Why God Lets Christians Suffer - Bible Survey Part 6

This week, we want to dig into Paul's second letter to the Corinthian church. This is probably one of the most ignored letters and under read letters and underestimated letters in all the New Testament. I guarantee you most of you have not spent as much time here as you have in Romans or Ephesians or others. But it is a precious letter, one of my very favorite and I hope by the time I'm done, my enthusiasm for this letter will rub off on you. So let's talk a little bit.

Let's do a little bit of review. Remember the Apostle Paul came to Corinth in 50 to 51 AD. He led a bunch of people to Christ, he established a church, he spent 18 months there discipling the believers and then he left town. Sadly, however, the church in Corinth went on to become the most carnal and fleshly church that the Apostle Paul ever started. In fact, Paul has already written one letter to them, the letter of 1 Corinthians from Ephesus where he was discipling the young believers in that church about their multiple issues in Corinth of sin and carnality. He studied that letter last week and now we find out in 2 Corinthians that Paul had hoped his first letter would clear everything up, all of the problems, but it didn't. As a matter of fact, on top of everything else, Paul now hears in Ephesus that a group of false teachers have moved into the church of Corinth and that they were teaching not only false doctrine there, but that they were undermining Paul's character and his apostolic credentials. He also learns while he's in Ephesus that this movement against him is gaining traction in Corinth and that it's beginning to turn many of the Corinthian believers against Paul. And so Paul made a trip from Ephesus to Corinth in 53 AD to try and straighten out all this mess.

And on this trip, he tried to be very gentle. He tried to be extremely soft with the believers in Corinth, but they misinterpreted that for weakness and so they just ignored him. This is why he says in 2 Corinthians 10 for his enemies, these false teachers, some say Paul's letters are weighty, but in person he is unimpressive. Well, they're talking about this visit when Paul tried to be nice and easy and gentle with them. So Paul decides to make a third journey to Corinth. He says in 2 Corinthians 13, 1, this will be the third time I am coming to see you and let's remind ourselves what the times are. The first time the apostle Paul came to Corinth was when? When he started the church.

Yeah, right. Acts chapter 18. The second time Paul went to Corinth, we just mentioned it, was between the two letters, 1 and 2 Corinthians, to try to iron out the problems there. And now Paul says, I'm about to make a third visit and he tells them, I just want you to know I'm through with the gentle approach. Listen to what Paul says. He says chapter 13 verse 2, I told you previously, he says, that is when I was there on my second visit, and although absent, I say again in advance to those who have sinned and to all the rest of you as well, that when I come this third time, I will not spare anyone. I am writing this, Paul says, while absent in the hopes, I'm on my way though, in the hopes that when I arrive there, I will not have to use severity in accordance with the authority that the Lord has given me as an apostle. I just want to tell you, I would not want to be on the receiving end of Paul coming into town like this, would you?

No, not at all. So Paul's letter to the Corinthians, his second letter, by way of review them, has three purposes. One, to exhort the Corinthians to clean up their act, clean up the sin in the church so that Paul doesn't have to when he gets there. Number two, to expose these false teachers and warn the Corinthians not to listen to them. And number three, to defend himself from the accusations that these false teachers were making against him.

And of these three purposes, it's really purpose number three that dominates the letter of 2 Corinthians. Now let's talk for a minute about these false teachers who were in Corinth. You all still with me?

Everybody OK? OK. We often call these guys Judaizers. That's the common name that is used today. They were Jews from Jerusalem who claimed that they believed in Jesus, but who taught a different plan of salvation, a different gospel than the apostle Paul and all the rest of the apostles taught. In Second Corinthians Chapter 11, verse four, Paul says that these men, quoting now, preach another Jesus whom we have not preached and another gospel, a different gospel. Now, what was this different gospel that these Judaizers preached? Well, these guys went around telling Gentile Christians that, yes, trusting the work of Christ on the cross is good, but you still have to keep the Old Testament law to be saved. So the difference was, make sure you get this now, when it comes to getting into heaven and getting eternal life.

Here's the difference. The true gospel, the one that Paul was preaching and Peter and James and John, is that getting into heaven and getting eternal life is based on trusting the shed blood of Jesus plus nothing. The Judaizers gospel said that heaven and eternal life are based on trusting the blood of Jesus plus human works. And in this case, Jewish religious works, being circumcised, keeping the Sabbath, observing the kosher laws and so on.

Do you see the difference? OK. And the Bible tells us that these Judaizers followed Paul around wherever he went. And when he would leave town, they would infiltrate the young church that Paul had established in whatever town it was. And they would begin to theologically mislead all the baby Christians that Paul had left behind. And this is just what they had started to do in Corinth. Now, Paul did not like these guys because they were misleading people, because they were teaching heresy, because they were distorting the gospel.

