The Corinthian letters are some of the most helpful documents to assist churches living in a pagan culture. The culture of immorality, the cult of personality, the atmosphere of litigation, and the culture of Christianity lite were rampant then and still are today. Our culture is very much like ancient Corinth - churches today lack discipline and are dominated by feminism, pagan philosophy, and idolatry. In both books, Paul answers various questions to help the church make its way through various issues that believers struggle with after salvation and through the process of sanctification.
In 2 Corinthians, after Paul’s first 18-month visit to Corinth, the church fell into disarray and was subjected to false teachers who slandered Paul. Paul sent Titus to survey the situation and found that while the majority had repented, there were still some in opposition. Paul writes a very personal letter defending his apostleship and his message. Paul has many detractors in Corinth, and he goes to great length to answer the accusations of these detractors.
Are we ready? So here we are, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, how about that? Both books in one hour. Well, we'll give it our best shot. But let's pray first.
Lord we thank you for giving us a testimony of reality for our own lives for the lives of the people that we live among in our communities and our churches thank you for giving us a realistic testimony of life in your church and how your sons and your daughters ought to function within it. I pray that you would give us insight into all these things. Amen. Okay, so turn to 1 Corinthians. Now you've got an outline in front of you to help you understand kind of where I'm going with all of this.
Now the Corinthian letters address two really critical matters for the modern church. And the first is that they both address issues that face churches that live in pagan cultures. Every church exists in the midst of some pagan culture. Corinth was no different, and we here in our own time are also no different. These letters are some of the most helpful documents to help churches live in a pagan culture.
The problem is Christianity is different and the cultures of the Lord Jesus Christ are so different from the cultures of the world. Jesus Christ's agenda in your life is to transform your life and to make you different, to take you out of one world and Then bring you into another world. It's a better world. It's a sweeter world in every respect, but There are issues that face Christians that live in pagan cultures and so the Corinthian letters do that secondly They address the issues facing churches where the people are in the process of sanctification. Paul answers lots of different questions to help the church make its way through Various problems that surface as a result of salvation and the sanctification process Because the sanctification process can be a bumpy ride because through it God is confronting sin in your life and often he uses trials, discipline, all kinds of troubles between people, your own sins, other people sinning against you in order to secure your sanctification.
He sends you many emissaries of different kinds. Some are actually hateful. Others are not so hateful. And the Corinthian letters show us what sanctification in a real church looks like. God is all about healing His people.
And when people are being healed, there's often pain involved. I don't know if you've ever had a major flesh wound of any kind, or hurt one of your limbs. It can be painful to be healed often it hurts quite a bit in the healing process God's built your body to heal That's such a wonderful thing but it often is a difficult process and you see that in the Corinthian Church. The Apostle Paul comes with the solution though and the solution really is summed up in this, the cross of Jesus Christ and the wisdom that's from heaven. Those are the two remedies for all these troubles.
Another thing that we should recognize here about the Corinthian letters is that they're timeless. They can be immediately applied in the modern church and in your own life and that's why first and second Corinthians contain messages for the 21st century church and what the Apostle Paul wrote in 55 AD is just as relevant and applicable as the day he wrote it and Paul wrote these letters in the midst of a culture of immorality. Does that sound familiar? He wrote these letters in the midst of a cult of personality. Does that sound familiar?
He wrote these letters in the atmosphere of litigation where people were dragging each other into court. Does that sound familiar? You drive down the road today and you find all kinds of advertisements for people who will take your friends to court because you fell on their doorstep or something like that. We live in a very litigious society. But Christianity was existing in the midst of this culture and ours is a culture much like ancient Corinth.
Churches without discipline. The Apostle Paul faces a church that Refuses to discipline somebody they should have discipline. It's very much like the modern church you hardly encounter Occurrences of church discipline in the modern church today, But the Apostle Paul encountered it there in Corinth. You have churches today dominated by feminism. Now feminism had a different name back in those days through the cult of Aphrodite and all kinds of particular aberrations of manhood and womanhood.
You had pagan philosophy, particularly Hellenism. You had idolatry. So you had all of these things going on in the Church of Corinth And so that's why it's easy to see how the message of 1st and 2nd Corinthians is just as relevant and applicable today as it was in the 1st century. We live right now in a postmodern, post-Christian culture. It's a culture that's completely lost its moorings in the word of God.
