Bible Study - Suffering (6) - Where Does Comfort Come From? - 2 Corinthians 1:1-11 - February 16, 2020

Bible Study – Suffering (6) – Where Does Comfort Come From? – February 16, 2020


This is lesson six (6) in our series entitled “When Life Gets Hard: Big Questions About Pain and Suffering.”


Our focus scripture is 2 Corinthians 1:3-11.


As GOD comforts, we are to comfort others.


To me this scripture helps define why we encounter various issues in life - born-again Christians, Christians, or humans. No one enjoys suffering or painful life situations that come our way. They are for a purpose and the greatest purpose is to draw us into the right relationship with GOD through faith in JESUS. Let’s explore!


The Apostle Paul opened his letter to the Christians in Corinth as we read 2 Corinthians 1:1-2:

Greeting

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our^[a] brother:

To the church of God at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout Achaia.

² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul established in his letter to the Christians in Corinth that he was an apostle. Some questioned Paul’s relationship with GOD through his faith in JESUS because Paul had suffered many things. As you recall the Jews considered that anyone who suffered was being punished by GOD. Paul had suffered thus GOD was punishing Paul. Paul sends to the Christians in Corinth a teaching on why Christians suffer.

Let’s us read 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a:

The God of Comfort

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. ⁴ He comforts us in all our affliction,^[b]

The Apostle Paul established the foundation for what was to follow:

GOD is YAHWEH or YHWH the Hebrew name for GOD.

GOD is the Father of JESUS.

LORD describes the born-again Christian’s relationship with GOD. HE is the commander-in-Chief of all born-again Christians.

JESUS is the personal name for GOD as the 100% sinless human.

CHRIST is anointed by GOD and is the promised Messiah.

The Father of Mercies shows undeserved mercy or grace to all who place their faith in JESUS as their Savior.

The GOD of all comfort. Comfort is more than sympathy but GOD Who comes along and is intimate with each person to encourage, help, advise, help carry our load or burden and support us as a friend. GOD is hands-on. GOD does not want anyone to go to Hell and HE does all within HIS power to appeal to every person to accept JESUS as his or her Savior and to make JESUS The LORD of his or her lives.

The Holy Spirit indwells every born-again Christian to give him or her assurance, strength, comfort and so much more as the Christian faces the issues of life. The Holy Spirit also ministers to every person to bring him or her to making the decision to accept JESUS as his or her Savior. But the final decision to either accept or reject JESUS as his or her Savior is up to each person.

I ask you to choose JESUS.

Let’s read 2 Corinthians 1:4b-7:

so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶ If we are afflicted, 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 that we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort.

As human beings, we all face various issues in our lifetime. There are persons who are not in right relationship with GOD, others who are searching for the right relationship with GOD and still others who are in right relationship with GOD through faith in JESUS. GOD uses the issues in our lives to help us to focus upon our relationship to GOD but more specifically our relationship with GOD through faith in JESUS.

Christians are channels through whom GOD works. Christians are channels of blessings and comfort. Notice the words “overflow and overflows.” As Christians, GOD’S comfort flows to us. It is more than sufficient. It overflows in excess and we, in turn, minister to others as our LORD provides opportunity.

Prayers, both personal and group, are essential as you go through times when you need comforting, as well as, when GOD calls you to comfort others.

Why are we upon earth? Consider earth as GOD’S vineyard. Do you recall Ephesians 1:4-6 - ⁴ For he (GOD) chose us in him (JESUS), before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.^{[c] 5} He predestined us to be adopted as sons (daughters) through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One (JESUS).

If we are all predestined, aren’t we all saved? NO! GOD did not make us robots or machines without the right to choose. GOD made us with the freedom to choose. Just as Adam and Eve had the freedom to choose which fruit they would or would not eat in the Garden of Eden. GOD told them NOT to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they ate the fruit from the tree of good and evil, they WOULD DIE. Disobedience is sin. They sinned and they died. Since they are our ancestral parents, we inherited their nature, thus we die physically. But by the grace of GOD, all who place their faith in JESUS are born-again Spiritually into GOD’S Family and receive eternal life instantly. All Spiritually born-again, through faith in JESUS, instantly become GOD’S Sons or Daughters, citizens of Heaven and can instantly call GOD Father. They have all the rights and privileges of being  Sons or Daughters of GOD. Now that is Good News! 

Life upon earth is an opportunity for every person to build the right relationship with GOD through faith in JESUS. Having the right relationship with GOD through faith in JESUS does NOT mean we will escape the issues that life brings our way. It does mean when the issues of life do come, we are to learn from them.

Some issues are the result of bad decisions we have made. Being in right relationship with GOD does not mean we will not stump, so-to-speak, our toe, that is to do something foolish. But when we do, GOD desires for us to learn for it. Romans 8:26-30 helps us to understand this better:

²⁶ In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us^[h] with unspoken groanings. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

²⁸ We know that all things work together^[i] for the good^[j] of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

One point of clarification in verse 28, it alludes to things working but things do not work. It is GOD working such that “things work together” according to HIS plan, purpose and will to bring about the best result from the situation(s) that come our way as we do life upon earth.

No one likes to suffer or encounter various trying issues in life. Ask JESUS to be your strength and help you to learn from it, knowing that it is designed to bring you closer to GOD and build the right relationship with HIM so that you, in turn, may comfort others. There is a purpose. Ask GOD to reveal it to you.

When we comfort others, it does not mean that we are better than the person we are helping. We have been equipped by GOD such that we can identify with the issue or issues the person or persons are facing because we have experienced the same or something similar. We have had on-the-job- training while nestled in the arms of our LORD.

Often, because we have experienced certain issues in life, we may be equipped to council others who may be able to avoid going through a grievous issue.

Life can get overwhelming as the Apostle Paul reveals in our next scripture.

Let’s read 2 Corinthians 1:8-11:

⁸ We don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction that took place in Asia. We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life itself. ⁹ Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. ¹⁰ He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us. We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again ¹¹ while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our^[c] behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.

Some of the issues Paul faced were:

Riot in Ephesus led by the silversmiths, illness which Paul identified as “thorn in the flesh,” imprisonment with prospects of being executed, intense opposition from fellow Jews, being stoned, ship wrecked, etc.

Paul was “overwhelmed.” Overwhelmed refers to being crushed under a burden of enormous weight. “Beyond our strength” refers to desperate, dire situations that without GOD’S intervention it would have meant certain death.

Through these issues, Paul saw the powerful hand of GOD at work in his life. GOD delivered him then and HE will deliver him in the future.

Life can get overwhelming for those serving GOD. That is why GOD prompts HIS Children to pray for others and/or give to those facing the issues of life. In the words of Paul, “we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,” GOD is omnipotent and does the impossible. Paul could make that statement, without hesitation, because he had experienced GOD’S unspeakable power. Since GOD can raise the dead, is anything beyond the power of GOD? NO!

Have you experienced GOD in your life through faith in JESUS? If not, now is that opportunity.

So “Where Does Comfort Come From?” and why?

Blessings!!!