Wasn't personal, but he didn't like them. In Galatians 1, verse 8, he says they should be accursed. In 2 Corinthians 11, 13, I love this. Watch. He says, For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

Now watch. For Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so is it any wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness? Do you see what he just did here? He just called these guys servants of Satan. Gee, Paul, tell us how you really feel. He did not like these guys.

And guess what? They didn't like him. And when they moved into Corinth, they began to make allegations against him. And they began to criticize him. They criticized his physical appearance. They made fun of his speaking skills. They impugned his motives in the service of Christ.

They accused him of being arrogant. They challenged his credentials as a true apostle of Christ. All of this you find right in 2 Corinthians.

I've given you the references and on and on and on it went with these guys. And as we said a moment ago, this constant stream of slander against Paul was beginning to turn the Corinthian believers against Paul. And it broke Paul's heart. Remember, he had led most of these people to Christ.

He had stayed there 18 months, discipling them. I mean, if anybody ought to know the heart of Paul, it should have been these guys. And it broke his heart that they were turning against him.

And look what he says in his letter. He says to them, 2 Corinthians 7, 2, make room for us, meaning himself, in your hearts. We wronged no one. We corrupted no one. We were there with you. You know us.

We took advantage of no one. We conducted ourselves towards you in holiness and godly sincerity. God knows, he says, I love you, for I will gladly spend everything and be spent for you. So let's summarize. The Apostle Paul writes this letter of 2 Corinthians in 53 to 54 AD on his way traveling there. Number one, to deal with the ongoing sin in that church. Number two, to expose these false teachers who have crept into the church and to tell the Corinthians not to listen to them. And number three, to defend himself personally from the attacks of these Judaizers.

And the result is one of the most personal, I think the most personal, of all of Paul's letters in the New Testament. You see his heart. You see his motives. You see, you know, what motivates him. He really bears his heart and his soul in this letter.

And I want to urge you now with this little bit of background that I've given you, to go back and really read this letter understanding now what's going on and to let Paul's love for these people, his spiritual children in Christ, and to let Paul's heart for the work of the gospel and for the truth of the gospel grip you now that you understand a little bit of what he's talking about and what's going on. You with me? All right.

Now, that's as far as we're going to go in second Corinthians, because now you understand it, right? Right. OK. We're now going to stop and ask our most important questions. So are you ready? Are you ready? All right. All you guys allowed. And you ready? Here we go. Nice and loud. Come on now.

One, two, three. Yeah. You say, Alon, so what? Well, we're going to do with this letter what we've done with so many of the really large letters in the New Testament. And that is we're just going to pick one vitally important spiritual truth that is covered in the letter to focus on, because we can't possibly cover the whole letter. And we find this one truth in Second Corinthians Chapter 12. Let's look at the context before we dig in. Verse two, Paul says, I knew a man he's talking about himself who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Don't even ask. I have no idea.

All right. And this man was caught up into paradise. I can tell you that's what it means. And heard things that a man is not permitted to repeat here on earth. Can you imagine what Paul must have seen? Can you imagine what Paul must have experienced that he wasn't even allowed to come back and tell us about it? You say, why wouldn't he be allowed to come back and tell us about it? I don't know.

My suspicion is if we really knew how great heaven was, everybody here would go down and jump in front of a metro to get there as soon as we could, because that's how great it is. But that's only a guess. I don't know why he wasn't permitted to tell us.

But watch. But because of the greatness of these revelations that God gave me, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. The King James translate this word, buffet me.

It literally means to beat somebody black and blue. To buffet me, to beat me up, to keep me from exalting myself. You say, what was his thorn in the flesh? We don't know. Some kind of physical malady of some kind that Paul was suffering from.

Some people think it's bad eyesight. We really don't know. But whatever it was, it was definitely beating him up and he was suffering from it. Watch, concerning this thorn, I asked the Lord three times that it might depart from me. Guys, you think the Apostle Paul had a good prayer life? Yeah? Would you like to be able to pray like the Apostle Paul knew how to pray?

Yeah. Three times he prayed and asked God to take it away from him and three times God told him no. My grace is sufficient, he said, but no, Paul, I'm not taking it away from you. Now here's our question. That's our context. Here's our question.

Why? Why did God say I'm not taking this away even though it's causing you suffering, Paul? Well, the answer is that there wasn't anything wrong with Paul's prayer life.

The answer is that God was using this suffering to produce some spiritual things in Paul's life that God knew he couldn't produce any other way. Now as followers of Christ today, my friends, this is really important that we understand this. We must understand God is not Santa Claus.

