Sermon: The Christian’s Outlook in Suffering

Did you take a copy of God's word this morning? And we will turn open to the book of Second Corinthians. If you want to use a Pew Bible, a Bible right in front of you, you can grab it and turn right to page 964 in the Pew Bible, 964 this morning as we continue our way through Second Corinthians, looking at Second Corinthians 1:8-11. Second Corinthians 1:8-11 this morning. Again, 964 in the Pew Bible.

Let's go ahead and we will pray and ask for God's blessing upon the read and preached word this morning.

Father, we come before you this morning in all humility,

saying that our thoughts are not like your thoughts.

We do not think as we should. We do not know as much as we think. We confess this morning that our hearts are often astray, that our spirits are often languishing. And so we come before you as beggars this morning, but not mere beggars, but as children, asking that you would speak to us in your fatherly compassion, and that you would teach us your ways, oh Lord, and you would teach us about yourself. That we find that we have heard your sovereign, gracious, true voice from the

heavens today. We pray all this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. This morning, Second Corinthians 1:8-11, this is the holy, inerrant, sufficient word of God.

"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. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. 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 in our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many." Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

There's a school that not many of us want to attend, but it is part of the Christian life, and that is the school of affliction. It is a great teacher, maybe it is the best of teachers. We're going to see that in the text this morning, and every single one of us is either in the school of affliction, or we've graduated a class or two in the school of affliction, or we're about ready to enroll in the school of affliction.

And so there is much to learn from Paul, who himself is in the school of affliction in this text, and I think much that we will benefit from this morning. Four points. First, Paul's affliction. Second, God in Paul's affliction. Third, Paul's hope in this God. And then finally, Paul's request. So first, Paul's affliction. There is a kind of living that I think is more often present among us than we would want to admit, that is anything

but Christian living, though it passes as a kind of Christian living. But it's more akin, I would argue, to atheistic living. That kind of living in which you and I have some kind of confidence in the flesh, that there's grit, that there's determination, hard work, bodily strength, mere kind of a mental fortitude, a kind of constitution, personal constitution, self-esteem. That's a kind of living that impresses our fellow man for a season, but it is like

a vapor, it disappears.

Listen, personal constitution, hard work, grit, mental fortitude, they're good, but they're not good alone. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, speaking about himself in relation to the other apostles, he said, "I worked harder than any of them." But he didn't stop there. "Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." Paul knows that hard work does not matter if it's in his strength. Grit doesn't matter if it's in your strength.

Determination doesn't matter if it's in your strength.

And God in our passage shows Paul he cannot rely upon his strength. You notice the words, verse eight, "We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength." He tells him of his weakness. Why? Because he's embraced his weakness. Why do such a thing? We're going to examine that from the text this morning. We don't know the affliction that Paul is referring to that he experienced in Asia. He suffered many different afflictions.

Bible scholars have spilled a lot of ink trying to argue for one circumstance or one scenario or another that he is referring to. But Paul's emphasis is not how he suffered, but the extent of the suffering. Suffering that he says, utterly burdened beyond our strength. And maybe you've experienced that. You know when you have. When the afflictions of life are so severe that it feels as though all of your strength has been dried up,

you got nothing left, you're depleted.

Maybe it's physically, rising from bed, walking up the stairs, things that you took for granted now feel like a monumental task. Or maybe it's mental. You used to be able to sit down and read for two hours at a time, and now you sit down and you can't concentrate for five minutes. And remembering things? Oh my goodness. Or maybe it's emotionally and spiritually, like Paul was possibly alluding to here. You're weary. People ask, "Are you tired?" And you're thinking,

"That's not the word for it. My bones ache. I got nothing."

You hear about someone else and their affliction, and you're unaffected, not because you don't care, but because you got nothing more to give.

Maybe even to pray feels like a mountain that is too high to climb You know the benefits, you know that you need it, you know the balm that it is, and yet even getting on your knees and praying a few sentences feels like a chore.

Paul, in his ministry, is so inundated with affliction that every human natural strength he has is depleted. He says in verse eight, "We despaired of life itself."

I thought about this a lot over the years in life and in ministry. Was Paul wrong here?

Was he in some kind of sin? Despaired of life itself.

He says in Philippians, he will say, "To live is Christ, to die is gain." There's a right kind of despairing of life, of even wishing for death because you want to see Christ, you want to be with Christ, or you want to be out from underneath the bondage, set free from the bondage of sin in this world. But here's where we have to be careful. We're to fight thoughts of despair that lead to think about taking our life or throwing in the towel on life because God is the giver of life.