And the people that Paul was writing to, they were children of Plato, they were children of Socrates, They were children of Aristotle. And so the philosophical and the moral fabric of the society had been engulfed in ungodly thinking. And so Paul is writing into this culture. Paul comes into this city and begins making tents with a couple there in that town, Priscilla and Aquila. We'll get to that a little bit later and what happened in the planting of this church.
Now it was a church that had a lot of problems and Paul itemizes the problems as he goes through his letters here but it was also a church that Paul loved. It was a church that Paul commended. He appreciated the church even though it had its troubles. And Paul serves us as an example for how we should think about churches that are in times of crisis, Churches that have flaws. And you can see Paul's attitude to the church in the second verse in chapter 1.
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul recognized that this is a church full of people who are being sanctified. They are called saints. They are set apart for God and they are part of the body of Christ.
They're part of all those who call on the name of Jesus Christ. And then Paul expresses his thankfulness for the church. If you see verse 4 in chapter 1, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short of no gift." And so Paul is thankful for them. Why is he thankful? He's thankful because of the power of the grace of Jesus Christ.
This is really the only hope in any church, the power of the grace of Jesus Christ. And so Paul understood this critical factor that was at work in this church. And he says that they were enriched in everything by him. In other words, they had access to every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And Paul was thankful for them, not because necessarily of their perfections, but of Christ's perfections that were at work in them, that His grace was growing in them, that they were actually increasing in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
While they had difficulties, they were a saved people, not perfect, but with the only hope that exists in the entire world for a human being the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and he speaks of what what was really the center of their faith in verse 18 of chapter 1, the word of the cross. He says the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved. It is the power of God. Paul was there writing to destroy the wisdom of the wise, to try to unhinge them from the door of the world. And so he says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
This was God's will for this church. Now having said that, the Corinthian letters are an excellent case study of when a church is affected or rather poisoned by the world's positions and the world's practices. And what the Apostle Paul is doing is bringing the wisdom of God to bear on all these different categories of sin that have worked their way into the Corinthian church. You know, when you're saved, You are saved from a life that you had and that life that you had Has deeply affected you and now you come into the church So what happens in a church? Well you have difficulties, But the Apostle Paul comes and he gives remedies for all the different problems that they're having.
For example, for the divisions that are in the church, he commends to them Christian maturity. For the immorality that's in the church, he commends that they discipline for immorality. For the lawsuits that were finding their way in the church as Christians were taking one another to court, He commends arbitration to them and yielding actually Being willing to be ripped off in Christian love for mixed marriages where a believer is married to an unbeliever he recommends patience and gives them a formula for how to handle that kind of a situation for unmarried women He recommends self-control that's in chapter 7 verses 36 and 37 for misuse of gifts in the church and self-aggrandizement, He recommends love. The greatest of these is love. So the apostle is dealing really specifically with problems that exist there.
You might think about our own church. What are the various problems? Our church has problems so but what do you do with those problems? Will you bring the Word of God to bear to all of those problems? We shouldn't despair because we have the problems.
We should be encouraged because God has answers to all those problems in His Word. So there was also what I'm gonna call philosophical pollution in the church. People were thinking wrongly about the world. Their whole worldview had been twisted by Greek philosophy, specifically Hellenism. This was the philosophy that the Corinthians embraced, And it was a philosophy that included Greek gods and goddesses and the rash and immoral personalities that the Greek gods happened to possess were reflected in the church.
And so, how do you get over this? How do you get over your worldliness, your philosophical wrong thinking, and the practices that had been an outgrowth of that thinking? Well, the Apostle Paul shows the Corinthian Church how to escape its idolatry and that's the quest that our church and every church that exists today is involved in now. That is, It's a quest to escape the idolatry that has corrupted us. That's why at the very end of 1 John, what does he say?
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. And the Apostle Paul is explaining how that happens. Now, if you look at chapter 1, verse 20, you can see how Paul attacks this sort of at a top level. He's attacking the wisdom of the world. He's wanting the Corinthians to unseat their view of themselves.
That's the first thing that has to happen for any kind of healing in your life is that you have to think about yourself differently. And so in chapter 1 verse 20, he says, Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through him did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For the Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom but we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. So the Apostle Paul is coming with this basic message.
