Christ's Life is out from God's grace and not human wisdom

You know, the first part, the first 11 verses in 2 Corinthians I think are just tremendous, and so I couldn't resist. I talked with Mike a little bit, and so you're gonna get a little review again of the comfort verses, which I think are just tremendous. So let's go here.

Okay, so the title I have here, actually back 2006 or so, Hal taught 2 Corinthians and this is the titles I've used from his class. So the title he gave for this section was Christ's Life is Out of God's Grace and Not of Human Wisdom. You know, and just a sidelight, what you'll find as we get, you know, the first part, the first 11 verses are about God's comfort and His, they're just tremendous, but then Paul's going to move into what some have called a defense of his ministry with the Corinthian church. But you know, the more you look at that, and our brother Hal kind of brought that out, I thought, loud and clear, is this is not so much a defense, but this is how a Christian should live.

This is how Christ's life looks in Paul's life and hopefully in our lives. This is how it looks when it's under pressure and trials and situations which aren't the best. It looks a certain way, it reacts a certain way. This is Christ's life being lived out through a believer. So that's kind of the tenor of a lot of these titles. So here's a quick outline of what we're gonna do.

The greetings were, Mike covered great, and we covered the greetings back, you know, three messages ago. But the middle two sections, three through seven, and eight through 11, Christ's life allows suffering but provides comfort. So there's kind of that tension between suffering and comfort, suffering and comfort, and we see that in those verses. But then in eight through 11, He moves into this testing or proving of our faith and it's pretty severe words and pretty, you know, I, especially verse 8 and 9 have just been a real help to me in my Christian life, understanding that trials can be just over the top.

And Paul talks about that. We'll go through that again. And then as we start into 12 and forward, we're going to see that it's going to be Christ's life lived out through Paul as he talks about his Corinthian brothers and he expresses his heart about them and where he was at with those brothers. And that he just told them exactly what the truth was, but there were those that doubted that he was telling the truth, that he had other motives in his ministry.

So we're going to start into that and then that's going to kind of continue on for all the rest of chapter 1 and so on. So we'll see that as the weeks go by. Okay, so now starting in the last part of verse 3 starting through verse 4. the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. So if you notice I kind of highlighted the all and the any in there and that's that word pas in the Greek it means It's everything with no exceptions.

So it's not like, well, God's gonna comfort me in only the big ones, but the little ones are up to me. I get to work out the little problems in my life, and God, he'll help me in the big ones. Or maybe you think the reverse of that. Maybe you think of the big ones he can't handle, but I can handle the little ones. But scripture says he comforts us in all our afflictions, in any affliction.

So I thought that was important. So our brother Hal, I'm going to use a lot of his, from his class, this class that he taught back in 2006. So there's a word that comes up in this text we have, it's translated affliction, but it could be tribulation or trouble. It's this thalipsis. And it's the idea of, like Mike did a good job about the Star Wars picture of the garbage compactor compressing down, but our brother Hal had a great picture of it, like a vice kind of coming in like this and just squeezing you.

So that's that affliction, that's that trouble or trial that is impacting you. But the verse here tells us of the wonderful ministry of God through the Holy Spirit. God's comfort is never absent from any of our afflictions, from the small to the greatest. God's comfort is present in every one of our afflictions.

You know, and the thing is, We may not see that, and I think many times we don't see that. We think maybe the reverse of that. We think, well, God, as Hal would say, he's out to lunch, or he's gone to Hawaii, or he's, you know, wherever. Think of your happy place. He's gone somewhere else and not where I'm at. He doesn't know what's going on with me, but he does.

God's comfort, you know, I also thought a neat synonym. He that how expressed in these in these charts was I did God's comfort So what does that mean and his synonym for that? Setting our hearts at rest. That's his synonym for God's comfort which I thought was just outstanding because that's kind of where that where is that because you know, it's not like You know I want to say that the scriptures are given to us to give us a foundation and a rest in what He has declared. And I think setting our hearts at rest is just, you know, so much to the point. So God's comfort or setting at rest is not only for our own personal relief, but for us to identify and minister to others.

And Mike did a great job in going through all that, and we're gonna review that again about the... So Hal says here, just think, your affliction may be God's preparation for you in ministering to others. So verse 5, for just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. So we have another word that comes up, it's this word for suffering, pathima, a physical or mental pain or distress. This is not, so you have to be careful here, this is not suffering as Christ suffered to pay for our sins. No one else can do that. He suffered. He completed that job. The sins of the whole world were paid for. That's in completed action.