He has numbered our days, and the afflictions that I'm experiencing are by the hand of the God of providence.

Job will say in Job 7, he says, "I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life."

And yet he doesn't take his life. He doesn't allow that sudden despair to seize him, and grip him, and dominate him. But the question still comes, so was he wrong to be filled with despair for life?

It's interesting that you get to the end of the Book of Job and God doesn't chastise Job for saying such, but he does chastise Job's friends for the counsel that they offered in the midst of Job's affliction. There's a fatherly compassion that marks God's response to Job. But it's not just Job. He does this a number of times in the scriptures. Jonah, Moses, Elijah, all despaired of life.

Spurgeon, who battled severe melancholy, said of his own sorrows, he said this, "I could say with Job, 'My soul chooseth strangling rather than life.' I could readily enough have laid violent hands upon myself to escape from my misery of spirit." But he didn't,

and neither did Job, neither did Elijah, neither did Jonah, neither did Moses, neither did Paul. They're all honest with their despair, but they did not give in to that despair.

So this isn't failure on Paul's part. It's not sin on his part. It's simply human finitude reaching exhaustion levels. He's weak.

And here's news, you're weak.

Paul was brought to the point where he felt as though it was beyond his ability to keep going on, but he kept going on.

Despair was not final. In fact, he uses this word only twice. He used it here in 2 Corinthians 1, then he uses it again in chapter four. There he says this, "We are afflicted in every way." Sounds familiar. But then he says this, "But not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair." Wait a second. He says, here, we despaired. You get to chapter four, he says we weren't driven to despair. Is he being inconsistent? No.

What Paul is doing is he's making it clear that the despair that he experienced was limited. He didn't remain that way.

The despair of God's people is always limited. You don't remain that way. It's limited how? It's not limited by finding some reserve of strength that you didn't know that you had within and pulling it up and pulling it out. He already told us that he was burdened beyond his strength. It's not from within that it's limited. It's limited from without, by someone else, someone outside of him, which is where Paul leads us now. Our second point,

God in Paul's affliction. He's not alone.

He's filled with despair, but he found comfort from the God of all comfort, as he calls him in verse three. He explains it in verse nine. "But that," the despair, "the despair was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." Calvin commented upon Paul's need to undergo such suffering, and he said this. He said, "For Paul was a man that was subject in other respects to like passions as other men, not merely to cold and heat, but also to misdirected

confidence, rashness, and the like. I do not say that he was addicted to these vices, but that he was capable of being tempted to them, and that this was the remedy that God seasonably interposed." Utterly burdened beyond his strength, felt he had received the sentence of death, but he sees the purpose of it. He sees God behind it and in it. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God.

The greatest affliction of humanity is the compulsion to have control.

But you and I in control would be the worst of all possible worlds, whereas when we yield to God, that is the best of all possible worlds. And Paul's come to the end of himself. He's come to the end of himself, and he's been forced to look up because he's got nothing left, and he's just looking to the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort in utter dependence.

It's a good place to be.

What Paul did not have, he found God supplied. The hard providence of God often enter our life for this purpose. When he came to the end of himself, he found that God was sufficient. Not a little bit of Paul and a little bit of God, but God alone sufficient.

And that's the trick, isn't it?

When we find God alone sufficient. Now we employ what he has given to us. We employ the knowledge that we have. We employ the strength that we do have. We employ the fortitude that we do have. We employ the wisdom that we do have. But in and of ourselves, we're lost. And we recognize that all of those things, anything that I have, it's only that I have it because it's a gift from the giver of all good gifts. It's from him.

He alone is sufficient.

In Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Christian and Faithful have a companion, Ignorance, that will walk with them, but Ignorance never makes it into the Celestial City. Do you know why? Because he relies on self.

Paul found that this hard providence that led to despair was actually for his good. Warren Wiersbe made the comment, he said, "Paul may have despaired of life, but God did not despair of Paul." You sang it this morning. He will hold me fast. God kept him, the God of all comfort. Wiersbe said, "When God puts his children into the furnace, he keeps his hand on the thermostat and his eye on the thermometer." That is, God safeguards his

own. Now, as he pointed out, sometimes God delivers us from our trials, and at other times he delivers us in our trials. Daniel was delivered from his trial, being delivered out of the lions' den. Polycarp was delivered in his trial, being brought out of the fires of martyrdom straight to heaven itself. But they're both kept by God.

He safeguards his own. Suffering and affliction direct us to the one who is worthy of our trust, and it's not self.

