II
Corinthians 1:3-11
Introduction
IDOP
website states that "Today around the world more than 200 million are
suffering for their faith in Jesus Christ." It is important for us to be
aware of that and it is important for us to do what we can in response. What we
can do about it is pray and it is important for us to do so. Let's take a look
at II Corinthians 1:3-11 ,
which was just read, to think about persecution and about prayer in persecution.
I. The Sufferings of Christ are Abundant
A. The Sufferings of Christ
If we think
that the Christian life is entirely a life of victory and abundance and
blessing, we are missing something important in Scripture. Paul alerts us to
this when he says in verse 5, "…the sufferings of Christ are abundant for
us..." What are the sufferings of Christ and what do they have to do with
us?
We know that
Christ Himself suffered. When he was with his disciples, he repeatedly told
them that he was going to suffer and die. Each time he did, they were puzzled
and did not understand and on one occasion, Peter even rebuked him for thinking
that way. Yet, Jesus did suffer and die. Why did Jesus suffer and die? Why
would a good man who healed and served and was a friend of tax collectors and
sinners die? Why would a man who knew God's word very well and answered every
challenge with wisdom die? We might say that it was because of the jealousy of
the Jewish religious leaders who realized that he would take over their place
if he ruled. But that doesn't go deep enough. Why was there jealousy in their
heart? The deeper reason is that they were not filled with God, but with sin
and evil and in fact they rejected God and that is why Jesus suffered and died.
Jesus declares this in John 8:44
when he told them, "You are from your father the devil, and you choose to
do your father’s desires." What was true of them is true of many in the
world. The default human position is to reject God.
The
persecution of followers of Jesus continues today for the same reason. People
who reject God hate those who follow God and Jesus has warned us that this is
exactly what will happen. We read in John 15:20 , "Remember the word that I said to you,
‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will
persecute you..." The "sufferings of Christ" are the sufferings
which Jesus experienced from those opposed to God and all followers of Jesus
will also experience suffering from those who oppose God.
B. The Abundance of Sufferings
Paul goes
on to say that these sufferings of Christ are abundant and he certainly knew
what he was talking about. In verse 8 we read, "We do not want you to be
unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia ; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we
despaired of life itself." What happened to Paul that made him talk like
that? What happened in Asia that was so bad
that he despaired of life itself? Many have given different explanations. Some
suggest that it refers to when they were “fighting with wild beasts in Ephesus ” as described in 1 Corinthians 15:32 , others
that it refers to the time he suffered a beating with “thirty-nine stripes” as
it says in II Corinthians 11:24 .
The list of trials described in II
Corinthians 11:23-29 tell us that he experienced many afflictions.
Not everything that happened to him has been recorded in detail so we probably
can't find out exactly which trial he was referring to. Clearly whatever trial
it was, we realize that it was very great since he describes that he was
"unbearably crushed" and "despaired of life" and
"received the sentence of death."
We hardly
know what to make of such sufferings for we have no point of reference in our
lifetime or experience, yet many in the world do. On the MB Mission
website, the following story is told.
"One
of our workers in North Africa told us about
five female university students who recently became followers of Jesus in his
country. Having been rejected by their families, these young women have all
paid a high price for their faith.
One of them
recently took the step of baptism and, as she was coming out of the church
building where she was baptized, she was seen by a family friend who
immediately called her brother. This brother was outraged that his sister had
become a Christian. When she came home that day, he physically assaulted her.
He tied her to a bed with ropes and, for several hours, beat her and abused her
simply because she had chosen to put her faith in Christ.
It was only
in the middle of the night that she finally escaped from her own house. She
went directly to the home of another Christian who gave her shelter.
Eventually, she made her way to another city where she was given refuge in a
church building. Unfortunately, her brother didn’t give up. He contacted the police,
tracked her down and brought her back to their family home.
At this
point, we don’t know what will happen with this young woman. How will her
family treat her? What will her future be?
Stories
like this are common in North Africa . Many
young people are coming to faith in Jesus but they face tremendous opposition
from their families and their communities."
II. God's Role in Suffering
Realizing
that suffering is real is hard to hear, but it is also difficult to answer the
question, "Where is God in this suffering?" We turn back to the
experience of Paul in his affliction to find an answer.
