The Seven Keys To Spiritual Buoyancy: The Ministry Of Consolation (Key One) Series

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)!