The Seven Keys to Spiritual Buoyancy: The Ministry of Consolation (Key One)
Introduction
The Scriptures use chaotic waters as a theme for the dangerous yet glorious place of unformed potential. The creation hymn of Genesis 1 begins with God's Spirit hovering in the darkness over the face of the watery abyss. It is from these dark waters of chaos that He speaks and calls forth the world speaking for a series of six days and only finding the seventh day of rest and completion when He sees His image fully formed from what was disorder and emptiness.
The Hebrew Bible speaks of the deep and the sea as places of monsters like Leviathan and Rahab, dragons whose tails can lash down the greatest of ships. It is the LORD who has the power to subdue it all, for as Job says, "He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea" (9:8).
Jesus walks into the pages of the New Testament and demonstrates the power of God by walking on the sea of Galilee and subduing the evil forces whom He drives back into the abyss.
Life is like an ocean that can drown the well-meaning, the unsuspecting, and the foolish as well as the seasoned seaman given the right circumstances. Sometimes we have a hard time bouncing back from what seeks to sink us. It reminds me of the poem "The Cork and the Whale."
A little brown cork
Fell in the path of a whale
Who lashed it down
With his angry tail.
But, in spite of the blows,
It quickly arose,
And floated serenely
Before his nose.
Said the cork to the whale,
“You may flap and sputter and frown,
But you never, never can keep me down:
For I’m made of the stuff
That is buoyant enough
To float instead of to drown.”
The apostle Paul was accustomed to things like shipwrecks and nights exposed out on the face of the Mediterranean. In both spiritual and natural storms at sea Paul demonstrated resilience. He had the ability to bounce back, to rise again. Paul, like the cork in the poem, seems to be made of stuff that is buoyant enough to float and not to drown.
2 Corinthians 11:23-28 (NIV)
Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
Along with these transparent and sarcastic words about Paul's suffering are seven principles of spiritual buoyancy that characterize Paul's life in his second canonical letter to the churches at Corinth. Paul floated above the things that sink many people spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. For the next seven weeks, we will explore these principles and seek the Lord to help us apply them to our lives so that we can grow forward in Christ despite the ups and downs of the waves of life.
The first principle is found in the opening words of 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7
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. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 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. 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 begins his doxology with the words "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1:3a). This is the language of covenant. In the book of Genesis, Isaac invoked the name of the God of Abraham, Jacob called on the name of the God of Abraham and Isaac, and eventually, the nation of Israel called on the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They understood that they were the recipients of a grace that they could not afford that was first of all predicated on a relationship that preceded them. God had made a promise to Abraham that extended to his descendants. God calls Himself the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Exodus when He met Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:36; Matt 22:32-40). There are moments in our lives where we are blessed because of the lives of those who have lived before us. Paul understood that the blessing that we receive on this side of the cross is the superlative of blessing. It both connects us to and supersedes the promises that God made to our ancestors. For in Jesus Christ all of the promises of God as yes and Amen (2 Cor 1:20)!
Something that God does not promise is a life absent pain. Pain is a theological problem and a universal reality. This is a universal truth that is acknowledged by all major religions and systems of thought.
In the movie In the classic movie A Princess Bride in the scene where a masked Westley is about to reveal his hidden identity to Princess Buttercup, she cries out that he mocks her pain. To this, Westley replies, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”[1]
Pain is a part of the waves that seek to drown us in sorrow and grief. Jesus said, "In this life, you will have tribulation" (John 16:33). Job said that "man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward" (5:7). Trouble is like the tail of the whale seeking through one blow after another to slap us down and drown us in chaos. Not even our Lord Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, was immune to the suffering of life under the sun. He cried out from the cross, the words of the ancient Psalm of David, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
The Greek words translated as "suffering" and "trouble" are used ten times throughout 2 Corinthians. He repeats them in this introduction seven times. Paul wasn't selling anything. He admitted, along with Westley, that "Life is pain." There are storms and shipwrecks and nights on the deep and dragons out there in the waters of chaos...
