A Growing Humility
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
Corinth was a city of commerce, a place where geography made the town great. It was a safe haven for ships.
You could take a massive short cut across from the Mediterranean Sea to the Aegean Sea. You can see a great canal now carved out through which shipping moves.
As a town rich merchants and poor seaman passed through. It was a town offering the fast living things of life as well as many of the slaves to make all the back breaking labour possible.
A Roman writer of the time Strabo described Corinth as “Always great and wealthy”.
It was into this bustling town Paul arrived to plant a church.
· AD 50-52 Paul in Corinth establishing the church for 1 ½ years
· AD 55/56 Second Visit “Painful Visit” - emergency disciplinary problem in the Church
· AD56/57 Third Visit – stays 3 months
Paul writes 2 Corinthians before coming for his third visit to Corinth. In a way he was phasing himself out from the Churches he had established around the Aegean Sea. Paul was looking to start a new ministry planting Churches in Spain. Of all his churches, the Corinthian Church was the most demanding for Paul. There were struggles with power, leadership tussles, slack moral standards, sex scandals, shady business deals, character assassinations, lawsuits, and unkindness to the less gifted and poorer members.
To a church caught up in the world they inhabited, the Corinthian Christians reflected more of a worldly flavour than it did of Jesus in what they believed and doubts about the coming resurrection of Jesus. It’s clear to say Paul had a rather turbulent relationship with this church.
All the way through his letter there is an edgy tone showing a passionate mutual lack of trust between Paul and the members of the Corinthian Church. One thing above all stands out for Paul. It is his intense identification with Christ his Lord, Paul has a passionate concern, to replicate Christ’s ministry. Writ large all over 2 Corinthians is the story about God, and his faithfulness and glory, as we read in 2 Corinthians 1:1-3.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul, like the other apostles, saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion. For Paul, that happened on the dusty Damascus Road. Following Jesus cost Paul dearly. He’d just escaped Ephesus where he was nearly killed in the silversmith riots. He’d been beaten, imprisoned, the cause of riots, had done hard labour to pay his way, experienced sleepless nights and hunger.
Paul later on goes to explain it this way
5 when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; 6 with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; 7 when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right; 8 when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; 9 ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; 10 immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all. 2 Corinthians 6:5-10 The Message
Seeing Christ’s death even in the middle of trial or testing or suffering with the clear view of Jesus being enough. What matters above all for Paul is our identity in Christ. He wasn’t interested in power plays or elegance or growing wealthy or triumphalism.
What drove Paul was Jesus in all of life. Speaking the truth and reality of the gospel with a growing humility that was all looking at Jesus as enough[1]. Paul starts writing into a church where word had come back that some of them didn’t welcome Paul to show his face ever again.
Paul writes back a letter telling them what’s been going on for him since they last met. It is unquestionably a journey into the experience of suffering. Let’s drill down into verses 3-11 which comes in two parts:
· first verses 3-7 blessed be God
· then verses 8-11 God is a deliverer
As we read in verses 3-4:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
Did you hear that astonishing promise in verse 4. God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any troubles. Paul candidly opens himself up to show us the struggles and fears. Pressing in on him in this crucible of suffering – The Heat.
Paul shows us he gained wisdom. It’s where he learnt joy and perseverance of faith. God grew him in the times of testing. Paul starts out reshaping what would have been a Jewish blessing said at Synagogue and gives it a focus on Jesus. He then comes to writing about how the sufferings of Jesus carry over to us.
Have a look through verses 5-7. What is the word that keeps on being repeated there? Comfort.
Christ’s sufferings carry over to us.
verse 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
God comforts us:
Verse 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
We are to comfort others:
Verse 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
Paul brings us to see the bigger thing going on with what God is doing in the suffering. Now Paul moves from the general in verses 3-7 to the particular in verses 8-11:
It’s the experiential weight of his burden
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.
Verse 8 - All the bitter fruit, grumbling and complaining, anger, fighting and conflict; confusion, anxiety and fear, escapism. These are all consequences of the THORNY HEART. When we react to suffering with fleshly wisdom, the instinct of our foolish wisdom is to trust ourselves and try to control our situation.
Paul tells us instead there is a sovereign God who is over all things. At the CROSS, our suffering fundamentally has meaning. God is fundamentally up to something good, as we read in verse 9:
9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
Confusion is the opening thing to an invitation for change. We see God push in with grace, and we receive the comfort of the Holy Spirit revealing the mercy and truth of God. Here’s the problem. In our struggles when it all about me, I live in a hermeneutically sealed world. Whatever happens to me just proves the darkness I feel.
Hope in Christ tells us a different story of Jesus who invades the dark world of our souls to turn on the light. The invitation is to trust in the God who raises the dead. This is not an abstract promise. Jesus is the real and ready presence of God that meets the need of the moment.
The question is … is Jesus enough? I am brought to see my heart as it is before God. The fruit of trusting God is joy and gratitude, and endurance in God to satisfy our needs and bring calm to our soul. For Paul his growing humility was seeing the effectiveness of prayer in the second part of vs 10 – 11:
On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
The prayers of the body of Christ were effectual in Paul life. Our joy in God starts curiously with our troubles and mess, of God bringing through his redemption in our messy lives[2]
Let’s pray…
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