Get over your own wisdom. Get over the wisdom of man and embrace the wisdom of God. Embrace the wisdom of Jesus Christ. Find refuge in his wisdom. Why?
Because Hellenism and all the other facts of Greek philosophy contended that man was the ultimate source of wisdom. They believed in the authority and the sufficiency of the human mind, that reason and experience and intuition and meditations of the heart are the supreme authority. Man was the supreme authority. And what the Apostle Paul is doing in both 1st and 2nd Corinthians, particularly 1st Corinthians, is to help the Corinthians understand that they have embraced man's wisdom. And their only escape is through the wisdom of God himself.
The Corinthians believed something that most people believe today. Follow your heart. That's what they believed. And the human heart has become the great source of authority in the world today. The fickleness of the human heart is something that people respect.
And the Apostle Paul is basically saying, don't follow your heart, follow the wisdom of God. It may seem like foolishness to you, but recognize that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of this world. You know, I was memorizing Proverbs with my grandchildren just a couple of days ago, and we got to chapter 3 where there's the phrase, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. So I asked one of the children to repeat that verse and she said, trust in your heart.
Well she's a little girl you know you see you'd expect her not to get it right. But rather than saying trust in the Lord with all your heart, she said trust in your heart. And so we stopped right there. And I said raise your right hand. We will not trust our hearts.
And we said that about 10 times, because these are all little children, and they had such a great time doing such a thing. And I said, no, we do not trust in our hearts. We trust in the Lord with all our hearts. There's a vast difference between trusting in your heart and trusting the Lord with all your heart. But the same philosophy was in the hearts of the Corinthians And one of the great Greek philosophers, Protagoras, had this phrase that's very famous, man is the major of all things.
That was their understanding of the world and of man. And it's based on the idea that human beings have the ability to discern what is true and what is good and what is right. But it was a flawed philosophy. They were standing on a foundation that would not stand at all. Now, this is exactly the same conditions that we find ourselves in today.
Postmodernism says there is no objective truth. Postmodernism says make life up as you go according to however you feel. But there's a great contradiction standing in the way of this philosophy, and it's the wisdom of God. The whole idea that God has revealed Himself in Holy Scripture contradicts this idea that man is the measure of all things. And the whole idea of the verbal plenary inspiration of the Word of God shatters every single aspect of Greek philosophy that the Corinthians had embraced.
And so Paul is contrasting all throughout 1st Corinthians particularly the wisdom of man in opposition to the wisdom of God and the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. These are the two prominent things that the Apostle Paul deals with in the Corinthian letter. In your outline you can see the author is the Apostle Paul. The time of writing is around 53 to 55 AD. Now I want to talk about the city of Corinth because Paul walked into the city of Corinth and what did he find?
Well of course he found your basic Greek pagan city. I visited Corinth a few years ago and I stood in the place where Paul preached in Corinth. Now in these ruins not much is left standing today. The Romans destroyed the city not very long after Paul visited there. But it was a city set on a hill with a beautiful view, seeing the sea off in the distance.
But there are just columns and broken down walls left in the city now But it's there and you could you can go to the place where quite likely people are dragging one another into court the the court was right there and the temple of Apollos is there and and all kinds of things that Apostle Paul speaks to there. But it was a commercial center, it was widely known, it was a pleasure seeking resort city in the Roman Empire. People went there in the same way that they go to Las Vegas in the United States. And so there, you know, among the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, there's also the Temple of Aphrodite, which was a goddess of sexual immorality. At Paul's time there were probably a thousand temple prostitutes that were involved in that temple.
And So Paul ends up in this city of debauchery. Now the term Corinthian became a catchphrase. It was a negative term because Corinth was so notorious for its immorality to Corinthianize was to act like a Corinthian in the same way that the word sodomite captures the sexual immorality of the city of Sodom The Corinthians had a very similar kind of a name for their city. Now the birth of the church is recorded in Acts chapter 18 so I'd like you to turn there and find verse 1. Now when Paul walks into Corinth He was observing all these various temples.
It was a city of about 700, 000. But get this, about two-thirds of the people in that city were slaves. In that sense, it's like no city you've ever visited. The birth of this church is recorded in Acts 18. So in Acts 18 one after these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth and he found a certain Jew named Aquila born in Pontus who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome and he came to them So because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked for by occupation.
