The God of All Comfort: His Suffering & Our Comfort
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· 8 viewsSince God comforts us in our affliction, we can comfort others in their affliction with the comfort we have received.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
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.
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 as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
The Apostle Paul knew and understood suffering.
He understood it because he was well acquainted with it.
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.
Paul’s burden’s were so great that they longed for life itself to end.
2 Corinthians 1:9 (ESV)
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.
You can imagine the kind of gloom and darkness that this was for Paul.
Utterly abandoned.
Utterly forsaken.
But this suffering was accomplishing what all suffering does for the Christian.
2 Corinthians 1:9 (ESV)
But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
Paul was NOT able to sing of his circumstances.
His circumstances were bleak and filled with melancholy.
We should pay attention to the way he finds comfort in the midst of his affliction.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
Now it was common in ancient Israel to have a traditional opening of the synagogue blessing.
But notice how Paul reformulates it with explicitly Christian language.
2 Corinthians 1:3 (ESV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...
Paul remembers the fact that God the father has sent God the Son to redeem sinners.
This is the lens that he wants us to read his own suffering through.
The God of Comfort
The God of Comfort
Now comfort is NOT a characteristic of God.
Comfort is NOT what God is like.
But the HOLY, LOVING, GRACIOUS, and MERCIFUL God does comfort people.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
Comfort is what can be described when the LOVING GOD encounters sufferers.
When the GOD of LOVE encounters people who are suffering, then HE comforts them.
Notice another way Paul describes God here.
The Father of Mercies
The Father of Mercies
The Christian, no longer knows God as an enemy.
The Christian now knows God as Father.
The Father, who has poured out his mercy upon sinners.
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
“God has a multitude of all kinds of mercies. As our hearts and the devil are the father of a variety of sins, so God is the father of a variety of mercies. There is no sin or misery that God does not have a mercy for it.”
Notice what else Paul refers to God as....
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
The God of All Comfort
The God of All Comfort
Comes from the root word “παρακαλέω” what we will eventually call the Holy Spirit.
"in the sense of encouragement and strengthening in the midst of troubles”
(Kruse, Colin G. 2015. 2 Corinthians)
The word itself means the lifting of one’s spirit.
The ONE whom God call’s alongside will be sent to us.
The God of mercy who has made his mercy known in Jesus Christ.
The God of mercy has lifted the heads of sinners who have believed on Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
The Father has shown mercy to sinners through the sufferings of Christ.
And now applies that through the comforting work of the Spirit.
Comfort is NOT a part of the character of God.
Comfort is NOT used to describe God, as though He were comfortable.
Comfort describes HOW He interacts with Christians.
He does NOT necessarily remove the affliction.
Rather He comforts us in spite of the affliction.
2 Corinthians 1:4 (ESV)
who comforts us in all our affliction,
The Holy Spirit’s role is to comfort those who are in affliction.
The afflictions can be various....
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
The afflictions that Paul describes here could encompass everyday afflictions.
to the most extreme imprisonments.
From the most minor frustration to the death of a loved one.
Since God comforts us in our affliction, we can comfort others in their affliction with the comfort we have received.
God’s Purpose in Affliction
God’s Purpose in Affliction
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.
The purpose that Paul gives for why God comforts those in affliction is that they may be able to comfort others who are in affliction.
This can be seen initially, with the way the apostles viewed their own affliction.
They did not see their afflictions as purposeless.
Their afflictions were intentional.
The same truth can be applied to Christians today.
When we are afflicted, we should always see the affliction as purposeful.
God’s direct comfort
God’s direct comfort
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
God’s indirect comfort
God’s indirect comfort
We need to be able to look beyond the current affliction, and see that God is preparing us to comfort others in their affliction.
We are able to comfort others with the comfort we have received.
The comfort and encouragement that we have been given we are able to share with others.
We are only able to give to others what we ourselves have received.
Sink vs. Pipes
A sink is known as something that contains water.
It’s known for its ability to keep and hold water.
A pipe on the other hand is not known for holding water, but for flowing water.
And God has so designed people that we are not meant to be containers, but to be conduits.
We are terrible at holding or keeping glory, but we were made to give glory.
The same is true of comfort.
When we become comfort hungry creatures, we use the comfort for our own self-interest.