A. God Consoles
The most
powerful message in this passage is that in affliction God comforts those who
are afflicted. The word for "comfort" is repeated ten times in this
text. We read, in verse 3, that God is the "God of all consolation who
consoles us in all our affliction" and, in verse 5, that "our
consolation is abundant through Christ".
The word
used in all these places means "to come alongside" and has nuances of
encouragement and comfort. This is what God does for all those who are
experiencing any kind of affliction. The comfort which God gives is the comfort
of knowing that our sins are forgiven, the hope of understanding that we are
destined for eternity in heaven. The comfort of God also includes the very
presence of God with those who are in any affliction and His strength and help
to face trials with hope even though they are very difficult. God is present in
suffering to console.
B. God Rescues
A
missionary in a restricted access country writes, "It’s not easy to find
comfort when you lose someone that you love, especially when you had been so
excited about what God was doing through that person’s life.
"Recently,
one of our great young church leaders was murdered. His name was Timothy and he
was only twenty-four years old. He was a very bright light among our people and
many expected him to have a big impact on our community. Timothy was known as
someone who loved God and loved his people. Earlier this year, he had graduated
from the Evangelical Bible Institute in the capital. I personally supported
Timothy in his education and was thrilled about his future as a servant of God
in his home province. Timothy was shot on his way to visit a church in a
neighboring village.
Timothy’s family had been familiar with persecution for
their faith. Several years earlier, his uncle and three other members of his
family went missing. Apparently, the police had arrested all of them at night
and taken them away from the village. They were never seen again."
It is
particularly difficult to understand where God is when things like that happen,
yet, in this passage, Paul indicates his hope that God rescues. He declares in
verses 10, "He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to
rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again…"
Paul, who stood in the crowd supporting the killing of Stephen, knew that God
does not always rescue, but his experience was that there are also times when
God does rescue. Randy Friesen tells the story of two missionaries who went out
into the desert on camels to share the good news of Jesus with nomadic people and
to distribute Bibles. Once when they returned from such a trip they were
arrested and accused of telling people about Jesus, which was a punishable
offence. They had distributed all the Bibles they had with them and so there
was no physical evidence of what they had been doing and so they were released.
Stories like that of Paul and of these two missionaries assure us, from people's
experience, that God is present to rescue.
C. God Raises the Dead
Yet God is
present even when he does not rescue because of the hope of all who follow
Jesus that He is the God of resurrection. In verse 9, Paul declares His
understanding of who God is saying, "He raises the dead." Therefore,
there is no hopeless situation for anyone who follows Jesus. There are times
when God has rescued a person so that they avoided being hurt. There are times
when God has raised a person from the dead, as He did when Lazarus was raised.
There are times when followers of Jesus die and the resurrection they
experience will be the resurrection at the end when they will be raised to
eternal life.
The truth
about God is the same in each case. Whether rescue, whether temporal
resurrection or eternal resurrection, God raises the dead. There is no hopeless
situation because God is present to raise the dead.
III. The Role of the Sufferer
Persecution
is real and God is there to comfort, sometimes to rescue and always to raise
from the dead. What does the sufferer do in the time of persecution? Although
we may not experience the same kind of persecution that many in the world do,
the Bible speaks about suffering often enough to give us a clear understanding
of the response someone suffering affliction can have. We need to know this
because we never know when the time of persecution may come for us.
A. Patiently Endure
Paul's
description of his suffering helps us to understand that afflictions are very
difficult to live with. There is a depth of feeling which we cannot lightly
dismiss as we read "we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we
despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of
death." How does that phrase speak to you? The fact that Paul uses two
adverbs "utterly" and "unbearably" to describe the way in
which he felt crushed tells us that this was very difficult. What is happening
to a person when they describe an experience as bringing a "sentence of
death?"
As we read
about people who are arrested and imprisoned for their faith today we read
about situations in which there are few support services and the food supplied
is hardly adequate. Sometimes they are not permitted visits from their family
and sometimes their family doesn't even know where they are. In some situations they are not only beaten, but
also threatened with execution. Like what the apostle Paul experienced, these
things are difficult and easily leads to despair.
Yet those
who suffer in this way are called to "patiently endure" as we read in
verse 6. Although retaliation would be an easy temptation and giving up may
seem quite reasonable, the consolation of God comes to those who choose to
patiently endure and who trust that God is near.