They were tent makers and he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded both Jews and Greeks. So when Paul comes into the city, he meets Priscilla and his wife Aquila. And a church is established in their house. Priscilla and Aquila end up to be a gigantic blessing in Paul's life. They risked their necks for the Apostle Paul.
They served the Saints. They were just a remarkable couple. But there was tremendous danger in the city. There was tumult and threats particularly from the Jews and at one point you see this in verse 9 the Lord actually speaks to the Apostle Paul in the night in a vision and the Lord says to him do not be afraid but speak and do not keep silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to hurt you, for I have many people in this city. So with that, the Apostle Paul stayed in Corinth for 18 months, a year and six months.
He preached there and established the church there. You'll see a scene that's recorded here in this chapter, particularly in verse 16 where the Apostle Paul was brought before the judgment seat and he was beaten there by the ruler of the synagogue. So, it was a place that had its pressures, okay, and the Apostle Paul existed there for 18 months. Now, I'd like to walk through the outline of the book and then move to 2 Corinthians after that. Now the Apostle addresses lots of different issues and there's a phrase that he uses all throughout 1st Corinthians.
It's this phrase, now concerning, now concerning this, now concerning that you see it in 7 1 you see it in 7 25 you see it in 8 1 11 2 12 1 16 1 so he's identifying various things now concerning this now concerning that Paul's being really practical He's going right to the heart of real problems that exist in their church. I think when we consider what the Apostle Paul was doing, it should help us to grow up a little bit in our understanding of church life. That there will be problems in church life, but how do we deal with them? Do we deal with them according to the Word of God or according to the wisdom of man. And so the Apostle Paul gives us a great example of it.
Now you'll see in the first four chapters the Apostle Paul is particularly dealing with divisions. Paul was in the city of Ephesus and Chloe came to him and reported him that there were problems in the church regarding divisions and things like that. There are these personality cults, there's all the celebrity status difficulty, there were factions that were running in the church and so the Apostle writes 1st Corinthians and he really appeals to them for the wisdom of God to rule and reign. In chapter 3 verse 1 we we see that the Apostle Paul is helping him to see where they're at with the Lord and he says you are like babes you are carnal He says in chapter 3 verse 1 and brethren I could not speak to you as to spiritual people But as to carnal as to babes and Christ For when one says I am of Paul and another I am of Paulus. Are you not?
Carnal and He says he says men men have different ministries some water some reap a harvest and You know God has different functions for different people don't make the vision in a church because of that And then he appeals to the wisdom of God. Then in chapters 5 and 6, he speaks about matters of sexual immorality and marriage and that type of thing. And Particularly, there was incest between a member of the church and a stepmother. And the church just let it go on. This is in chapter 5, verses 1 through 5.
This is one of the classic texts on church discipline. And the apostle Paul tells them they need to put him out of the church. And so then in chapter 6 verses 1 through 8 there's the problem of lawsuits. People are dragging each other into court and then there are various questions that are answered from chapter 7 to chapter 16. Chapter 7 there is a disclosure of the wisdom of God on different matters regarding marriage, regarding celibacy, regarding sexual intimacy in marriage, divorce, and things like that.
He deals with some really tough problems of living with an unbeliever how to understand Sexuality in marriage particularly when you live in a pornified culture like Ephesus. How do you figure out how to use the gifts of God in a beneficial way? Well, the Apostle Paul is explaining all that to them. There are problems surrounding Christian liberty and food sacrifice to idols. That's in chapter 8 verse 1 through 11 verse 1.
He says in 8-1, now concerning things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him." So how do you deal with these tensions of dealing with the culture where you have food sacrificed to idols, you become a Christian, what are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to do with the tensions?
Some people are eating food sacrificed to idols and others aren't. And how are Christians supposed to reconcile their differences? There are problems concerning public worship and women in the church in chapter 11 through chapter 12 verse 2. There's matters regarding public prayer in 11 2 through 16 and the whole issue of authority and and and head coverings in in 1117 He speaks of the problems in the Lord's Supper the rich people were gobbling down their sumptuous meals before the poor people could show up and they were creating sort of a class system in the church which was noxious to the Lord and the Apostle Paul points it out and He says in 11 17 and giving you these instructions I do not praise you since you come together not for the better but for the worse and these divisions of the rich and the poor were being addressed you know in this part of the first Corinthians and Then there were all these problems regarding the use of spiritual gifts chapter 12 verse 3 to 14 12 to 14 is Paul's whole discussion of spiritual Gifts and in chapter 12 verse 4 he says there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord so he's speaking of the differences that exist in the body of Christ.
