Ron Dunn Podcast - An Adequate View of Suffering

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

From the sermon series "In Praise Of Weakness"

Thank you. Thank you, Jamil. Thank you, John. Johnny. You're Jamil. No, you're Jamal. I was hoping I wouldn't start off with a senior moment. Yes, I know who you are. Well, it's good to see all of you this morning, and welcome back to the Bible conference and we trust that God will give us a great week and one of the great weeks. We pray every year that God will do more and more because there's already always more and more to be done, at least in my life. I don't know about yours. I will not speak for you, but I will speak for me.

And I pray that God will minister to me this week as much or more than I am able to minister to others. I want you to open your Bibles this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. And in the five sessions that I have with you this week, I'm going to be speaking from 2 Corinthians. It is a book that has intrigued me so much lately, and I find that for those of us who are serious about living the Christian life and and serving our Lord. This book has a great deal to say to us, and we overlook it or ignore it to our own misfortune.

So I'll begin reading with verse 1 and read through verse 7. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout Achaia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the normal opening of Paul's letters. But he is excited about something, and this is a very emotional introduction. Beginning with verse 3, 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 will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. Or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers, are partners in our sufferings, so also you are partners of our comfort.

After a visit to the United States, the German theologian Helmut Felicke was asked, what do you think of American Christians? He answered, they have an inadequate view of suffering. That was a theme that stood out in his mind. Of course, I have an idea that most Christians in Europe and Asia and Africa would agree that Americans have an inadequate view of suffering. Because we in reality have had to do so little of it. Not yet, I think the day is coming, but not yet have we been persecuted for our faith. Not yet in this country have we died for our faith. Not yet in this country have we had to go to jail for preaching the gospel. I believe the day may well be coming when that will happen, but not yet. And I think by and large we have an inadequate

view of suffering. Actually, the Corinthians certainly did. If Paul had been asked, what do you think of the Corinthians? I think he would have said they have an inadequate view of suffering. And there is significance that in the opening of this letter, he immediately begins talking about suffering, affliction, and the comfort that comes with it. Once he makes the necessary salutations in verses 1 and 2, then he immediately dives into this subject. He is doing this to call attention, the Corinthians' attention to this matter of suffering. And Paul's purpose is to set suffering right in the divine perspective, to show them suffering from the divine perspective.

You see, as I've studied this 2 Corinthians, I've often thought this is a preacher fighting for his job. Because Paul had founded and pastored the church at Corinth, but Paul's relationship with the church at Corinth was always stormy. There were always people who were accusing him of fickleness and those accusing him of this and this and this and that. And now some lately, Johnny come lately, super apostles, he calls them in chapter 11, super apostles, self-proclaimed super apostles have come in, and they are trying to dislodge the Corinthians and their commitment from Paul. And they're trying to downplay Paul's ministry,

and they are suggesting that he was not a true apostle of Jesus Christ, but they were. Now, one of the charges, and we're going to see some of the charges against Paul, it's very interesting and so up to date, one of the charges was that no man who suffered like Paul had suffered could be a true apostle. You see, the Corinthians believed in triumphalism. Now, I believe in a triumphant Christianity, whereby by God's grace we overcome the slings and arrows that are thrown at us. But there's a difference between believing in a triumphant Christianity and a triumphalism.

A triumphalism view of Christianity means that we have already arrived and that by faith and prayer and with the right words, we can rise above all the frailties of this earth. And we do not need to suffer. We do not need to be sick. We do not need to be persecuted. We can always be healthy and wealthy. And these apostles came in and said, look at all the sufferings that Paul has gone through.

Look at all the hardships he has endured. That's not the mark of a true apostle. And the Corinthians believed in this triumphalism that they could rise above all of this stuff, you see, and not be touched by it because they had the right formulas and they had the right words. And these apostles, super apostles, came in and encouraged them in that belief. And that's not far from relevant today,

that there are a great many Christians who have a triumphalism type of belief that they have arrived and that through faith and work, faith and prayer, they have managed to lift themselves above all of the common problems of this day. And when they see somebody suffering or see somebody going through intense persecution or affliction, they sort of say to themselves, well, they just didn't know how to pray.

Or they somehow or another just didn't know how to plead the blood. somehow or another just didn't know how to plead the blood. Or somehow or another didn't know how to rebuke the devil. I remember when our son died in 1975, we had a fellow in our church, not a member of our church. He was visiting, unfortunately, for about a year. And he came up to me and he said, Well, I guess you know now how important it would have been for you to pray in tongues. In other words, my son would have been spared if I'd been praying for him in tongues. But just praying for him in English, no, that wouldn't get the job done. And so there are many Christians today who may not go to that extreme, but somehow maybe we preachers are to blame.

