EXCHANGE YOUR HURT FOR COMFORT

Introduction

-[2 Corinthians]

-At Christmas we sometimes find ourselves with presents that don’t fit or work, so we take them back to the store or send them back to Amazon to exchange them for something else. During this Christmas season, our sermon series is about making that kind of exchange. But instead of fun Christmas gifts, what we want to exchange are thought patterns and dispositions that keep us from living effectively for Christ and His kingdom. Last week I spoke about exchanging your worry for trust in God.

-Today I want to talk about exchanging your hurt. Suffering and troubles (for the most part) are not things that we choose to go through. There are those times when our own bad choices bring us hurt and pain, but I’m talking about when life just happens and some sort of tribulation comes your way that you didn’t ask for and you weren’t expecting. It could be a health issue or a money issue or a relationship issue or a loss of some sort.

-We might think that since these things happen to us through no fault of our own, that they cannot become spiritually harmful to us. If I didn’t choose this, there’s not much I can do about it. We can understand how worry would be a problem, because we choose to worry rather than trust; so, we need to exchange worry for trust. We think that since I didn’t choose the hurt, it’s not my problem. But what we do in the hurt and with the hurt is the problem. You may not have chosen the hurt, but you choose what you do with it, how it affects you and your walk with God, and how it affects your choices and attitudes. You choose to live out of the hurt or on the basis of the hurt instead of choosing to live in spite of the hurt.

-You choose to let the hurt be the determining factor on how you live. And instead of dealing with the hurt in a healthy manner, a biblical manner, you cling to it, use it as an excuse, or use it as a crutch. Some cannot fathom living life without clinging to the hurt, and they feel justified in doing so. This thing happened to me, so now my life is going to be defined by that hurt. You cannot live in a spiritually healthy manner that way. If your hurt defines your life, that means Christ is not.

-Christians are able to make an exchange, for the hurt. Unbelievers have no choice but to let the hurt determine their course. But we Christians are able to exchange the hurt for the eternal comforts of Christ. That doesn’t mean the hurt just magically disappears, but the hurt no longer becomes our identity—who we are in Christ becomes our identity, and we live with the hurt with it being soothed by the wonderful comforts of Christ. So, let’s learn about this exchange...

2 Corinthians 1:3–11 ESV

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. 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, 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.

-[pray]

Let’s answer the question: What spiritual truths can take us on the path to exchange our hurt for comfort?

1) Admit the reality of our hurt

-Some people recognize that they have hurt, but they deny how they’ve let it affect their lives. You think that this incident or that person hasn’t affected you, and yet it’s a determining factor in all that you do. You see this as people cling to the past. How often, when you are in conversation with someone, do they bring up what happened to them in the past over and over and over again. They say they’ve gotten over it, but they still keep bringing it up. That means you haven’t gotten over it. And it means that it hasn’t been dealt with biblically.

-As most 12-step programs say, the first step to healing is admitting there is a problem. Admit that you have hurt and you’ve allowed it to run your life. We find in our passage that Paul admits that he ran into a lot of suffering and trials and hurt. He mentions in v. 8 that he and his compatriots ran into some sort of trouble in Asia that caused a lot of affliction. Unlike a lot of people, Paul doesn’t have a flair for the dramatic. He isn’t looking for attention or sympathy, he’s just stating the facts. Things in Asia were so bad that he lost all strength such that he despaired of life itself and it seemed like he was just going to die.

-This is quite literal, most likely due to his profession of faith in Christ. While we get all dramatic about our hurt, very rarely are we literally going to die. But this is the sufferings that Christ went through, and Paul says that he and we share in those sufferings. Later in the book Paul talks about the whippings and stoning and shipwrecks that he went through. Paul doesn’t deny the hurt and suffering, but Paul’s life isn’t identified with that hurt and suffering. If you are human, you have experienced hurt, and we admit that reality. None of us is unique. But if the hurt is a driving force in our life, we have to admit that too. It will not just go away because you ignore it.

-A guy went to the doctor and complained of his head and neck hurting terribly. The doctor looked at him and noticed that he had a large, heavy goose sitting on his head. The doctor asked the man how long the goose had been sitting on his head, and the guy replied, “What goose?” The doctor told him if he wanted to stop hurting, he’d have to remove the goose off of his head. But the man was adamant that there was no goose on his head. The man left the doctor’s office still in pain because he denied the cause of the pain, and therefore refused the treatment.

-If you’re hurt is a driving force in your life but you deny it’s a driving force in your life, you won’t know to seek the remedy. And thankfully there is a remedy...

