This is us: Supportive in Grief
2 Corinthians 1:1-8
comfort: more than just soothing or sympathy,
but also to strengthen, help and encouragement.
So how do we become strong in the broken places?
1. Look to God who cares for me. vv.3
I can run to God in worship. v.3
God is worthy of our worship.
2. Seek to offer compassion to others v.4 & 5 (on screen)
3. Continue to hope in the God of all comfort. v.7 (on screen)
hope: the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness
There’s noting like grief and suffering to test where your hope lies. Paul’s hope was
Turn to 2 Corinthians 1:1-7. We continue our series: This is Us. Our lives often unfold like an emotional drama full of love, joy, triumph, and heartbreak. As the church, we exist to step into the struggles and bring peace and hope in the name of Jesus. This is what drives and motivates us. This is us!
Week one we looked at what defines us here at RC and that is intentional parenting. The best and most satisfied of parents are those who are intentional in their parenting. Last week we talked about marriage. Resilient marriages are those who recognize and accept God’s purpose for marriage. If you missed either of these two, you can catch up by going to our website to watch the video, or FB Live, or downloading our podcasts.
This morning we are going to talk about the grief and sorrow that inevitably comes our way in this life. Grief and sorrow come to us from different sources: a 7th grade girl gets ignored and excluded by a group of kids that she would love to be a part of; a high school boy gets shut down by the girl he has a crush on; an adult loses their job after years of long and faithful service; a parent loses a child; a marriage falls apart, a widow stands at the grave of her loved one.
A few years ago, Yeshiva University neuroscientist Lucy Brown and her research team distributed flyers across several campuses in the New York area to recruit participants for a brain-imaging study. The flyers had one sentence highlighted: "Have you just been rejected in love but can't let go?" Soon enough, Brown recalls, she had college students—who were asked to bring a photo of their beloved with them—crying in the brain scanner. The brains of the forlorn study subjects looked a lot like drug addicts looking for a fix. Brown concluded, "In retrospect, it's not surprising that the same areas of the brain that were active in the brains of cocaine addicts were active in these people who were heartbroken looking at a picture of their former romantic partner."
Yet in the midst of our griefs and sorrows, God has purpose in them. And the passage we’ll study today will give us a perspective I believe will not only deal with our own grief, but help others who are grieving.
Let me kind of set up the context here. The church in Corinth had a number of fellowship issues. Paul apparently wrote 3 or 4 letters to the Corinthians, but we only have 2 of them. In God’s wisdom, He did not preserve the other two for us so their contents were not necessary to us. 1 Corinthians is actually the 2nd letter because in it, Paul references an earlier letter he had written them.
And in this letter, Paul begins by addressing our topic for the day. Paul was well acquainted with grief and suffering and sorrow. He had suffered betrayal, attempts on his life, beatings to the point of death. He was no stranger to grief, suffering, and sorrow.
Let’ read the passage. 2 Corinthians 1:1-8
Timothy: Paul’s disciple and missionary sidekick
Achaia: the province in Greece where Corinth was.
saints: set apart ones; this the term the N.T. applies to ALL followers of Jesus; not just a chosen few
Grace and peace: Paul introduces almost all his letters with this salutation. He invokes God’s unmerited favor and transcendent peace on his readers. And of course, they only come from a relationship with God through faith in Jesus the Messiah.
Let me read v.8 again: “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.”
It’s obvious that Paul is suffering greatly from physical weakness, spiritual weariness, and difficult circumstances. In his own suffering, he is reaching out to the Corinthian believers who were also suffering.
Did you notice how many times the word ‘comfort’ appears in the text? Let’s read it again and when I come to the word comfort or some derivative of it, you say it out loud, OK?
REREAD 2 Corinthians 2:1-8 (on screen) It’s used 10 times in some form here; the word itself is only used 31 times in the entire N.T. It means comfort: more than just soothing or sympathy, but also to strengthen, help and encourage.
A few moments ago, I said that in the midst of our griefs and sorrows, God has purpose in them. St. Agnes said that “Life breaks all of us, but some of us are strong in the broken places.”
So how do we become strong in the broken places?
1. Look to God who cares for me. vv.3 (on screen)
“The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort”. Just reading those words gives me comfort. God is not unaware or uncaring about our difficulty. In the midst of his own suffering, Paul reminds us that just because we ARE suffering, doesn’t mean He doesn’t care about us or for us in our suffering.
Notice that Paul begins his discussion with worship.
I can run to God in worship. v.3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. That word blessed gives us our word eulogy: to speak well of. Paul is not mad at God; running Him down; He is speaking highly of God. So many times when people are in grief or suffering, they run God down: God must not be merciful; God must be a mean God; God must not love me. Those very words indicate a pulling away from God instead of a drawing near to God. I admit the times I’ve endured tragedy or great grief, I’ve been tempted to do the same. But by God’s grace I realize that pulling away from God is no good. When we go through grief, through suffering, one of two responses are before us: we can run away from God or we can run toward God. To run away from Him, turn our backs on Him, is to isolate us from the very one who can help and heal us. So our first response in the midst of grief, our continual response as we go through suffering, is to worship God.
God is worthy of our worship. v.3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” Are you like me? Do you have to remind yourself that He’s God and I’m not? He’s God and I’m not. He’s The Most High God. He’s the king of Kings and the Lord of Lord’s. He’s the Creator. He’s the Redeemer. He knows what He’s doing. He works all things together for God for those of us who love Him and are walking according to His purposes. He is holy and just and sovereign and merciful and the author and giver of comfort. I’ve learned it only makes things worse to run from this God. I find mercy and comfort when I run to Him and worship Him and crawl into His loving arms.
kids when they’d fall, scrape, come running to us…
2. Seek to offer compassion to others v.4 & 5
Notice the phrase, “so that”; might want to underline that. Like every other gift God gives us, comfort is not meant to be hoarded, but shared.
I can’t tell you how many times I have been able to comfort others because they are going through the same suffering I went through. The breakup I went through in college with my first love that drove me to the brink of suicide—and the comfort I sought from and obtained from God thru His word: ??“I would have died…”??. So now when someone talks about that kind of When I lost my dad suddenly at the age of 58, the profound grief, the visceral, can’t stand up kind of grief, I understand. v.? I won’t bore you with all my struggles and sorrows—but I can say that there is something healing that takes place in the human soul when you comfort someone with the same comfort you have received. Our Divorce Care ministry is led by people who have received the comfort of God and now offer that comfort to theirs. Our Grief Share ministry is led by Bob and Pat Truss who lost a child. They are well acquainted with that unimaginable grief and God’s unfailing comfort.
This is why living in biblical community, being a part of a small group is so important. You have people around you to breathe grace and peace and comfort into your lungs when life has left you breathless. “You must live with people to know their problems, and you must live with God to solve them.” – P.T. Forsyth
3. Continue to hope in the God of all comfort. v.7 (on screen)
Paul says his hope for them is unshaken. We talked about this during Advent. People can’t live without hope. If someone loses hope, they literally die.
People use the word hope and most of the time it’s kind of a wish; “I hope I win the lottery”; I hope you’ll reconsider.” But in the Bible, hope: the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness
There’s noting like grief and suffering to test where your hope lies. Paul’s hope was unshakable because His God is unshakable. He knew from experience that God is able to give hope in the most impossible circumstances and the deepest pain and grief. He’s not only the God of all comfort, but He’s the God of all hope as well.
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