That once we trust Christ and affiliate ourselves with Him and commit our lives to Him, that suddenly we become immune to the everyday problems of the world. And so we view suffering and affliction as something that can't be right, that man can't be right with God, he cannot be a true apostle. And so Paul immediately launches into this, and one of the central themes of this, if not the central theme of this epistle, is that in our extremity of weaknesses, it is in that extremity

of weakness that the power and grace of God are most greatly magnified, you see. Now the Corinthians would never have believed that. They believed in power, power preaching, power evangelism, power worship. They believed in power, you see. And they thought that weakness was a sign of somehow not having arrived. And yet the emphasis of Paul in this epistle is that it is in the extremity of our weaknesses that the power and grace of God are most mightily magnified. And so what Paul is doing here is trying to give to the Corinthians and to us an adequate view of suffering.

Now, I think that makes sense. You can say whatever you want to, do whatever you want to, say all the formulas you want to, but you're not going to get rid of suffering. It's here to stay, folks. It's an occupational hazard with human beings, and especially with believers. We're not going to get rid of it.

We may deny it, like some do. But, you know, it's like the fellow who was looking at the tombstone and the tombstone said, I am not dead, I'm just asleep. And the fellow looked at it and he said, you ain't fooling nobody but yourself. So we have suffering, we have affliction. Therefore, we need a divine perspective of it. We need to see it as God sees it. We need to have an adequate view. I have six points and 15 minutes. I have 20 minutes. First of all, an adequate

view of suffering teaches us some new things about God. Suffering is one of the greatest educational instruments to inform us about God that there is. You'll notice Paul uses a phrase he's never used before in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice these next two statements. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort. Now this has come from Paul's experience. And he describes this experience in verses 8 through 11

where he went through some great trial. We do not know what it was, but it was so great that he despaired even of his life, and he thought he was going to die, but God came through, and God saved them and delivered them, and Paul says, he will yet deliver me. Paul evidently is still in the midst of this, and out of this comes a doxology, comes a word of praise, something that Paul has not written before, and it is something that he has discovered through his experience of suffering. His suffering has taught him something. It has taught him that God is the Father of the mercies, literally Father of the pityings. Now that indicates God's inward feeling towards all of us. His inward feeling toward us is mercy, and not just one, but mercies. He is the father

of the mercies, the true mercies, the godly mercies. He's the Father and the source of all of those things. And it indicates his feelings towards us. And Paul is understanding that even while he was going through that death-threatening experience in Asia, yet his Father was a Father of all pities and was taking mercy on him and was showing him mercy and was taking pity on him. And so he comes out and says he is the father of all mercies, and that describes his inward feeling.

But then he says, and he is the God of all comfort. Now that's the inward feeling expressed in outward action. In his nature he is the father of all mercies. And in his activity, he is the God of all comfort. And so his suffering taught him something about God, that God is a God of all comfort. And the tenses of the verbs there indicate he is a God who continually comforts us. You could almost say it is a definition of the character of God. He is a comforting God.

It's something he does continually. It's something that is akin to his nature. It would be a strange work to God's nature if he did not comfort those who were in any way afflicted. Now, of course, the word comfort appears, you may want to take the time to count it, but the word comfort appears ten times between verses 3 and 7, which leads me to suspect that comfort may be a key word in this passage. Boy, I'm quick on the uptake. You say something ten times and I get the idea that's what you're talking about. And comfort, of course, is one of those great words.

Pericletus is the Holy Spirit. He is the comforter. The word means to console or encourage or strengthen or comfort. But it is the picture of a person, a friend, standing by your side to assist you in times of severe testing. And what Paul is saying, and he's going to describe all the afflictions that he has gone through, but he said, during all of this time, God has continually stood by my side, giving me assurance and giving me encouragement and giving me comfort.

And this reminds me of what he says in 2 Timothy when he is delivered before Caesar. In 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 16, he says, At my first defense, at my preliminary hearing, no one supported me, but all men deserted me. May it not be counted against them, but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. Where were all those Roman Christians while he was in Rome? Well, on the day that Paul was to appear before Caesar, they found it convenient to be somewhere else. But Paul says, I don't want it to be laid to their charge because he says,

but the Lord, the Lord stood by me and strengthened me. And Paul says, He is the God of all comfort. He is the source of all comfort. It excludes any other kind of comfort and includes all kind of comfort in any situation. It means that God is exclusively, sufficiently, continually

giving us what only He can give us. He is the true source of comfort. Oh, a few months ago, I was getting my hair cut. Now, I have a hard time not calling them barber shops, but I know that you don't call them barber shops. They're salons. And I hate to mention that I've been to a salon.