And he says in chapter 12, for as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body so he's speaking about the unity of the body of Christ interestingly enough there was a temple the temple of a a Skeplion I believe is how you pronounce it there is a strange display of body parts body parts you know cast in clay a nose hey a hand a foot every body part male and female were on display and people would come there and they they thought that they could be healed by somehow, you know Bowing down to these body parts that work that were cast. It was it was part of their deal Yeah, perhaps Paul was thinking of that about this about all these body parts in this temple. He says, no, the body is one. The hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you.
You're not separate. You're a one body in Christ. But the heart of the matter regarding spiritual gifts is found in 1st Corinthians 13. People call this the love chapter and often take it out of its context. But 1st Corinthians 13 is placed in the midst of this instruction about the proper use of spiritual gifts and In the first part in verses 1 through 3 of 1st Corinthians 13, he basically says one thing, without love you ain't nothing.
It doesn't matter how well you speak, it doesn't matter how much you know, it doesn't matter what you've been able to accomplish, it doesn't matter how much money you give, it doesn't matter if you're a martyr. It doesn't matter at all if there's no love whatever you do has no value without love and He says you're nothing and it profits you nothing those two things Anything done without love is worth nothing. And then he goes on in verse 4 and itemizes 15 qualities of love that that we're very well aware of. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy.
Love does not parade itself. Love is not puffed up. So he goes on and gives these 15 marks of love. He says, without love you're nothing. Here's what love looks like.
And then at the very end of 1 Corinthians 13, he speaks of how love is eternal. It's the only thing that will not be destroyed. It exists in heaven. Heaven is a world of love. So that's chapters 12 through 14, the whole instruction on spiritual gifts.
And then in chapter 15 is the discussion about the resurrection. And he says, if Christ hasn't been raised, you're still in your sins. The resurrection is the heart of Christianity. If the resurrection didn't happen then you know all the people who believe in Jesus are believing in a lie. And then in chapter 16 there's a conclusion.
I love the conclusion of this letter. Look at verse 20. Greet one another with a holy kiss. The salutation with my own hand, Paul's, if anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Oh Lord come.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you My love be with you all in Christ Jesus amen So that's that's first Corinthians now second Corinthians is Is very very different And it's different from most of the books in the New Testament, really. Paul writes the second letter to the church in Corinth. After Paul's 18-month visit, a number of things happened that really took the shine off the Corinthian Church's opinion of Paul. Slanders rose up saying that Paul was fickle, he was proud, he was unimpressive, he was backwater in his speech, he was dishonest, He was not qualified to be an apostle so there were these voices rolling in the Corinthian Church and So Paul writes another letter that was sharper and stronger than the first it's referred to in second Corinthians, but we don't have it He wrote it but it's not something that we have. And then Paul decided not to return to Corinth until the church changed his disposition.
So Paul sends Titus to deliver this letter and to deal with the problems. And so Paul is writing this letter in a time of trouble when he's in Macedonia and in the city of Ephesus. He says, I fought with beasts in Ephesus. And so He's writing this letter to the Corinthian church out of tremendous difficulty that he's experiencing. So 2 Corinthians gives us this window into the interaction between an offended church and a minister.
They're charging him with walking in the flesh, they're charging him with being a coward, that he's boastful, that he's deceitful and all these kinds of things. Now in the midst of all this The Apostle brings really a message of comfort to them. And Titus comes back, he reports what's going on, and that there was a revival that took place. They turned away from a lot of the things that he confronted them in in the first letter and but there's still a contingent of divisive people in that church and so he's writing to that church to to warn them about the people that are in the church that continue to be critical of the Apostle Paul. But he begins the whole letter with a really surprising thing.
He talks about God's consolation in his life. He talks about how God is the God who comforts. And now, when you read 2 Corinthians, you're going to come across lots of words like fear, conflict, tears, affliction, struck down, death, slander, opposition. These are the words that compose the content of 2nd Corinthians. And what the Apostle Paul is saying is that if God is anything, He's a God of comfort.
