is about to get very transparent here with us. He he despaired even of life itself. He says that in verse 8, He says that we were so utterly burned beyond our strength. And and and those words utterly burned beyond our strength.
Jeffrey Heine:These were words that were used to describe sinking ships. Ships that had taken on too much of a load, and were now, filling up with water. These were the words that were used to describe an animal that had too many burdens placed on it to where it can no longer stand, let alone carry it. That's what Paul is saying was happening to him. And I couldn't bear it.
Jeffrey Heine:Sounds almost like an anxiety attack. I I I couldn't get out of this. The great apostle Paul fell into despair. That it's just hard for me to believe because this is the same apostle Paul who was once stoned and dragged out of a city because they thought he was dead. He gets himself up, dusts himself off, goes straight back into the city and preaches.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the same apostle Paul who when he gets arrested and thrown in prison and he's put in stocks, he sings. This is the same apostle Paul who who wrote to the Philippians, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. You kinda wanna say physician, heal yourself. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:You're not rejoicing, you're despairing here. The word despair here in Greek, it's a really long word I won't bore you with, but it essentially means no passage. No passage. No exit, no way out. So Paul is placed in a position in which he can't get out of it.
Jeffrey Heine:There's no means of escape. And that is the very definition of hopelessness, knowing there's no light at the end of the tunnel. He says, I feel like I have received the death sentence. Now we don't know what the situation is, but we do know that Paul didn't despair through shipwrecks, through beatings, through imprisonments. So this has to be something that's pretty bad.
Jeffrey Heine:We also know that he did not despair when death was a certainty. We saw that last week. Remember in 2nd Timothy, his last letter and, you know, he says, hey, I'm being poured out like a drink offering. The time of my departure has come. He's he is about to be executed.
Jeffrey Heine:He's like, I fought the good fight. I have finished the race. You know, it's he he's not in despair there. So it's not just imminent death. Something on top of a likely imminent death here.
Jeffrey Heine:And if I had to take a guess at it, I would say it was the Corinthians themselves. I would say that it was the burden of seeing a wayward child go off on their own. You you can take imprisonment. He he could take death if he knew his task was finished. I have finished the course.
Jeffrey Heine:But to be locked in prison while there are false shepherds invading your flock, leading them astray to where they're gonna go harm themselves, and they're praising them while you're stuck in prison about to die. No parent wants to see a child hurt themselves. And I think the Corinthians are partially responsible for this deep despair he went in. So whether it was that or whether it was something else, we know that Paul felt here an incredible crushing burden, and he thought there was no escape. All he could see was death.
Jeffrey Heine:Now let me ask you. Have you ever felt that way? Over the last couple of weeks, really over the last 10 days, I have got to meet with a number of you who I know have. Whether it is dealing with the loss of somebody very dear to you, whether it's a marriage that on a really good day you would describe as rocky or horrid, or whether it's an addiction you can't get out of. I've talked with a number of you who feel like there is no way out of this.
Jeffrey Heine:Well, this is for you, and all of us can identify with this a little. We we've all been in somewhat similar positions, and and if you haven't, know someday you will. Because reality is, no matter what, nobody here escapes suffering. Sometime, somebody close to you is going to die. Sometime, you are probably going to suffer, and you will die.
Jeffrey Heine:So this is for us here. And so the question is, where's the hope? Why does God and his sovereignty and Paul recognizes his sovereignty. That's why he says, blessed is the God. He starts off with his view of God, not with his view of him and his situation.
Jeffrey Heine:Blessed is God who brings us. He says, why does this sovereign God allow this to happen to me? And his answer is in verse 9, the second part of it. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. Paul said that God would bring him to this point in order to exhaust every ounce of strength he has.
Jeffrey Heine:Bring him to a point where he has to rely completely on God. Not just God, but on God who raises the dead. In other words, God has to bring Paul to a point of death in order for resurrection power to come in and to raise him up. You have to die before you can be resurrected. And so you might have a dead marriage, you might have dead finances, you might be dead in your addictions, but you worship a God who raises the dead.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? We talk all of the time about Christ likeness. You know, we all want to be Christ like. And usually when we say that, we mean we want to be really kind. We want to be loving.
Jeffrey Heine:We want to be forgiving. That's Christlikeness. And yes, that is partially Christlikeness. Trusting God in every circumstance, even suffering because that's what Jesus did. Jesus trusted his father all the way to the cross when he couldn't hear his father's voice anymore, when he couldn't see God's hand at work.
Jeffrey Heine:He trusted. So if you wanna be like Christ, have Christ's likeness in your life, you trust in all circumstances. And when Jesus trusted his father all the way to the cross, God rewarded him with resurrection. So I encourage you to trust God with your marriage, your grieving, your addiction, your depression, your health, even when you feel absolutely crushed by these things. Because God is teaching you to trust in him who raises the dead.