But a woman cuts my hair. Lord, how far we've come. And so I was in there a few months ago. And she was very quiet. Where she's usually talkative. And one of the other girls was leaving for the day and she passed by and she said to my hairdresser,

she said, good luck in the morning. And I said to her, good luck in the morning. And I said to her, good luck in the morning? What's happening in the morning? And she described to me that a problem she had been having now for several weeks of blacking out, severe headaches, dizziness, unable to walk straight, blanking out of memory, and the doctors had preliminarily thought that she could well have a brain tumor. She was going in the next day, the next morning. They were going to do

the tests. And I said, I'm sorry. And she started crying. And she said, I'm going through a divorce. I didn't know that.

She had talked so much about her husband. They seemed to have such a good relationship. And she just broke down right there in the shop and began to cry. I'll tell you what struck me. That friend leaving the shop gave her a big shot. Good luck. That friend leaving the shop gave her a best shot. Good luck. What comfort. And I took her by the hand and I said, I want you to know that I am going to be praying for you tomorrow.

And I said, and I gave her my home phone number, and I said, her folks live off in Kansas, and I said, if you need anything, I want you to call me if you need to talk, you know, and your mother's not here. Well, Kay's a good mother. She's a young girl. And I don't know. I seem to help her.

But I thought, my soul is the best the world can do when you're facing something like it to say, good luck? That's no comfort. That's no comfort. You see, there is no true comfort outside God. Because God is the only one who can really pierce the human heart and human spirit and quiet that heart and give peace and give comfort. He is the God of all comfort in whatever the affliction is.

He says, who comforts us in all our affliction. And the word affliction there in the Greek text does not have the definite article which indicates it's every kind, any kind of affliction. And the word affliction there in the Greek text does not have the definite article which indicates it's every kind, any kind of affliction. And the word has the idea of pressure, of being crushed, whether it's physical or mental or emotional, whether it's the enemy trying to take our lives or something going wrong in the family, but it's any kind of affliction, any kind of suffering, any kind of undue pressure where you feel like the life is being squeezed out of you, where you feel like you're being crushed and that everything, there's no way out. God says in any kind of affliction, no matter what it is,

it doesn't have to be official affliction, you know, affliction because you're serving Christ, but it's any kind of affliction that you and I as Christian brethren have, God says he comforts us in all that. With all comfort, there is no comfort with hell whatsoever. And I want you to notice we're not promised deliverance from the trouble, but we're promised comfort within the trouble. And that makes the difference. That's the great difference between triumphalism and a triumphant Christian life. Triumphalism believes that we're delivered out of the trouble, but the New Testament view is we're delivered in the trouble, in the midst of the trouble.

God doesn't make the trouble go away all the time, and sometimes he does, and for that I'm grateful, but there are times when he doesn't. He keeps it there, and the affliction is there, and the pressure is there, but at that time, God comes and gives comfort, encouragement. He stands by us, as it were, strengthening in us, talking to us, whispering in our ear, touching our arms, saying, I'm here.

And he gives us encouragement and gives us advice as to how we should proceed. That's the idea. Paul has learned something new about God in this. And suffering always teaches us something new about God. But there's a second thing. This passage tells us that an adequate view of suffering, a biblical view of suffering,

realizes that sufferings are part of the Christian life, essential to the Christian life. Now, do I need to read verses and verses and verses that you've already read and heard? Do I need to read those again? Do you remember those? Jesus said, The servant is not greater than a master.

If the world has persecuted me, the world will persecute you. Whoever will follow me must deny himself, take up his cross, and a cross isn't for wearing around your neck. A cross is for carrying. A cross is for dying on. If the world has hated you, me, it will also hate you.

I don't need to remind you of all those scriptures, you see. You know, it occurs to me, doctor, that the Bible contradicts just about everything we believe today about Christianity. I'm serious. And after a day of studying, Kay and I would go to bed at night, I'd say, honey, this thing is so amazing because it's in direct controversy. It's in direct, what is it? Yes, it's what he said. It's in direct contradiction of what you and I believe about Christianity.

In our day, we believe in charismatic preaching, professional presentations and programs, and worship services that are glamorous and glitzy, and that we have eloquent men to speak who can amaze us by showing us all these special things. In other words, it's performance, not preaching we're looking for. A good show, not a good sermon, is what we're looking for. Triumphalism. That has no room or place in it for affliction, suffering.

But Paul tells us that suffering is a vital part, an essential part to the Christian life. He says in verse 7, And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our suffering, so also you are sharers of our comfort. And in verse 5, For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. In other words, Paul is saying, you can't get away from it. Yeah, we're suffering, but you are sharers in that suffering.