But that is not the end of the story. You don't have to sink. When you are in a covenant relationship with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are also in covenant with the "Father of compassion and the God of all comfort" (1:3b).
The emotion that characterizes Jesus in the Gospels is compassion. God does not look at us with hatred but with love and compassion. His compassion leads to comfort or consolation.
When Jesus promised that life would be characterized by trouble and pressure He didn't stop there. He said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
In these five verses (2 Cor 1:3-7), we learn the first principle of spiritual buoyancy: the ministry of consolation. Paul had learned to float and not drown because he was able to reframe the purpose of his pain. He came to realize that the Comforter was with Him and that God would not waste one moment of his pain. He would always be able to help someone else walk through what the Lord had walked him through.
Therein is one of the secrets to spiritual buoyancy!
[1] https://www.quotes.net/mquote/75148
1. What You Are Going Through Is Not Unique
While there is a sense in which our experience is unique because there is only one of us, there is another sense in which we are the same as everyone else. We all experience pain.
Some time ago I spent some time sharing with another Christian something that my family had gone through for some time. It had affected us in ways that hurt deeply. It was the first time I had shared it with someone outside of a very select few people who are my counselors and prayer partners. When my friend, a seasoned Christian, with a vast experience in ministry, heard me tell the story they didn't flinch and finally said, "I was waiting for you to tell me something interesting or new." I had to stop and laugh at myself. They then told me about others who had the same experience. It was not unique to my family or my ministry experience. It was something that many other people had suffered.
1 Peter 4:12 (CSB) says, "Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you."
1 Corinthians 10:13 says "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."
James 1:14 (KJV) said, "EVERY man is tempted."
Paul experienced pain in ministry. He experienced the pain of human life. He experienced the pain of defeat and the pain of success.
Pain is a part of life Highness, and anyone who tells you differently is selling something!
2. We Do Have A Choice
J. T. Pugh writes in his book "The Wisdom and the Power of the Cross" that there are three symbols of suffering in the Scriptures.
The burden, the cross, and the thorn.
The burden is something that life places upon us. We may have a child or relative with special needs that God has stewarded us with the responsibility to take care of. We don't always choose our burdens, but they are there, and Galatians 6:5 tells us that each of us is responsible for carrying our own load, to bear our own burden. It is also the responsibility of the rest of us to help those carrying their heavy burdens (Gal 6:2). We choose to share one another's pain.
When we each share in bearing the burdens of life they are lighter. We become partners. This is what the New Testament means by fellowship (koinonia). If one weeps, we all weep. If one rejoices, we all rejoice!
Then there is the cross. The cross is a burden that we must pick up ourselves. It is not laid upon us. Jesus invites all those who will follow Him to take up the cross and follow Him.
We trust in His cross for salvation. But, trusting in His cross is a doorway to our own cross. Sanctification is a lifelong process and God wants us to grow in the place where we discipline ourselves for the purpose of the kingdom. The cross is an instrument of transformation. We become something we were not before when we take it up. Our old person dies and a new Person lives!
Then there is the thorn. There are some things God doesn't fix because if He did, we wouldn't be able to be who we are.
What wisdom asks us is this, "Which pain do you choose? The pain of discipline or the pain of regret?"
A disciplined mind chooses to look at pain and ask this question, "God, what are you doing in this pain? God, whose pain are you preparing me to minister to?"
3. The Jesus Model of Ministry
Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter in the Gospel of John. The word for "Comforter" is related to the words Paul uses for consolation. The Comforter is one who comes alongside another, who advocates for another, and who if necessary carries another through what they cannot get through on their own.
When Paul looked at his pain, he saw something more than his own experience, he saw the entire world. He knew that Jesus is able to Comfort us because He has a common experience with us.