2) Acquire the remedy for our hurt

-Paul praises God because, in His mercy, God comforts people in their hurt and affliction. This is what God offers to the hurting—He offers His comfort. The word comfort is used at least 10 times in this passage. You have hurt and affliction, but God offers comfort. Give God your hurt, and He will give you His comfort.

-The word used for comfort is related to the word PARACLETE. It refers to God having a fruitful presence and support in a time of human crisis—it is His concrete intervention in the midst of hurt. That means that God is active as He walks alongside the hurting. The comfort of God is not merely God patting you on the head saying THERE THERE. It means He works in your life through various means to walk you through the trouble. He might comfort through His Word, through the ministry of others, through the church, or through His Holy Spirit. When your hurt has you feeling worried, feeling lonely, feeling tired and weary, or feeling discouraged, God offers comfort. What do we learn about this comfort?

-First, notice that it says in v. 4 that God comforts in all affliction. There is no hurt that you go through that God will not offer you consolation to help you walk through it. There is no situation that a human can experience where God will not offer this comfort. Don’t think your hurt is so unique that even God can’t help. He can and He will. That does not mean that He makes the hurt go away. But God’s comfort is Him actively working in your life to assist and encourage you in the hurt so that it’s not the driving force in your life, but Christ is.

-Next, notice that God’s comfort has no ending. In v. 5 Paul admits that we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, but then in Christ we also share abundantly in Christ’s comfort. God is a God without limits. We are told throughout Scripture that His grace through Jesus Christ is without bounds—we are not able to sin so much that God runs out of grace to give us. In the same manner, we cannot experience so much hurt that God runs out of comfort. The more hurt you have, the more comfort He has to give.

-Next, the comfort that we receive for current hurts gives us faith that God will provide comfort for future hurts. In v. 10 Paul testified that God helped Him walk through that trouble in Asia, and now Paul has hope and faith that whatever else will come his way, God will be able to comfort him in those future trials as well. Ultimately, deliverance comes at our death, but until then we can rest assured that whatever comes our way our God will actively comfort us through those times.

-Finally, I want you to consider that the comfort we receive for our hurt has its basis on the gospel of Jesus Christ. If God is able to heal us from our deepest wound (which is sin), He is more than capable of comforting us in the rest of our afflictions. Just like salvation did not take away the presence of sin in our earthly life, neither will His comfort take away the hurt. But by faith we can rest assured that God will walk with us in encouragement so that it is not the driving force in how we live.

-We have to beware our natural tendencies of looking at the things of the world to numb the pain from the hurt. We turn to entertainment or sin to get our mind off of it, we turn to drugs and alcohol to numb it, but the hurt cannot and will not subside by these methods. The devil knows that if He can either get you to obsess over your hurt or get obsessed over numbing the hurt, He has neutralized you from being effective for the Kingdom. When all you do is live to hurt or live to hide the hurt, all you’re doing is existing, you’re not living. And there’s a big difference between the two. Instead, run to the comforter.

-But we also notice that God can do a great work in our life through the hurt and the comfort...

3) Acknowledge the results from our hurt

-God can use our hurt and the comfort He gives to grow us and to fulfill His work on earth. That is why we are told that for those who love God, God can work together for good anything that goes on in our lives. We think of Joseph—he was hurt by his brothers by being sold into slavery, being falsely accused of rape, and being forgotten to rot in prison. And yet God raised him up to a position of prominence to save the people during a time of famine. And we think of Christ, dying as the innocent sacrifice to save people from their sins. God used Christ’s hurt for our salvation. God can use our hurt and His comfort in similar ways.

-According to v. 6, one way that God can use His comfort for our hurt is to give us patient endurance. We often speak of the Christian life as a marathon as opposed to a 100 meter dash. To successfully run a marathon you must build the endurance for that great distance. For the Christian, our entire life is the journey. We are not serving God and His kingdom in bits and pieces (or several 100 meter dashes), but over the long haul (the marathon). When we go to God with our hurt, and allow Him to comfort us in the walk, we are building endurance to live a successful and victorious Christian life that God can use to further His purposes.

-But not only do we gain endurance, through His comfort of our hurt we learn to rely on God. According to v. 9, Paul recognized that God used that situation in Asia so he would learn not to rely on himself but on the God who raises the dead. In our trials and sufferings, we learn that we do not have control and we do not know the future. We have no strength in ourselves to help us cope, and the coping mechanisms that the world offers are nothing but a band-aid. We cannot lean on our own strength because we have none. So, later in this letter, Paul tells us the lesson he learned through His hurt and then running to God for comfort. Paul learned that God’s strength is actually made perfect in our lives through our weaknesses. Where our hurt and suffering and weakness abound, God’s comfort and grace abound even more. In our weakness and vulnerability through the hurts of this world, we actually become stronger because all of our self-confidence and self-reliance and self-indulgence are stripped from us, and we are forced to rely on the only one who has strength.