You share in the same kind of suffering. It is a part of the Christian life. Let me read in chapter 4, verse 17. In chapter 4, Paul gives one of the great catalogs of his suffering. Let's read some of this. In verse 7, he says, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God, and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing,

persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus so that the life of Jesus always be made manifest in our body. And you can read in chapter 6 and chapter 11 where he gives other details of his suffering. I mean, this man is suffering all the time, having every kind of affliction. You just name it, he's had it. But notice what he says

in verse 17, for a momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. Now, I want to tell you something that I saw here for the first time. For this momentary light affliction, that how paul looks upon it it's just temporary not going to be here forever and compared to the glory that we're going to have it's light but he said this affliction notice he doesn't say give us way to an eternal way of glory it produces an eternal way of glory he's not saying that through this life we're going to suffer and suffer and have affliction. And then one day this life will give way and we'll move into heaven and there will be glory. That's not what he's saying.

He's saying that it is our suffering that achieves and produces. Number three, our sufferings are part of the sufferings of Christ. Just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. Now folks, what we need to do is to rename our suffering. It is the affliction of Christ. It is the sufferings of Christ. And that ought to make an entirely different,

give us an entirely different attitude towards our suffering. It's just not our suffering, but we are linked together, joining in in the fellowship of Christ's suffering. And Paul said that we fill up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. And that we're not to take it personally because Christ suffered and our suffering, our affliction as we follow Jesus, our pressure that comes to us in living the Christian life is part and parcel of the

same suffering that Jesus Christ endured. Are you better than your master? I do not think so. It's an essential part of the Christian life. But more than this, our suffering is the sufferings of Christ. That gives dignity to our suffering. It gives dignity to our affliction. This is the sufferings of Christ. And we never have greater

fellowship with him than we do when we are having his afflictions following in his path. All right? Number four. Suffering teaches that our lives are linked together. Boy, this is so important. That our lives are linked together. One of the things about the Corinthians is that they were selfish

or self not the word I'm looking for selfism is one of their beliefs and individualism and that it was just their person their selves

themselves that's why Paul says in the 13th chapter he who speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself and some people have taken that as a commendation. No, it's a criticism. He who speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself.

He said, that's the trouble with it. We're not to edify ourselves. There's no such thing as this individualism where it's just me and my experience that counts we're all linked together and Paul says in verse 7 as I read it a moment ago and our hope for you is firmly grounded knowing that as you are partners of our suffering so also you are partners of our comfort and in verse 6 but if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And here's the amazing thing. The Corinthians were criticizing Paul because he was in such great affliction. But Paul says, it is for your comfort and your salvation. You see,

we're linked together. My suffering. You can't isolate and say, oh, that's just Paul. He's not what he ought to be, so he's suffering affliction. Paul says, that's not so. We're linked together in everything we do. And brothers and sisters in Christ, there is a community that God has established, and we are brothers and sisters of one another and belong to the same body. And what happens to you affects me, and what happens to me affects you, you see. And so Paul says, here you are condemning me for my suffering, but I tell you something, all the affliction that I'm receiving is for you. It's for your comfort in salvation, or if we are comforted, it's for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Our lives are linked together.

Number five, our suffering never outweighs the comfort. I like that. Our suffering never outweighs the comfort. In verse five, for just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. His comfort matches our affliction. The affliction, the suffering, never outweigh the comfort that God's able to give. Have you ever gone through a great tragedy in your life? One that you thought you would never be able to handle

if it happened to you? You would never be able to survive? I have. And as I look back upon that experience today, you know what stands up for most in my mind? It's not the suffering, but the unbelievable comfort that God was able to give us. The unbelievable strength that God gave us to rise to the occasion. No suffering ever outweighs the comfort. And then finally,

I'm almost out of water. I've got one sip left. Suffering enables us to minister to others. In verse 4, it talks about he who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted with God. You see, the comfort we receive from God, the strength we receive from God, is not to

terminate with ourselves. As a matter of fact, everything God gives us is not to terminate with ourselves. It's meant to be passed on to somebody else. Many of us, during times of testing and affliction, receive the comfort of God, but I don't know. They don't seem to share it and to minister to others and use their experience and what they've learned about God to strengthen others. Shame on you.

If God has caused you to be afflicted, my dear friend, and has given you strength and encouragement, He did it not just for you, but He did it so you could pass it on to somebody else. Pass it on to somebody else. Pass it on to somebody else. And as Paul is concerned, or as he's concerned,

this is a biblical view of suffering. We've got it with us. We're not going to be able to get rid of it. It'd be in our favor to have the right attitude towards it.

Well, the Lord bless you. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.