What's talked about here is this is our suffering for His sake and glory in fellowship with His suffering. When we suffer, Christ suffers with us because of our identification with Him. Observe the principle of abundance. And this is really, this is a great principle. Our suffering abounds. God's comfort super abounds. Where the sin nature abounds, God's grace super abounds. And you kind of remember the verses that talk about that. So let's go on. This is just a brief review here. Verse six.

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 suffering which we also suffer. So we have two statements here. Our affliction is on behalf of, the Greek word hupere, the comfort of others. and our comfort is also on the behalf of others as well. And this is not a contradiction. In our affliction we can identify with the affliction of other believers. We can then comfort them with the comfort that God comforts us. And we saw that back in verse 4.

Our being afflicted is on behalf on behalf of the salvation, and this is for deliverance, not salvation in the sense of saving them, but of delivering them, of other believers as follows. As we rest in Christ in our affliction, the glory of Christ is manifested through us. Others see Christ and are delivered from discouragement, self-pity, worry, fear, despair, whose source is the sin nature.

And don't we see that sometimes when we see a brother or sister and we see that they're going through a trial or a difficult time and their testimony and how they handle that can be wonderful. And sometimes maybe the way they don't handle it can be good too, because we say, well wait a minute, they're just like me. Because down inside we don't want to tell anybody that we feel maybe the same way they're feeling, but we don't say anything about it. So it works both ways. Their testimony of believers and how they go through a trial is just tremendous. So the result, others are energized with patience, hupomone, to abide under, so as to be able to endure with joy the afflictions and sufferings. Verse eight. So this starts a section on the trial and temptation.

So here's, this is just a tremendous verse. For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our afflictions which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of our life. If you think about this verse, this is a pretty, pretty potent verse. And when it says we despair even of our life, I'm gonna talk about that in just a second. So let's just look what our brother Hal had to say about this.

So again, we have this philipsis word, the pressure of affliction. We also have another word, burdened excessively. It's in the passive voice, we're weighed down by the affliction, it's a burden. You know, a lot of this I think, you know, sometimes, this is my take on it, maybe Bob and others and Mike will say different, but a physical affliction is one thing, but many times a mental affliction is actually much harder, you know, having a loved one suffer, and you suffer mentally because of that, that sometimes is worse. You say, I wish I could just have the same pain that they have. It would be better. The mental pain of that sometimes is just overwhelming. And that's what, I think, what Paul's talking about here.

It says, beyond our strength. But the point is he's gonna make here, it's never beyond Christ's strength and power. And then it says, we despaired is to be utterly without a way out, and it's a compound word in the Greek, ek, out, intensified, a negative, and then a way through. We have no way out. We don't see any way out of that. And I think if we're honest with ourselves, sometimes we get in that place and we say, Lord, I don't know how we're gonna get through this. I don't have a clue.

It looks like, you know, and it's, you know, and then the bottom line even to live and that's um and our brother how takes you know this is so how i hate to dwell on my brother so much but you know how in his life he he had a great testimony and this is one of the areas that i really benefited by and this is typical how he says it's a wonderful place to be the testing or proving of our faith as to where we are going to rest.

And I can remember how he shared that with me and others many, many times about how he would talk. If Andrew could talk to us here, I'm sure he would share the same thing. He would talk to his children. His children would say, Dad, they'd call him on the phone, Dad, guess what happened? And they'd explain what happened. And it could be the car blew up, my girlfriend left me, or whatever it is. And he'd say, wonderful. Well, Andrew, that's just wonderful. And you say, how can you say that? And actually, I could not say that to my children. I really could not do that. I would like to have been able to do that, but I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't. But our brother Hal, he got it. He understood it. He lived it. And he could say that honestly. And that was the kind of person he was.

So I'll just share my side of this. We despair even to live. And I think that That can be us sometimes. We say, Lord, I just don't, you know, this is just too much. I know. Lord, take me home. I don't want to, I don't want to go through this anymore.

I just, you know, and that's where Paul was at. And I think we should, that's helped me to say, well, if the Apostle Paul, who had a lot more understanding of scripture than I do, has that opinion, then hey, it's okay. It's okay to have that opinion and to be in that place sometimes. But the bottom line is God doesn't want you to hang out there. He doesn't want you to be there. He wants you to move on from that. Okay, now here's the next potent verse, two potent verses.

Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raised the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, he will yet deliver us. So this idea of sentence of death. So it seems like this is referring to Paul was being hounded by multiple people in multiple cities. He'd go to the city and they would drive him out of the city. They'd be after him. So the world's response to Christ's ministry through Paul was a judgment of death. How encouraging and comforting to see Paul's response of trusting in the Lord alone and not himself in the face of imminent death. Total trust in the one who can and will resurrect the dead.