We begin to keep and hoard comfort.
But God has so designed us that He give us comfort in our affliction, so that we may comfort others.
The comfort even that we receive is DONE through the means of others.
Since God comforts us in our affliction, we can comfort others in their affliction with the comfort we have received.
How should we think about a person who has been comforted but is still grieving?
It is likely that a person can experience the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and still grieve.
They can still be torn up inside. They can still weep and mourn.
We should not have a concept of the comfort of God that excludes crying crying out in sadness.
As we learned in the book of Job, sometimes the most righteous thing a suffer can do is lament through tears to God.
And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
How can Paul be so confident in this comfort for believers?
For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
Christ’s Sufferings and Our Comfort
Christ’s Sufferings and Our Comfort
When Paul speaks of the sufferings of Christ.
He does NOT have in mind, Christ atoning sacrifice.
He is NOT speaking of Christ’s sacrificial work.
He means the ministerial sufferings, that come in service to Christ.
My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death,
Colossians 1:24 (ESV)
in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
It’s not as though Christ’s sufferings are insufficient as much as Paul see’s his own sufferings as the continuation of Christ’s.
Paul sees himself as filling up the sufferings of Christ as the body of Christ continues to suffer here in this life.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound for us, so also our comfort abounds through Christ
Think about it this way…
When an unbeliever suffers…
they are tokens of the curse of God, because they arise from sin, and nothing appears in them except the anger of God and participation with Adam, which cannot but depress the mind.
But for the believer....
Suffering does NOT create more hostility toward God.
Just the opposite.
believers are conformed to Christ, and bear about with them in their body his dying, that the life of Christ may one day be manifested in them.
Romans–Galatians Response
It is through pain and affliction that we experience God himself, the God of all comfort, who proved in Christ (who himself went through death and out the other side) that it is in the pain, not on the other side of it, that we taste God’s very heart and inhale his deepest consolations.
But what ends up happening in our suffering.
We try to numb the pain through other means.
We try to dull the pain by clinging to lesser things.
The problem with this is we tend to be too self-focused.
We tend to be too focused on ourselves when another is suffering around us.
We tend to move away from other people.
We think “I don’t know what to say to them, so it’s best I just avoid them.”
Or we tend to be like Job’s friends and open our mouths too quickly without giving thought to our words.
We say things like, “Don’t worry, things will get better.”
Or “God will use this.”
But what if we began to see that the comfort with which we have been comforted with, we are meant to comfort others with.
What if we began to see that what sufferers need in the life of the Church is Spirit indwelt, Christ-followers, to move toward them.
We need to see that when we come to people who are suffering, we are not bringing ourselves.
We are bringing the very comfort of Jesus Christ.
The Assurance of Comfort
The Assurance of Comfort
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.
Notice why Paul says that their hope for ultimate comfort is unshaken.
The hope is reliable because of the following reasons found in two different situations.
Comfort When We Are Afflicted
Comfort When We Are Afflicted
2 Corinthians 1:6 (ESV)
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation;
The apostolic logic is that if they are afflicted, then their afflictions purpose is for comfort and salvation to those who hear.
Suffering and affliction are never meaningless.
There is always a greater purpose happening underneath suffering, part of that purpose is for individuals to receive comfort themselves, as well as to share that comfort with others.
For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
This means for us when we participate in the sufferings of Christ, comfort is ours.
The same comfort that allow Paul and Silas to sing in prison can be ours
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,
Comfort When We Are Comforted
Comfort When We Are Comforted
2 Corinthians 1:6 (ESV)
and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
Paul continues and says that if the apostles are comforted, then it is for those who have received comfort that they are comforted.
This is only experienced when a person patiently endures suffering.
Our Firm Hope
Our Firm Hope
Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
Paul’s vision for the Christian is that of LIGHT and LOVE.
Paul for Everyone: 2 Corinthians The God of All Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:1–7)
Light enough to see how to move forward from tragedy to glory; love enough to know that one is held in the divine embrace which will not only comfort in the present but remain faithful and victorious into the future.
If this was Paul’s hope, it should be ours.
If this was Paul’s firm hope, then it can be ours.
Barnhouse Example of A Shadow vs. A Vehicle
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Since God comforts us in our affliction, we can comfort others in their affliction with the comfort we have received.