B. Hope in God
Such
patient endurance is possible when those who suffer put their hope in God. In
fact, it is often extreme suffering which brings a person to hope in God. Such
extreme suffering as Paul speaks about here leaves a person in a position where
there is no where else to turn.
As long as
we have a solution, it seems, we will look to that solution. When a difficulty
comes, we look around to consider what resources we may have. Most often we
discover hidden resources and ways of dealing with the difficulty with those
resources. But when the situation is such as Paul describes here when we are
"utterly, unbearably crushed," when we despair of life and when we
feel as if we have "received a sentence of death" then we are far
beyond any resources we may have. At that point, Paul points to the strategy
which he used in that situation. The difficulty of affliction drove him to the
place where he says "we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises
the dead." When the difficulty is beyond us we come to the place where, as
Paul says in verse 10, "on Him we have set our hope." Often it takes
such an experience to move us to the place where we stop relying on ourselves
and on our resources and we rely on God.
So are we
ever out of resources in any situation? No! Because God is the one who raises
the dead, we can always put our hope in Him. Oh that we would learn to put our
hope in Him much sooner than we often do.
C. Console Others
As I have
said already, the major theme of this passage is consolation. The message of
this passage is that those who experience suffering gain an ability that is
only accessible to them. They experience the consolation of God in a way that
can never be understood theoretically, but only by experience. Therefore, those
who suffer deeply, experience the consolation of God and gain the ability to
console others through that experience.
We
understand this. The person who comes through cancer has a word to speak and an
authority to speak to another person who is going through cancer. They are able
to say to them, "this is what God did for me when I went through it."
The same is true in every trial and also in the trial of suffering for faith.
Therefore, we who have not experienced similar suffering and consolation have
very little that we can say to those who are experiencing suffering. In such a
situation, the best thing we can do is to be with them in compassionate
silence.
But those
who have been persecuted gain experience of God's comfort and that experience
becomes a way for them to encourage others. They are able to speak out of their
experience and serve God because of what they have lived. Something the
persecuted church knows, that we do not know, is that God comforts those who
are being persecuted. The greater the persecution, the greater the comfort. We
hardly know that and wonder how they can survive. As much as our knowledge
might lead us to offer a word of wisdom, the truth is that we are the ones who
have something to learn and those who have experienced God's consolation in
their suffering are able to console others who experience the same thing.
IV. Our Role in the Suffering of Others
But what
about us? This passage has shown us that there is persecution and that God
comforts those who are persecuted. Although we may not be able to offer
consolation because we have not had similar experiences, is there something we
can offer? Paul addresses this as well.
A. Help by Prayer
We read in
verse 11, God "will rescue us again, as you also join in helping us by
your prayers." What can we do? We can pray!
Yet we wonder.
What does prayer do? In the end of this verse we read "many will give
thanks…for the blessing granted us through the prayers…" There is more to
the verse, but this part of the verse helps us understand what prayer does. When
we hear about those who experience affliction we pray. The phrase, "the
blessing granted us through the prayers" tells us that God acts in answer
to those prayers. As a result of what God does, He is thanked for what He does.
This tells us several important things. It tells us that God acts to do
whatever God will do and He receives the glory because of what He does. It also
tells us that our prayers have a part to play. God acts in answer to our
prayers. Exactly how that works is something I do not know, but this verse
clearly tells us that our prayers are important. So we must pray for the
persecuted church.
B. The Prayer of Many
The other
important message is that God's help comes "through the prayers of
many." I have sometimes been reluctant to suggest this. In other places
the Bible tells us that God is sovereign and will do as He chooses. The Bible
also tells us that God is able to save by few or by many. Yet this verse tells
us that in such situations the prayers of many are important. I believe that
this is because prayer in persecution is a part of the spiritual battle we are
in. It seems that in spiritual warfare more prayer matters. Therefore, we
cannot say, "my prayers don't matter." Therefore, all of us must be
diligent and keep on praying for the persecuted church.
Conclusion
So let us
pray. In your bulletin there is a sheet with prayer requests for the persecuted
church. There are three lists. One comes from MB Mission
and the other two come from the organization, "International Day of Prayer
for the Persecuted
Church
Let's pray
and in a few moments we will close the service as we sing together.
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