Okay, all right, I didn't have much more to say about that. Except that I kind of even took even another twist on this. I saw this as another thing that might be in your head, too, that, you know, about, you know, you don't want to live anymore, and you think, well, you know, and some people go so far as that they, you know, they take their lives, and that's, you know, that's, God never wants that. But I, you could look at these verses, and I think you could make a case that it could address those as well. But Paul doesn't, I don't think it's saying that directly.

Okay, 11, you also join in helping us through your prayers so that thanks may be given by many persons on behalf for the favor bestowed on us through their prayers of many. Okay, God provides all our needs in his ministry through us. God provides co-laborers. God provides His mercy, compassion, His comfort, setting our hearts at rest. There's a cool synonym. In all our difficulties, God will share His compassion and comfort with us through others. God is the source of all ministry. We are just the vessels. He creates the work and we execute the work that He gives us. The ministry is accomplished in His sufficiency, not ours. Therefore we are never to be overwhelmed by the ministry for the Lord.

Okay, so that's a quick review. So here's our verses for today. So here's kind of the shift. He's been talking about this wonderful ministry of God's comfort and his ministry under trials and difficult times. So now he kind of shifts and he starts talking about his relationship to the Corinthian church. And he says, for our proud confidence is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you. For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope that you will understand it until the end, just as you also partially did understand that we are your reason to be proud as you are also ours in the day of our Lord Jesus.

Okay. So before we get there, we're almost there, we're gonna do a background. Background check, no. Wrong kind of background. So the background for these verses. Again, this is his interaction with the Corinthian church. And you know, as we saw in the first book, we saw that all these problems arose in Corinth. And Paul, he tried to address every single one.

But there was some distrust in that. So there arose distrust in what Paul was ministering to them about. And this distrust came, and Hal kind of has it here, was Paul not sincere? Paul was not sincere. They questioned his authority. Is it out of his sin nature? Who does he think he is judging us? Their perception, Paul was in it for the money. Boy, that was a hard one to prove.

Anyway, so in this wonderful letter, Paul deals with what the life of the Lord should look like through us as vessels. This is how to recognize the source of the ministry is from the life of the Lord Jesus, not from ourselves. Then lastly, so Paul is not at all defending his ministry, but just simply explaining how he lives by faith and how God then uses him as a vessel in his ministry. Okay, verse 12, first part. So you'll see, if you notice in here, and maybe you'll pass over it first, they're plural. He says, he'll say our and we.

So he's speaking of his, you know, of Timothy, who was part, you know, involved in this ministry too. It says, for our, Paul and Timothy's proud confidence is this. So proud confidence is the act of boasting or glorying in. So what was he boasting or glorying in?

So notice it has a colon right there. It has the testimony of our conscience. So this is what Paul was saying that he was glorifying God in, the testimony of his conscience. You say, boy, the testimony of my conscience? You're glorifying God in that? Well, it's because he was God's spokesman to the Corinthian church.

And what he told them, he had a clear conscience about. And conscience here is this word, I'm not sure I can pronounce it. It's the idea of the faculty which distinguishes right and wrong, basically. So Paul tells us that his glory was in having a clear conscience before God. Paul's intention was not to convince the Corinthians that his... I'm sorry, I read that wrong. Paul's intention was to convince the Corinthians that his recent actions arose from a sincere motive.

Okay, so what you find in this verse many times, and I think we talk about this in Sunday school, many times in the original language, the way the verse reads and the way it's translated, well, the word order changes between the original and what the English has.

In this case, actually the key part of the sentence is at the last part of the verse, and the key part of the sentence is, we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially toward you. So the key part here is this is Paul's conduct. We have conducted ourselves, and conducted is the idea of one's manner of life, one's character of life, and it's a fact. It's a past point fact. This is how Paul conducted his life. So we find this word shows up in other places.

Kind of a similar verse, the writer of Hebrews, who some people think is Paul, it says, Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. And then, I thought this was kind of appropriate, Paul's motive, this is from Constable, Paul's motives resulted from God's grace at work in his life. He viewed all of his life from this perspective, seeking not to advance self, but the cause of Christ. So what we're going to see here, as I mentioned, the key part of the verse is at the last, but now we're going to see that there are four prepositional phrases that start out in the middle part of the verse and they talk about to whom his conduct was focused on and also the character of his conduct. So the first one, in the world and especially toward you. That's the first prepositional phrase.