We must understand God is not the genie in the lamp who gives us whatever we want. God is our heavenly what? Father.

Father. He's our parent and we are his children and his goal is to raise us as his children to be godly and holy and Christ-like people. And to do this, there are certain spiritual things he must teach us that we can only learn through the gateway of suffering. And that's why he left this in Paul's life. Now, what are these three things?

Well, let me tell you what they are and we're done. Number one is humility. Let's go back to what Paul just said in Second Corinthians 12.

Stay with me. Because of the greatness of these revelations, Paul says, to keep me from... next two words? Exalting myself. There was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me. And just in case you didn't catch it the first time, Paul tells you why again.

What does he say? To keep me from what? Exalting myself.

That's right. Folks, 1 Peter 5, 5, God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Proverbs, chapter 15, verse 32 says, before honor comes what? Humility.

Hey, the Bible's clear, friends. In order for God to bless us, he's got to humble us and he's got to keep us humble. And only suffering humbles our high opinion of ourselves and only ongoing suffering keeps us ongoingly humble, which is why God lets all of us as Christians have some in our life.

You know what? I've learned that success doesn't produce humility in anybody. Have you learned that? No, I never heard anybody getting humble from success.

No, it produces the opposite. It produces arrogance. And can we be honest enough to say that we're all arrogant? Are you okay with that? Yeah.

Well, in the flesh, we all are, right? Some of us have a bigger problem with it than others, but we're all arrogant and God is opposed to the arrogant. So in order to bless our lives, what's he got to do?

What's he got to do? He's got to teach us how to be humble and keep us that way. And that's why he sends suffering in our life. There's nothing else that lets the air out of our balloon like suffering. Number two, the second spiritual thing that we can learn only through suffering is reliance on God instead of ourselves. Listen to what Paul's testimony, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, he says, we want you to know, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in Ephesus. We were afflicted far beyond our ability and felt the sentence of death in ourselves. This happened to us.

Watch this. Paul said, God, let this happen to us. Look, in order that we might, what's the next word? Learn.

There you go. That we might learn something not to rely on ourselves but on God. Let's be honest again and admit not only are we all arrogant in the flesh, but we are all self-sufficient in the flesh. We are all self-reliant in our flesh. We all want to depend on ourselves instead of God or anybody else.

That's just the way we're made and it's only when God brings us to the utter end of ourselves through suffering when we're out of plans and we're out of ideas and we're out of schemes. We're out of everything. We got nothing. Again, only then do we learn and are we willing to rely on God a hundred percent because we don't have anything else.

We don't have anything else. So, hey, I love what one country preacher said. He said that when you get to this point you are shipwrecked on omnipotence.

I love that. And when God takes it all away and you're suffering, hey, you know what, that's when we learn how to depend on Christ instead of ourselves. And, folks, this by depending on Christ instead of ourselves, this is how we unlock the power of God in our life.

But the only way to get us there is to take everything and strip us down because given the chance to trust ourselves one bit, we will. Look what Paul says. He says most gladly, this is the most un-American verse in the Bible. Most gladly, therefore, I will boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest on me. Look, for when I am weak and relying on Jesus instead of myself, then I am strong.

Now, to an unbeliever, this is oxymoronic nonsense I just read. But for those of us who know Christ, this makes all the sense in the world because when we are not relying on ourselves but on the Holy Spirit himself, that's when we're really strong. Amen?

Amen. And the only way to get us there is through suffering. Finally, number three, a lesson we only learn through the doorway of suffering is mercy and compassion for other people. Watch, Paul says, 2 Corinthians 1, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our what? Sufferings.

That we may, next word, what? Learn how to comfort others who are in any suffering with the comfort God has given us. Hey, have you ever been in a situation where you've been going through terrible pain in your life?

Maybe there's been a terrible tragedy in your life. And all these people come up to you and they pat you on the back and say, we're going to pray for you. You know, don't forget, Romans 8, 28, All things work together for good, for things love God, don't forget that.

You know, give thanks to all things. And, you know, they mean well. But they don't give you any real comfort. You know, you feel worse sometimes when they walk away. And then there's this one person who comes across the church lobby maybe with tears in their eyes and they throw their arms around you and they just hug you. And maybe they don't say a word. But they just stand there with you and hold you and weep with you. And you get more comfort from that person than from all the other people who walk by you patting you on the back. Now, how did that person know how to do that? I had that happen once in the worst days with my daughter Jill.

Someone did that here at church. And I just broke down and wept like a baby. And they were holding me up, literally, holding me up. How did they learn to comfort people like that? Well, they've suffered. That's how.

You can be sure, my friends, that the person who comforts the best is the person who has suffered the most. When I was in Egypt in 2004 leading a tour, we were in the El Khalili Bazaar. I don't know if any of you have ever been there.