So look at 2 Corinthians 1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us so our consolation also abounds through Christ. So the word that Paul uses for comfort in chapter 1 is a very graphic word and chapter 1 and all the other places where the Apostle Paul addresses this matter of comfort are very important for all of us because we will absolutely face times where we need the comfort of God. Now the word that Paul uses for comfort is a very graphic word.
It's not like the English word. When you hear the word comfort in English, you know, you think of a comfort food or air conditioning or something like that. Well the word that the Apostle Paul uses is a very dramatically graphic word and it's the Greek word parakalo and it means to come along side of someone to help them. It's actually a very graphic word picture of someone coming alongside another who needs help to walk along, to talk along with that person, to run along, to fall alongside of that person who needs help and even die alongside the person who is in need of comfort and the whole idea is that that God is one who is called alongside to help and in God's way of comforting he doesn't tranquilize you he energizes you it's a word of energy It's a word where you are brought help to pull out of the tailspin that you've been in. The Apostle Paul declares in many places in 2 Corinthians just how hard it had been and how much he needed God's comfort.
You think of the Apostle Paul and he's such a mighty man, but he's just like you and he's just like me he needed comfort in the midst of his trials that's why in in chapter 1 verses 8 & 9 he says for we do not want you to be ignorant brethren of our trouble which came to us in Egypt, that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life." Now think about that. The Apostle Paul got to a moment where he despaired of even being alive. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us in whom we trust that he will still deliver us. In chapter 2 verse 4 turn over there and look and see what it says there. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote you with many tears." The Apostle Paul had griefs, and any time a Christian finds affliction or anguish of heart or tears, They should go back and remember what the Apostle Paul is saying.
He speaks of this treasure that we have in earthen vessels when we're perplexed. In chapter 4, verses 6 through 12, He says, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and Not of us for we are hard-pressed on every side yet not crushed We are perplexed But not in despair Persecuted but not forsaken struck down But not destroyed always caring about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. You know, Paul's tribulations were so significant, but he still saw the love of God in all of his tribulations. And you can see this in chapter 11, verses 23 to 28.
He says, Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness, in toil, in sleeplessness, often, in hunger, in thirst, in fastings, often, in cold and nakedness, besides the other things which comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches." when you read that, you're really being put on notice that God's strength is greater than your trials.
It's greater than any disappointment you'll ever experience. If you cleave to the God who comforts the depressed, then you will prevail in all of your trials in the same way that the Apostle Paul did. You may despair of life, but you won't stay despairing of life like the Apostle Paul. And it's so easy to be filled with disappointments about yourself, about your personal failures, about money problems, about relationships that aren't working very well. But don't despair.
God is at work. You know, from time to time you might just think hey, you know, I'm disappointed about America I'm disappointed about my family. I'm disappointed about politics. I'm disappointed about my friends. I'm disappointed about my church I'm just disappointed and I I think I'll just quit But when you get to that place you have to remember God is the God who comforts those who are depressed.
He's the God of all comforts. Remember what he said? He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. And you know what people do when they need comfort today is they wanna go on a vacation or they wanna play a game or watch a movie or listen to a song to somehow jack them up. Those things are, they're very misleading on the one hand and they're short-lived on the other.
They don't comfort you. These things were not meant to comfort you. Only God can comfort the depressed. And God's comfort is the only comfort you ever really need. And it's the only true comfort in the world and the Apostle Paul makes that very clear he says we are not sufficient in ourselves for anything he says that in chapter 3 verse 5 Now the Apostle Paul was given the thorn in the flesh.
He was given an affliction. We don't even know what it was. It's a good thing we don't know what it was because if we knew what it was then we would make some kind of idol out of it. But We don't know what his thorn in the flesh was, but why did God give it to him? Why did God give Paul an affliction that he prayed over and over again to be released from?
Why? Paul tells us in 12.7, lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations. A thorn of flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure." Here's a reality that all of us need to embrace. Our trials and tribulations are given to us so that we won't exalt ourselves. They are given to us to humble us.