Jesus is a co-sufferer with us. That is one of the meanings of the cross of Christ, that in Christ, God knows what it is like to be Human to the fullest extent. The writer of Hebrews said it like this, "For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted" (2:18 KJV).
Paul allowed God to redeem all of His sufferings. He did not allow it to sink him. He took his suffering and used it to help someone else who was going through the same.
What would life be like if we stopped looking at every trial and difficulty as something meant to sink and drown us and started looking at it like a challenge of life meant to strengthen us to help someone else?
C. S. Lewis wrote in "The Four Loves",
“Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."... It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision - it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.”
Jesus is the Friend that sticks closer than a brother because He shares our experience of pain and He is able to help us float above it if we will trust Him.
Paul understood that his pain was not just about Him. I want you to ask God today what He is going to do with the heartache you've experienced.
When we read the book of Job and all of Job's sufferings, one of the things that is evident is that Job knows nothing of the decrees of heaven that allowed him to go through what he did. Job wasn't a terrible sinner. In fact, God said that he was the best that He had. At the end of the book God shows up and just invites God to look at creation in all of its goodness, and then He asks Job to look at the sea monster Leviathan. Something with a tail that can lash and sink almost anything, the Godzilla of the ANE world. Funny thing, God was in control of it. It is just a plaything for Yahweh.
God won't let you sink if you'll lean upon Him. I know it hurts. He knows it hurts. At the end of his suffering Job is able to do something that He wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, he prays for his friends and God heals them.
I think about Esther, whose life was filled with pain. She was a beautiful Jewish girl living in Persia, not at home in Jerusalem. I'm not sure where her parents were, but she was being raised by her cousin Mordecai. Her beauty even became a source of pain when she was taken into the harem of King Ahasuerus. But, ultimately she became the savior of her people.
It is much like the story of Joseph. His own family hated him, sold him into slavery, and ignored his tears. His master's wife tried to seduce him and when he did the right thing, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. In prison, he helped people who could have helped him but forgot him. Just one of those things is enough to sink some of us, but Joesph just floated up to the top, until eventually, he was sitting on the throne of Egypt saving everyone else who was experiencing pain. The difference between Joseph and those around him was evident. Pharoah said the Spirit of God is in him! The Comforter, the Spirit of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is there in the life of this sufferer.
Paul understood the ministry of consolation. God is not going to waste my pain! I will be able to help someone else if I don't allow bitterness to reign! There is someone else going through what I have been through and I can help them if I hold on! If you're going through something, God has someone for you to help down the road! This is not the end! There is hope! You can float! Leviathan cannot sink you!
When there is an overflow of sufferings, there is an overflow of the Comforter! He will carry you through, and...
Later in 2 Corinthians, Paul expresses gratitude for the arrival of Titus, who consoles and encourages him. We all get discouraged, but God will send someone to encourage us!
You can't win every battle on your own. You're not meant to! David slew Goliath but later was almost killed by another giant. If it were not for his cousin Abishai who came alongside him Isbi-benob would have killed David. We all get tired. We all have pain, even the greatest warriors among us. If you're not going to sink, you have to humble yourself and receive consolation sometimes from others!
It is here today!
Application
This is why we are intentional about regular fellowship with the church. This is why we come to Sunday morning worship consistently.
We gather to acknowledge that we all have pain. We gather to offer that pain to the Lord and bear one another's burdens.
I will be preaching for the next six weeks on the principles that made Paul spiritually buoyant. I want to challenge you to be here every Sunday for the next six weeks! Show up ready to help someone else through what you've been through and come with your budrens ready to share!
A little brown cork
Fell in the path of a whale
Who lashed it down
With his angry tail.
But, in spite of the blows,
It quickly arose,
And floated serenely
Before his nose.
Said the cork to the whale,
“You may flap and sputter and frown,
But you never, never can keep me down:
For I’m made of the stuff
That is buoyant enough
To float instead of to drown.