I want to stop here. I had a few of you approach me after last week's sermon, and you asked, "What do I do if I haven't suffered much?" I love it. Good question. It's the right heart behind it. And I'll tell all of you the same things I told those few people last week. Well, first, you thank God, because that's a mercy as well. But the other is that you prepare,

because it's coming. You don't have to look for it. It's coming. It's just a matter of time. So how do you prepare? Well, you pray to prepare.

You pray individually. If you have a family, you pray with your family, and you pray prayers like this regularly. "Lord, when the suffering comes, help me to hold you as you hold me. Father, when the suffering, when the affliction, when the trial comes, would you be a God, a Father of all comforts to me, and help me to hope in you?" You pray in preparation. You also read in preparation. You read the scriptures. You read of Daniel and Esther

and Hosea and Jeremiah and Anna and Peter and Paul and Jesus, and how they persevered in their suffering. And you surround yourself with that cloud of witnesses so that you're ready, so that you hear their voices. This is what it looks like. But not just them. You read good Christian biographies now to feed your soul in preparation. You read about Perpetua, and you read about Polycarp, and you read about Wycliffe and Hus, and you read about David Brainerd, and you

read about John Calvin, and you read about Corrie ten Boom, and you read about Amy Carmichael, and you read about Adoniram Judson and John Paton, and you surround yourself with all of these saints, these brothers and sisters, that cloud of witnesses around you, so that when the suffering comes, you can say, "You remember Corrie ten Boom? Remember she... You remember how John Paton in that tree that night, prayed through the night,

and they were seeking to eat him below."

All that preparation is to inform your faith. But it's aimed at one foundational confession and hope. Notice how Paul phrases it here. "Rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead." Not just a God who comforts in our affliction, but delivers from this affliction. He raises the dead. That's not throwaway language. That's the essence of all of Paul's hope. So our third point, Paul's hope in this God. He feels as though he's a dead man walking, maybe not even walking.

Verse eight, "Despaired of life itself." Verse nine, "Received the sentence of death." But he has a God who raises the dead. You see, the resurrection is not simply an Easter theme. It's central and at the very core of the entire Christian life. That as you go through afflictions and as you go through hard troubles, it feels like this weight is unbearable. It's just weighing you down. Look at how heavy this affliction is.

Imagine a scale, those old scales, and you put your afflictions, when it's a heavy affliction, on this side of the scale, and all of a sudden that scale just goes down. But what do you put on this side? It's so heavy, it weighs a life down. What do you put on this side? A little Pollyannish attitude. "Well, I'll make it. Things are good. There's good things." Or is it, "I'm going to buck it up by my bootstraps. I've made it through before." I bet you have.

"I'll make it through it again." Heavy. But what do you do? And you put all those there, and you could stack them up. I have some fortitude. I have some constitution about me. You could press down on all those things, and it doesn't make this light at all.

It doesn't make it in any way like the weight of a feather. But you put the resurrection on that side, and it doesn't just make it level, it upends the scales.

He's conquered death.

He's conquered death.

The enemy was slain.

Here's our answer, where we would find comfort, refuge, strength, endurance, hope. This enemy, whatever it may be, whatever this affliction is, a troubled marriage, the loss of a child, unemployment, a malignant tumor, the slander of others. But whatever it is, the answer to that weight is the resurrection. He defeated death, the last enemy. All of these enemies are being laid as a footstool beneath his feet. All of them

Paul found himself saying, "Oh, bring in my savior, my savior triumphed over the grave."

He found himself relying upon God who raises the dead. He's worthy of my hope.

And let's be clear, this is so crucial. It's not raised in the past tense here. It's in the present tense. God who raises the dead. He raises the dead. Paul's experience of affliction was tantamount to death, and the salvation that God gave him in the midst of that affliction is tantamount to resurrection. Our God, the true God, raises his people out of their soul-crushing, spirit-draining, life-extinguishing circumstances.

That's Paul's God. That's my God. That's the God of the scriptures. That's the only true God.

But you'll notice Paul doesn't stop there. He says, verse 10, "He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us." Again, you sang it this morning. He will hold me fast. He promises that. Jesus said, "I gave them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the hands of the Father." Paul's God,

our God, doesn't lose what He has purchased. If He has delivered you from death, He will deliver you from every affliction.

How many of us in this room, should I say, if you've been raised from the dead, how many of us would put our hands up in the air? Now if I said, "Okay, Maggie, how many times have you been raised? Lewis, how many times have you been raised? Linda, how many times have you been raised?" There would be testimonies all over this room. Well, I was raised here and here and here and here.