And the problem with us is that we are so self-sufficient, we are so self-centered, that we need a strong force to drive us to God. And trials and tribulations do that, don't they? They drive you to your knees That's where God wants you to be in a state of dependence upon him in a state of being empty of all fleshly means of escape to trust in God God does not grow you in your comfort zone He discomforts you when you are in your comfort zone to deliver you from it so that he can take you into his comfort. He replaces your comfort zone with his comfort zone. That's the love of God.
It really is amazing the way that God has arranged it for us. The place of humility is always the place of blessing. God resists the pride and gives grace to the humble. And trials make us humble. They make us see our inadequacy.
They make us fear so that we turn to God so He delivers us from our fears. But Paul makes this very clear that he doesn't just comfort you so that you'd be comforted, but he does it so that you'll comfort others. You'll read that in 2 Corinthians. The way that he speaks of God's comfort is twofold. God directly comforting, but he also talks about the God who comforts the depressed comforted us by the coming of Titus.
So God uses Titus to comfort Paul. This is one of the greatest services we can perform with our brothers and sisters, is to consider how we might comfort. You might even now think, Is there anyone who needs comfort? Is there anyone going through a trial? Anybody facing some stiff wind?
Anybody has something really disappointing right before them now? How would you comfort them? Should you write them a letter? Should you take them a gift? Should you call them?
Should you text them? What should you do? When someone in the church is struggling because of a difficulty, We were created for that. And that's why God comforted Paul by sending Titus. To whom can we be Titus?
In our own little church. And because God desires to spread his comfort around, he desires you to receive his discipline, to turn to his discipline. He'll pour his spirit out upon you, as it says in Proverbs 1 23, turn at my rebuke I will pour my spirit out on you and make my word known to you. You turn to him and then he uses you to spread his joy around. You know this thing about the love of God, seeing the love of God in your afflictions?
Just transport yourself to be with Paul. And you now are in Paul's body and you're receiving 39 lashes. Not just the first time. It's happening again. And how do you process that?
Well, Paul was processing it by saying, God who comforts the depressed. The God of all comfort. That's Paul's whole commentary on his life. The God of all comfort. That's it, that's the commentary.
And it's a blessing to go through life like that. You know, we should learn how to go through life like that, to see the love of God in everything. God is sovereign. He brings everything about. You must believe that if you're going to be happy.
You know this thing about the love of God, seeing the love of God in your afflictions? Just transport yourself to be with Paul and you now are in Paul's body and you're receiving 39 lashes. You know, not just the first time. It's happening again. And how do you process that?
Well, Paul was processing it by saying, God who comforts the depressed, the God of all comfort. That's Paul's whole commentary on his life. The God of all comfort. That's it. That's the commentary.
And it's a blessing to go through life like that. You know, we should learn how to go through life like that to see the love of God in everything. God is sovereign. He brings everything about. You must believe that if you're going to be happy.
Well the outline of of this book is really very simple. There are actually a couple three ways to outline it. One way to outline this book is according to where Paul was during his missionary journeys. In chapters 1 through 7, Paul is explaining why he couldn't make it to Corinth because of the difficulties. And then the next section, chapters eight and nine, he speaks about his time with the churches in Macedonia.
He talks about the troubles in Macedonia. Remember what happened in Macedonia? We were without rest. We despaired even of life. But in all of these chapters, there's very practical advice about giving and feeding on the Lord.
In chapters 10 through 13, he tells them to get ready because he's gonna come to visit them to pick up their donation for the church in Jerusalem and there he's saying you said that you would give these funds for this church don't back off from it you made a commitment you need to fulfill it There was probably some rumblings in the church that they made the commitment to give the money, but now they were having second thoughts. And Paul's saying, no, you intended to, you committed to, you ought to fulfill it. And in the final chapter, he ends his letter this way. You can just see his love for this church beginning in verse 11, where he says, Finally, These are his last words to the Corinthian church. Finally, brethren, farewell.
Become complete. Be of good comfort. He's talking about the comfort of God. Be of one mind. He's talking about love.
Live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit. So that's the whole testimony of Paul and Corinth.
He walked into that city and met a couple and the gospel spread in that city and all throughout the ancient world and it serves as a beacon of light for us to understand our problems and our churches the same way that the Apostle Paul declared it to be. Let's pray. Lord we pray that you would drive these things deeply within our hearts and teach us to see your church the way you do to be corrected by your word so that we might have a glorious church. Amen.