-But another result that Paul repeats in this passage is that after we receive comfort from God for our hurt, we are then equipped to be able to pass that same comfort along to others. For example, in v. 4, Paul says that he received comfort in affliction so that he would be able to comfort any in the Corinthian church with the same comfort he received from God. And in v. 6 he recognizes that the hurt and affliction, along with the comfort, that he receives are for the benefit of others. The comfort we receive from God in our times of pain are not just for us, but are a way of using us as God’s tool of comfort for those who are going through some hurting.

-This is true in a general sense in that we can generally give comfort to people. But I believe it is true in a specific sense. When we receive comfort for a specific affliction, we are better equipped to be a tool of comfort to those who experience the same. Paul was afflicted by persecution for his faith, and God comforted him through it. But then he was better equipped to be a tool of comfort for others who were also being persecuted for the faith. Many of you have experienced a hurt and God’s comfort, and you can now be used to offer the same.

-It wasn’t until I went through my dad having cancer, being in the hospital constantly, and then dying that I could be a pastor who is able to comfort those who are going through the same. As a pastor I can give a general comfort to you through what you experience, but those who have gone through the same things and received God’s comfort will make better comforters than me. I have never experienced divorce, but many here have and are able to tools of comfort. I have never experienced a miscarriage, but many here have and are able to be tools of comfort. And that list is boundless.

-Our hurt and the comfort we receive can be used of God to result in greater things in our lives and the lives of others. But finally and very quickly, I want to note how to...

4) Access the road to our healing

-After Paul talks about the affliction in Asia, in v. 11 he notes that the help from the church came through prayer. The prayers of the church helped Paul find the comfort that he needed in his time of pain. We talk about finding our comfort in God, but how do we seek that comfort for ourselves and for others? We access that comfort through prayer. In the book of Hebrews we are told to approach the throne of grace so we are able to find the mercy and comfort we need in our time of need. We cannot expect to find comfort from God by wringing our hands and fretting and worrying. When we hurt, we go to the Lord in prayer and there we find the comfort we need.

-I think of King Hezekiah. The king received a letter from the Assyrians that basically said that the Israelites have no hope in being delivered from their hands. The Israelites will either be doomed or become slaves, so there is no reason to put any hope in their government or their God, because nothing will be able to help them. What did Hezekiah do? He took that letter to the temple and laid it out before the Lord and prayed over it. And God gave Hezekiah comfort and strength to endure what was to come. Later in life, Hezekiah was told to put his affairs in order because God was going to take his life from him. That’s devastating news—God is saying you are going to die. What did Hezekiah do? He went to the Lord in prayer. Hezekiah knew that no matter the affliction, he was always able to find his strength and comfort from the Lord by going in prayer.

-We are blessed to be able to do the same. I don’t know the burden that you are carrying, but I know the one that wants to take that burden and give you His comfort. He is faithful and true and wants you to come to Him in your time of need.

CONCLUSION

-I’’l close with this thought:

Elisha Hoffman was a son of a preacher who himself became a Presbyterian minister in Pennsylvania. For a pastime he began to write hymns for churches, many of which were inspired by his experiences as a pastor. One day he was ministering to the down and out of Lebanon, Pennsylvania. There he met a woman whose hurt and depression seemed beyond cure. She opened her heart and poured on him all her hurts and sorrows. Wringing her hands, she cried, “What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?” Hoffman knew what she should do, for he had himself learned the deeper lessons of God’s comfort. He said to the woman, “You cannot do better than to take all your sorrows [and pains] to Jesus. You must tell Jesus.”

Suddenly the lady’s face lighted up. “Yes!” she cried, “That’s it! I must tell Jesus.” Her words echoed in Hoffman’s ears, and he mulled them over as he returned home. He drew out his pen and started writing, I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! / I cannot bear my burdens alone; / I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! / Jesus can help me, Jesus alone. [a hymn that has been sung for many centuries now]

-Christian, exchange your hurt for God’s comfort. How? You must tell Jesus, you must tell Jesus. Come to the altar today, give Him your hurt. Don’t let your hurt determine your life any longer. Instead, take on His comfort.

-But if you are not a Christian, your hurt and sorrow will follow you all your life and into eternity. Find eternal comfort for you soul by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and being saved...