Blessed Is God, Part 1

2 Corinthians 1:3

It is now that time when we learn what God has for us from the text of Scripture. Take your Bible and open it, please, to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. We have just begun a study of this tremendous epistle and though we've only been in it for really a week, already it is dawning on us what tremendous treasure will be found as we work our way through these 13 chapters.

To begin our study this morning, I want to read...if I might...starting at verse 3 down through verse 11. "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 affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation or if we are comforted it is for your comfort which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even of life. Indeed we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope and He will yet deliver us. You also joining and helping us through your prayers that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed upon us through the prayers of many."

This opening section of Paul's letter is crucial to his purpose. It also is crucial for us because of its instruction along the theme of comfort in trouble. But before we consider what it means to us, we have to understand what it meant to him and why he wrote it. If there is one ringing theme in this epistle, it is Paul's defense of his integrity, his defense of his apostolic authority. Not for his own gain, not for his own popularity, not for his own prominence, but for the protection of the church and the protection of the truth. What is behind the scenes in this letter, what prompted this letter was a strong and growing assault on the Apostle Paul in Corinth, an effort to destroy his credibility so that his message could be undermined.

There were some false teachers that had come into Corinth. They had infiltrated the church. They wanted to bring another gospel. They wanted to preach another Jesus than the true ones. They wanted to bring their damnable heresies, their demon-doctrine, they wanted to bring their Satanic lies and they wanted them to be believed. And in order to find an entrance and to gain an audience, the first thing they need to do was topple Paul from the pedestal. They had to assault his authority because, after all, he was the one who articulated the truth, he was the one who set the standard, he was God's Apostle and so he had to come down. They had to tear him down. They had to destroy him and with him the truth he taught. And in the vacuum would come the error. These false teachers did everything they could to destroy Paul, they attacked him at every conceivable point. And then trying to replace him with themselves, they claimed to have credentials from Jerusalem and to have represented the truth of God when in fact they were messengers of Satan and their leader is even called such in chapter 12 verse 7, there he is called a messenger of Satan.

They had come into Paul's beloved church at Corinth and they were tearing in to the Apostle Paul, destroying his reputation, destroying any future or past ministry he had had and doing everything they could to tear the church apart and confuse it with error and then turn it over to Satan. This was of grave concern to the Apostle, and it is that very assault that is behind the penning of this letter which we know as 2 Corinthians. And from the beginning to the end Paul is defending the integrity of his own spiritual life and the authenticity of his apostleship.

Now let me summarize briefly the circumstances that are behind this epistle and I want you to follow very carefully because apart from this foundation you lose the great impact of what is here and you lose the understanding of the very opening paragraph which I read to you.

Paul had spent 18 months in the city of Corinth. During that 18 months, God had used him to plant the church there and to strengthen the church. Eighteen months of intense teaching and preaching had effected a strong and aggressively moving church.

At the end of that 18 months he left Corinth, headed east to Syria to return really back to his home church to bring his second missionary tour to an end. He promised the Corinthians that some time he would come back. Somewhere along the journey, we don't know where, as he was going back to Syria or when he arrived there or at some point, some news came to him about the Corinthian church. And the news indicated that there was immorality in the church and it wasn't being dealt with.

And so, he wrote them a letter. That letter dealt specifically with immorality and how to deal with it in the church. That letter was not inspired by the Holy Spirit, it came from the heart and mind of the Apostle Paul. It surely was a helpful letter and I'm sure a good letter and I'm sure a letter that reflected the heart of God, but not an inspired letter. And so it is lost to us. We don't have that letter. The basic content of it, however, you can find in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 9 through 13, there you have the basic summary of what was in that letter. He says in 1 Corinthians 5:9, "I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people," and then he goes on further to discuss that down through verse 13 and tells them to remove such an immoral person from the congregation. So that was a summation of that initial letter that he wrote, having to do with immorality.

Now we're not surprised to hear that. After all, Corinth was filled with immorality. There were hundreds if not thousands of temple priestesses that would come down and they plied their priesthood through fornication and adultery. They were prostitutes. There was rampant immorality in that city. In fact, the verb in the Greek language "to Corinthianize" means to commit lewd or immoral acts, to go to bed with a prostitute. The city was known for that. That's what its reputation was. It was a vile and wicked place from the moral side. And so it doesn't shock us that the church was having a battle with this pervasive immorality.