So it's a cosmos. in the world, especially toward you Corinthians. So the world is a world system, I believe, outside of the believers at Corinth, because he specifically focuses on them. So you could think about this, in his time it would be the Jews, basically. That would be the world system, which is the Jewish system out there. And possibly the Gentile system as well.

But then he makes special note, especially toward you Corinthians, It was like he's saying, you know, my conduct to you, I was ever present, I was ever focused on my conduct towards you. I wanted to make sure you understood where I was coming from and that I was telling you the truth in all situations. And he used those words especially, it means exceedingly more, more frequently, more super abounding. He really focused on his brothers and sisters at Corinth.

So the next phrase is, in simplicity and sincerity of God, and not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God. So if you notice here, I kind of picked the, I chose simplicity. There's some debate over whether the word holiness, unholiness, should be, it comes from a different text, and there's, it occurs in some texts of scripture, original texts, and other texts it's not. So I kind of went with the simplicity, word, it seemed to fit better in the context. And this was, Macaulay kind of said that and others said that as well.

So in simplicity is the idea of single purpose, not having an ulterior motive. And we're going to see that later on as we get more into Paul's dialogue where he talks about, he has that phrase that his preaching to them was not yes or yes and no and not no. It was to be yes in him. They thought he was vacillating. He would say one thing and then say the other. He's saying, no, I didn't do that. I was a straight arrow. I told you exactly what was true with no double motive.

And then the second word is the sincerity of God. And this word of sincerity is kind of a cool word. It really talks about, this sincerity is a quality that only God possesses. It's a purity. pure motive. And I thought about the attributes of God, and you go through God's attributes. He's holy, righteous, just. And then I thought about the attributes of His being immutable, righteous, and just. Immutable, He's not changing. So Paul is saying, I speak in simplicity, no double motives, and my sincerity, it's a pure, sincere motive, and it doesn't change, and it's righteous and just.

That's pretty cool. So that's the second of those prepositional phrases. And the third one, not in fleshly wisdom or cleverness. This is kind of cool. This is our word fleshly, which shows up translated carnal sometimes in some translations. It's composed of the sin nature. It's the entire unregenerate man. There's a verse that kind of describes that fleshly wisdom and it says the wisdom of man, which I added in there, the wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, and demonic. So that's the nature of that fleshly wisdom, earthly, natural, and demonic. So Paul is rejecting that. He says, I didn't do that. I didn't give you man's wisdom. I didn't give you man's wisdom, which is earthly and natural and demonic. That's not me.

What I did give you was, but in the grace of God, in the sphere of God's grace. You know, we talk a lot about in the operating system of God's grace. You know, in these verses, this little part of the verses kind of reminded me of that, in the grace of God or in the sphere of God. And we see that in a couple of verses. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace."

And then in Romans 5.21, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So Paul is saying that it was not in fleshly wisdom that he spoke to them. not of the world of the earthly, demonic, and natural. He spoke to them in godly wisdom, the grace of God.

Okay, so let me go on to verse 13. For we write to you nothing else to you except what you read and understand. And I kind of highlighted the word understand, I'll show you that in a second. for indeed, so the subject here again is plural, we, Paul and Timothy, write to you Corinthians, nothing else or no other thing than what you read and understand. So he's trying to, again, he's trying to bring to them that what he writes There's no hidden meaning behind it. And he says basically that you can read and understand it.

Interesting in studying for this, our brother Chester McCauley, he spent a long time talking about, you know, this is actually a statement. If the Corinthians could read and understand Paul's writings, then we can understand Paul's writing. And we can do that too. So it's a testimony that God's word is not No, not, un-understandable, is that a word? You can understand it. You can read it, and you can understand it.

So let's talk about those two words. So it's literally, it's the present tense you are reading. So there's an interesting play on Greek words here. This is anagonosko, and the idea is to know by reading. The core word is to know, know of experience, to perceive, but this word with a preposition in front of it is that to know by reading.

And so we see that signifies that there's no hidden, a hidden, mysterious meaning in his epistles. Some people, they approach Scripture, mostly non-believers, in a different light. They say, well it has all these, it's ancient writing and it has all these hidden meanings and they create meanings behind Scripture. Well, that's not what Scripture is. Scripture is exactly what it says it is.

It's God's Word given to man and it has an intended meaning. Okay, so let's go on to the next word, understanding, understand. And here's the same Greek word with a different preposition on the front end. This is epigonosko, and this is complete knowledge, full knowledge. And I try to think of a good example of this.

So I thought about Zoom. Who in this room has used Zoom? Raise your hand. you all should raise your hand. If you have a computer and you're watching, you probably all have used Zoom. Well, you have some knowledge of Zoom, right? You can possibly click on it and the thing comes up and you maybe blank your screen or put a thing behind you. You have some knowledge of Zoom.