It's this huge bazaar. And our group was spread all around buying stuff. And I was sitting with a couple of friends on the tour having a cup of coffee at one of the little outdoor cafes. And as we were just sitting there talking, up came this young lady. She looked to be about, I don't know, 15, 16, 17, something like that, Egyptian. And she handed me a little laminated card. And on this card it said, I cannot speak, but I am trying to better myself by going to school.

Will you help me? And so I reached in my pocket and I took out 50 Egyptian pounds. That's not that much money, but for an Egyptian it's a fair bit of money. And I gave it to her. And you wouldn't believe what happened next. She fell on her knees right there in the middle of the bazaar and took my hand and started kissing my hand and rubbing her face against my hand with tears coming down her face. And I kept trying to get her to get up and I kept trying to tell her, you know, I kept making the sign of the cross telling her that I was giving it to her because of Jesus. But, you know, I didn't know how to speak Arabic and she couldn't say anything. And she just kept kissing my hand and kissing my hand and rubbing her face on my hand. And finally when she went away, one of the people who was sitting with me said, man, that was pretty amazing. He said, why did you give her the money? And I said, I'll tell you why. I said, because for 12 years I've been living with a little girl who can't speak. And we've suffered together and we've hurt together. And I said, you know what, 12 years ago I wouldn't have even noticed that girl.

Twelve years ago if she'd have come up and tried to give me that card I'd have just shooed her away. But God has changed my life through suffering. And, friends, that's what happens when we suffer. All of a sudden God changes us into people who now see things we didn't see before and we feel things we didn't feel before.

And we understand the hurts of other people like we didn't understand them before. And that's what God wants to do in you if you're a follower of Christ, is to get you to that point. And, friends, the only way he can get you and me there is through the doorway of suffering. To summarize, there are some levels of Christian growth that we can only attain through the doorway of suffering. Number one, genuine and deep humility. Number two, utter reliance on God instead of ourselves.

And number three, compassion and mercy for other people. You know, if we were to go around tonight and ask for prayer requests, I'll bet you every single one of us here could give a prayer request about something happening in our life that really hurts bad, that we're really struggling with, that is really causing suffering in our life, because there's suffering in everybody's life. And we have to get over the idea, my friends, that as followers of Jesus, one day the heavens are just going to open and all of a sudden the sun's coming through and there'll never be any more problems in our life and there'll never be any more suffering in our life. We've got to get over that idea because it's not going to happen, because it's not God's plan for us to have no suffering in our life, because it wouldn't be good for us to have no suffering in our life. Friends, if you had no suffering and pain in your life, if God took the pressure off you and me, almost immediately we would inflate right up like a puffer fish and be the most arrogant person, be the most self-reliant person, be the most callous person to other people in need. No. As followers of Christ, suffering is meant to be in our life. That is the truth. Don't you accept some cheap and superficial explanation for your suffering from some TV preacher or some radio preacher that you don't have enough faith, that your prayer life isn't strong enough, that God doesn't favor? No.

No, no, no. That's all lies. Suffering will always be in your life and my life because you know why? Suffering burns out shallowness in our lives.

That's why. Let me close with a quote from the great Saint Andrew Murray. Some of you may know who he is. Part of his life he was bedridden with a bad back, wasn't able to walk, and here's what he wrote. He said, God brought me here by his will, and in that I will rest. He is teaching me, and in his good time he will bring me out. Therefore, I am here in bed suffering by his appointment, in his keeping, under his training, and for his specified time. Not my will, but his be done.

To embrace the suffering God sends into our life because we understand why it's there and we understand what God wants to use it to do, this is a mark of spiritual maturity. Paul said that. I will boast in my weaknesses and my suffering.

Andrew Murray said that. And friends, that's where I hope you and I can get to. Let's pray together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to give you a moment to talk to God about that prayer request that you would have given me a moment ago if I'd asked you. That's causing pain and heartache and suffering and tears. And I want you to talk to God and tell him that you understand better now why that's there. And ask for his help to embrace it instead of despising it.

Because of the lessons he's going to teach you through it. Take a moment and pray. Dear Lord Jesus, there's not a one of us here who likes pain.

And there's not a one of us here who wants it in our life. But Lord, help us to learn the lessons of tonight. And help us to embrace the pain and the suffering that you've allowed into each one of our lives as your children. Because we understand why it's there.

And we understand what you're trying to teach us now better. Bring us to the place that we can say with the Apostle Paul, I boast in my weaknesses. For when I'm weak, then Christ can be strong in me. Change our lives because we were here tonight and encourage our hearts, even through the hard times. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what do God's people say? Amen. Thank you.