But what concerned Paul was not just the sin but the failure to deal with it and to allow that sinning person to have some ongoing relationship to the life of the church. And so he wrote the letter to deal with that.

After that letter, word came back to Paul. It came back, for example, from the family of Chloe, according to 1 Corinthians 1:11, and also from Apollos, according to 1 Corinthians 16:12. And so the word came back about how they responded to that original letter. He also received a letter from the Corinthians themselves. They actually wrote to him, according to chapter 7 verse 1 of 1 Corinthians. And so he got word from Chloe's house, word from Apollos and an actual letter most likely brought to him by Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus as mentioned in chapter 16 and verse 17 of 1 Corinthians. So there's an ongoing dialogue with this church which is so much a part of Paul's heart.

Now after he got word back from Chloe and Apollos and the others and the letter from Corinth, he was still concerned. Apparently things were not properly resolved. Apparently they hadn't really dealt the way they should have dealt with the issues at hand. And so he sent Timothy. Timothy, as you well know, was his son in the faith and reflected very much the character and the priorities of Paul. We find that indication of sending Timothy in 1 Corinthians 4:17 and also in Acts 19:22 and he sends Timothy back to find out more detail about the status of his beloved church and to deal with the problems that were there.

At some time soon, even immediately after he sent Timothy back, he was compelled by the Spirit of God to write another letter. This letter is 1 Corinthians. This was an inspired letter. At the time he was in Ephesus in Asia Minor. He had come back to Ephesus really beginning his third missionary journey. And he would be there for three years, in Ephesus, founding the church in Ephesus and the satellite churches in the cities of Asia Minor which are named for us in Revelation 2 and 3. The time was about 53 or 54 A.D. He was now on his third missionary journey. He had been at this over 20 years. He is showing great concern for the Corinthian church because of what he has heard. He sends Timothy and then under the inspiration of the Spirit of God he pens a letter. And that letter is what we know as 1 Corinthians. And when he writes it, it reflects what he had heard from Chloe, what he had heard from Apollos, and perhaps what he had heard from other sources and things are even worse than the first letter indicated. Factions, law suits, worldly wisdom, incest, disorder at the Lord's table, corruption of worship, corruption of spiritual gifts, deprioritization of preaching and prophesying, poor leadership, loveless attitudes, confusion about the resurrection, you can all that to the immorality. It's gotten worse, not better.

And I believe it is at that point during the three years in Ephesus after sending Timothy, writing the letter to the Corinthians and in the letter he reflects that he doesn't know whether Timothy will get there before or after the letter. Timothy had some other things to do on the way. I believe at some point during that three years, Paul actually left Ephesus and went to Corinth himself. The reason I come to that conclusion is because in chapter 13 verse 1, Paul tells about an upcoming visit and says, "this is the third time I'm coming to you." Indicating that there was a second. The first time he planted the church. And I believe the second time was during the time he was three years in Ephesus he made a journey there. Chapter 2 verse 1 also gives a similar allusion when he says, "I determined this for my own sake that I would not come to you in sorrow again." So you have the founding visit and then a sorrowful visit. I think the sorrowful visit is the one that he made while he was in Ephesus. Some would call it the painful visit.

And he went there to address all this sin that he wrote about so strongly, so sarcastically in 1 Corinthians and in that prior letter. He went there personally. He may have even heard from Timothy about the situation. He then came back, after making the visit he came back to Ephesus and he wrote a third letter. The third letter has been called by some "the severe letter." He really writes them a diatribe. He really lets them have it. He is grieved and he is broken hearted. And he writes a severe letter out of that attitude. In fact, look at 2 Corinthians 2:4, "Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made sorrowful but that you should know the love which I have especially for you." Verse 9, "To this end also I wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. I wrote calling you to submission to my apostolic authority and of the Word of God which I proclaimed to you."

I wrote out of anguish and sorrow and tears to you. Why? I'll tell you. When he went to visit them from Ephesus, you know what he found? He found not only all of the sins and all of the iniquities and all of the problems that he had addressed in 1 Corinthians but he found something else...he found a mutiny had begun. Some false teachers, some false apostles had come into the life of the church and they were assaulting Paul and assaulting the church. They were trying to undermine the truth and supplant it with lies.