But our brother Bill Speckman, he has epi-gnosco of Zoom. because he has lived with Zoom and it hadn't been his friend and he has fought through the battles with Zoom. So he's come to know it, fully know it, not as well as he'd like to, I'm sure. He'd like to know it even better so we could have flawless times with Zoom. So that's the point that Paul's making here, that they could come to a full understanding of God's word. That's what Paul's desire, to read and understand.

So understand or fully know occurs three times in these two verses, 13 and 14. And so you could render 13 as follows, that you read and fully know. So Paul's letters to the Corinthians were being read and understood. And a verse that uses the same kind of play on Greek words with the same core gnosko inside is this word, you are letters written in our hearts, known and read by all men. The same two Greek words occur in that one.

So I really like what Constable had to say about this one. And you probably would agree. Paul wrote some things that were hard to understand. He is an easy guy to read sometimes, right? You gotta put the time in. Take the time to work through it. And sometimes he puts irony in there, but he did not write one thing to mean another.

He didn't have a hidden meaning behind something. What he said was what God intended him to write, and that's what he wrote. And that was part of the tension there, I think, in Corinth. They thought there were hidden meanings behind some of his writing. There was not. Okay.

So he kind of finishes off, I hope that you will understand until the end. So this word hope here is the idea of a desire. He trusts or he desires that they will understand. I trust, and here using another verse, I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test. And the direct object of this is you will understand. You will fully know. until the end.

So you could kind of go off possibly a different direction here, but I chose maybe the easy direction. So I think this just means that, and Merriman kind of expresses it here, you will not change your opinion of what we have written. So Paul is saying, you know, I wrote you, I hope you understand what I wrote, and I hope you won't change your mind. You won't go down the road and say, well, Paul really meant something different. No, I meant exactly what I said.

And then some have taken, and I think this is probably Constable believes, and I think I do too, the end refers to the end of their lives, not the end times necessarily. Some people think it's the end times, but I think it more likely refers to this, he wants them to understand it for the rest of their lives. Okay, the last verse, just as you also partially did understand that we are your reason to be proud as you also are ours in the day of our Lord Jesus. So this is the third time he uses this word for understand, that you partially did understand. So I think this, actually Merriman helped me here. I was confused about this for a while, but just as you did, just as you did have full knowledge of us. Let's see if I can make this sense here. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm not reading it right.

So what he's saying here, he's saying that there seemed to be part of the body of believers at Corinth that understood where he was at and they identified with Paul and they interacted with Paul based upon that understanding. So that idea of partially is part of the believers at Corinth had this understanding, had this full knowledge.

So what do they know or understand? I think the last part of the verse tells us that, the that. What follows of that is what they fully knew. And this is a wonderful statement. So this is kind of adding in a little additional information here to make it more clear.

We, Paul and Timothy, are your reason to be proud, to glory in, as you are ours. to be proud of. So they mutually respected one another. They respected Paul as being their teacher, as the person that led them to Christ conceivably. And Paul was excited and was proud of them that they met the Lord and went on with the Lord and grew in the Lord.

So there was this mutual relationship between the two of them. And that's what he's, I think, addressing here in this verse. So Merriman says, this is our identity with one another and our glory. In the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, it seems like this is referring to when the Lord comes, this relationship will bring glory and honor to him. That there was a teacher, a man that brought the gospel to them, they responded, and they glorified God for thanking them for Paul, and Paul glorified God that they believed and trusted him as their savior.

Okay, so final thought here, thoughts, plural. I didn't actually, I struggle with this part. Sometimes I have something really cool to share, I didn't have a whole lot, so I just, this seemed to be appropriate. Even though Paul's correspondence with them had been straightforward, they had not grasped the greatness of his love for them and how proud he was of them.

Just think about, just think about the time, think about how much time we spent in 1 Corinthians, the number of topics that Paul covered with them. He went the whole gauge of topics, everything. He cared so much about that body of believers that he really just poured himself out into these Corinthians.

And now on the flip side, They had legitimate right to be proud of Paul as their spiritual father, and he had the right to be proud of them as their spiritual children. All right, so let's just close in prayer. Thank you, Father. We thank you for your word, Father. Thank you for the blessings we have, and thank you for the ministry of Paul with the Corinthians, Lord. You've given us so much of Paul's writings that describe this relationship and we're going to spend another year talking about this in 2 Corinthians. We thank you for this ministry that Paul had with the Corinthians and your desire to show us and teach us through that letter to them. In Christ's name, Amen.