Jeffrey Heine:I can't tell you how many people I've had in my office who said, I I hear you, understand this. God is a God of all comfort, but you but you don't you don't understand the enormity of what I'm going through. You don't understand just the war that is my marriage. You don't understand that. I I hear what you're saying.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me ask you, did the disciples understand the resurrection? Were they lining up outside of the tomb waiting for Jesus to come forward? It was impossible. Yet, Jesus rose from the dead. You can't get any more impossible than that.
Jeffrey Heine:And that resurrection power is at work in us. We worship a God who brings life out of death no matter the circumstance. This passage in first Corinthians is often misunderstood. We tend to think that when Paul is saying comfort others with the comfort you have received, that it means something to the effect of, if, if I've gone through a a time of depression and I've come through it, then I could share that comfort with you. I'm the one you should meet with.
Jeffrey Heine:Or or even this past week, I I met with somebody who had lost their father. And because I had lost my father at a at an early age, that I can now comfort this person with the comfort I received. Now, there there is some truth to that, but that is not what Paul is talking about. So that you can meet with people who've had the same circumstances as as you. No, the comfort is the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:That's the comfort Paul has received. That Jesus came, he lived, and he died for our forgiveness, and he rose again defeating our greatest enemy, death. And because of this message, because of this news, we have hope. And because through suffering, he experiences that in a new way. He understands the gospel in a new way.
Jeffrey Heine:He now can share that gospel with others. That's the comfort he has received. And that's the comfort we give. It's the comfort that qualifies him to be an apostle. Suffering is the best platform we can have to share the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't get me wrong. You should still bear witness to Christ when things are going really, really good, but it's pretty easy to say, blessed be the God of all comfort when you're completely comforted and sitting in luxury. But when everything else has been stripped away and you can still say blessed be the God of all comfort, That is a platform for you to stand and to preach the gospel and the world will listen. I've endured just a little bit of suffering in my life, not not much. I watched my granddad die in front of me.
Jeffrey Heine:My my dad died when I was in college. I've had, you know, 10 surgeries in 10 years. So I've had my my share of pain. But in all those things, despair never hit me. One thing I've learned about despair is you don't know when it's going to hit.
Jeffrey Heine:You could go through, like, the most horrible circumstances, you could be fine, you could you could rejoice in that. I was singing hymns as I was going to visit my dad who I knew at the hospital knowing that he was he was dying or dead. I had joy there. But despair hit me, about 10 years ago when I was in Northern Ireland. Looking back at it, it seemed silly, but it was not at the time.
Jeffrey Heine:I would go to Northern Ireland for about a month every summer, and I would take a team with me. And we had just had Caroline, so she was a newborn. And so Lauren and Caroline were there. And after about 2 weeks of trying to be a new dad, a good husband, a good team leader, I was breaking down. Because I would get up way earlier than anybody.
Jeffrey Heine:I'd go to bed way later than anybody, always making preparations. The ministries that we were working with were imploding and having a lot of conflict there. Caroline would not stop crying. Would not stop. So in in, like, the very few hours that I had for sleep, there would just be crying.
Jeffrey Heine:We didn't know it at the time, but she had a double ear infection. And so she was just screaming. And at this point, we're sleeping in the basement on a mattress, some place sleeping. We're laying down on a mattress listening to just a screaming child after weeks of no sleep. And Lauren gets up and she screams at the top of her lungs, Jesus, help me.
Jeffrey Heine:And she starts packing her luggage. Like, alright. And at that moment, despair hit me be because I realized I am totally out of control. There there's not one area of my life I have control in. I'm I'm failing the team.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm failing my wife. I'm failing my child. I am failing me. My body is breaking apart. I can't provide any comfort to her.
Jeffrey Heine:Hug her? No way. Not at this moment. You know? Speak truth?
Jeffrey Heine:No. Not there is nothing I could do. I saw no way out. And I remember I was like, after she screamed that, I was like, God, that is my prayer, actually. I'm not praying about the missionaries now.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm not praying about anything else now. My prayer is simply, Jesus, help me. And the God who raises the dead began working that resurrection power in us. That's all. Like I said, I was I was comforted with the gospel and that God cares.
Jeffrey Heine:God was with me in the midst of that suffering. As silly as that suffering sounds, I was in despair. No matter where you are, no matter what has happened, it doesn't get more despairing than a tomb. And God brings life to the tomb. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Our father, we don't just worship you right now as God. We worship you as the God who raises the dead. That's the kind of God you are, the god who does the impossible. And, lord, whatever circumstances are happening here, whatever sufferings are present in this room, whatever hopeless situations and crushing anxieties and despair anyone feels here. Lord, you reach into the tomb, and you breathe life.
Jeffrey Heine:Through your spirit, give us faith to believe and grab hold of that. May the gospel be firmly etched in our hearts at this moment, and we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.