You say, "Well, couldn't Paul be just referring to 1 Corinthians when he says out of much affliction and anguish I wrote to you with many tears?" No. Because 1 Corinthians was not written out of affliction and anguish and tears. That's not the tone of it. Secondly, look at chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians and verse 8, "Though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it though I did regret it." That letter that he wrote, that severe letter was so strong that he felt bad after he wrote it until he heard how they responded to it. He felt bad, he regretted it. That's another indication that it wasn't 1 Corinthians because why would he regret writing an inspired letter? Why would he regret writing one that had been given to him by the Holy Spirit?

So, this...this third letter before 2 Corinthians was attempting to deal with what he ran into when he went there. And what he ran into was a mutiny to add to all the rest of the stuff, the new problem, the arrival of the false apostles claiming authority from Jerusalem and demanding allegiance to both themselves and their teaching at the expense of Paul and the truth. They attacked Paul every way they could. They attacked his apostleship, said he wasn't a true apostle because he didn't hit...have the qualifications of the originals. They questioned his authority, they said he was self-authenticated. They questioned his honesty, said he doesn't tell the truth. They questioned his purity. I believe even accusing him of doing what he did for sexual favors from women. They questioned his love and affection for the church. They used every conceivable angle to attack his character. They even accused him of embezzling the money that was given for the poor saints in Jerusalem and putting it in his own pocket. And they were doing all of this to rip him down, to destroy him to so they could take his place. And then according to chapter 11 verse 2 and following, preach another Jesus and another gospel from hell.

They said Paul was brave from a distance but he was a coward face to face, chapter 10 and verse 11 indicate that. They suggested in chapter 11 and verse 12 he alludes to it, that he had no love for the church at all but was utterly self-centered. All of this being led by some guy that he calls "a messenger of Satan" trying to destroy this church. And, you know, this church was so strategic. There it was right on the little neck between the great Achaia which is the northern part of Greece and the Peloponesus(?), the bottom part and everybody coming north and south went through there and all the people carrying their ships across the Isthmus going east and west, it was the heart of the spread of the gospel in that whole part of the world. And to corrupt that church was to corrupt the message all over the world. Satan picked his target very well.

And so, when the Apostle Paul went there and found out what was going on in this mutiny, his heart was broken. He was in deep affliction and painful anguish and covered with tears were his cheeks. And it was in that attitude that he penned this letter. His heart was broken because of the investment he had made, because of what was at stake. And it wasn't his reputation, it was the truth of God and the church of Jesus Christ. He was feeling that pain and that anguish that only a pastor feels when people in his own congregation shatter him, devastate him. Not an uncommon experience, by the way.

The letter was delivered by Titus, this severe letter, according to 2 Corinthians 12:18. And Paul regretted that he wrote it once he got it out of his system. Have you ever done that? Written a letter and wish you could get it back? Well that's exactly the way he was feeling. It wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit and he was saying to himself, "Whatever they thought of me, by the time they get this then they're going to hate me more. I wish I could get it back." But he couldn't. And in fact, he had to wait for Titus to return. And he waited and he waited and he was just very very upset in the waiting. Look at 2 Corinthians 2:12. He said, "I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord, I had no rest for my spirit." Why? "Because I couldn't find Titus." I just...I needed to get with Titus and find out what did they think of the letter? "I had no rest for my spirit." He was restless and he couldn't sit still, even though there was an opportunity to preach, he couldn't take it because he was too upset about the Corinthian situation and so he left and he went from Troas to Macedonia to the city of Philippi to meet Titus. And he met him there.

Chapter 7 tells us about the report. Verse 5, he says, "We came to Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. We were afflicted on every side, conflicts without, fears within." I mean, the man is a mess. He's getting it from the outside and he's torn up on the inside because he so passionately loves this Corinthian church and he knows what's at stake. And then he says, "But God who comforts the depressed comforted us by the coming of Titus." Titus arrives.

And what did Titus say? Verse 7, "He came and he reported to us your longing and your mourning and your zeal for me." Wow! All the good news. So I rejoiced even more. And though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I don't regret it though I did regret it. Why? "I rejoice...verse 9...not that you were made sorrowful but that you were made sorrowful to the point of...what?...repentance." Sorrowful according to the will of God.

Oh, he was so relieved...so relieved. When Titus got him this news, the majority have repented, Paul, and the majority have longings for you, and mourning over what's happened. They're zealous for you. They stand with you, Paul. They're loyal to the truth. And that is why having heard from Titus he writes 2 Corinthians. That's how this letter fits. This is the las