The resurrection doesn't simply balance the scales, it upends them. Notice Paul's confidence that stretches through the reaches of time, verse 10. He uses deliver three times. He delivered us. That's the known past. He will deliver us. That's the near future. He will deliver us again. That's the distant future. What's the Christian's outlook in the midst of suffering? It's this refrain. It's the chorus that should go over and over in your head. He delivered me.

He will deliver me. He will deliver me again. He delivered, will deliver, will deliver again.

On Him, we have set our hope.

I often pray for people that I'm ministering to, I often pray, "Lord, would you bring them to the end of themselves?"

You say, "Well, that feels like a harsh prayer. Maybe even a little mean." No, it's filled with love.

It's only when you and I get to the end of ourselves, we feel like our strength has been dried up, we got nothing left to give, we feel like we have the sentence of death, that finally you are in a place where all you do, all you can do, because you got nothing left, is look up in dependence.

And it's the best place to be. It's the safest ground to be on.

It's not easy, though. Paul recognizes there's a challenge in this. Again, he's weak, so even as he looks to Christ alone, so he implores the Corinthians to assist him in verse 11, "Also, you must help us." How? How are they to help him? That's our final point, Paul's request, and it's one thing. Pray for us. Prayer.

Now, this might be confusing because he said, "Look, I'm dependent upon God alone." He's come to the end of himself. He finds his hope is in God, and God is sufficient. Why now is he asking these brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for him? Why does he need anything from them when he is entrusting himself alone to the sovereign God and says He's sufficient? Well, because God in His sovereign grace has chosen to use prayer, the prayers of

His people, to accomplish His sovereign purposes in the world. It's an amazing privilege. I don't completely understand it. There's mystery to it. I'll grant you that, but it's how He chooses to work.

So Paul asks them to pray. Philip Hughes said it this way, he said it well. He said, "In prayer, human impotence casts itself at the feet of divine omnipotence. Thus, the duty of prayer is not a modification of God's power, but a glorification of it." And that's right. We witness brothers and sisters go through a severe time of affliction, and we have a natural inclination to want to do something practical, and so we think about

sending a card, or we say, "Can I bring you a meal?" Or you see them, and you're like, "Can I just give you a hug?" And those are all good things, but they're not the greatest thing. The greatest thing is prayer. It's the most practical thing. It's the most needed thing. It's the most accomplishing thing.

It's how we help to carry one another's burdens. In fact, the word that Paul uses here in verse 11 that's translated in your ESV as must help us, it's one word in the Greek, but it's one word that Paul has taken three words, and he's just sandwiched them together. It's the only time you will find this word, and the three words that he is sandwiching together are working, together, support. Isn't that a beautiful word picture? Working, together, support.

Pray with me. Work with me, together, supporting. How? By prayer. Through prayer. Through prayer, they're not only participating in his apostolic mission, they're actually helping to carry his burden of affliction with him.

We can do a lot for one another. Nothing is more important than prayer. Literally, we walk alongside one another and carry one another's burdens on our knees.

For the people of God, the school of affliction is a halfway house. It's not the final destination, and you're not an orphan in it. You have God as your Father, the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort.

This is the school of affliction. It's just a boarding school. You're only there for a little while. It comes to an end. And He, this God of all mercies and God of all comfort, He's worthy of your trust, and He's worthy of your hope. He raises the dead.

This school is not a permanent place.

You graduate from it. And so what do you do? You just keep looking to Him. You keep relying on Him. Not on yourself, on Him. You keep persevering by faith in this one who raises the dead, who has delivered you, who will deliver you, and who will deliver you again. That's Paul's God. That's the Christian God. That's the only God.

This God of all comfort and all mercies. You can pray for us.

Father, we are thankful

You have not left us destitute in a fallen world ravaged by sin and the effects of sin. You have not left us to our own strength and lack thereof. But as a Father of all mercies and God of all comfort,

that You sent Your Son to live and to die and be buried, and then You raised Him from the grave, and that we have sealed to us Your covenant promises, not simply by word, but by the very blood of Your Son and the very evidence of His resurrection, that You are a Father from whom mercies ever flow, and a Son whose life

is eternal and evermore, and He is in us, and we are in Him. May You keep our eyes upon You till that day when we see Him and see Him as He is and become like Him, and every tear shall be wiped away, and there shall no longer be death or disease nor mourning any longer. We shall reign with Him eternally, who has purchased us. We pray all this in His strong name, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.