Priests Comfort One Another in Prayer

We're continuing a series on priests in the kingdom, and we're focusing on our calling as priests, made priests by Christ, and priests are to be earnest in prayer.

So let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

I'm going to read beginning in verse 1.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth with all the saints who are in the whole of Acacia.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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 as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.

But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.

On him we have set our hope, that he will deliver us again.

And you also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

Jesus, thank you that you saved the Apostle Paul.

You saved him from his sin and you turned him into a chosen instrument, one who suffered greatly, who endured many trials, but through those trials and sufferings he found you to be faithful.

And so he has something to say to us in the midst of our own trials and suffering about where to find comfort, how to receive mercy, and how to intercede for one another.

And so, Holy Spirit, would you apply to us whatever you might have to say to our hearts and minds for the glory of Jesus?

Amen.

So three simple points this morning.

Paul was an apostle, a man who knew real suffering.

Paul was comforted in his suffering and saved by Christ, and God's comfort flows to us and also from us.

So Paul, someone who knew real suffering, I don't know what kind of hard things you have been through in your life.

I know some of you, I know some of your hurts.

I am certain that some of you have felt like the Apostle Paul in verse 8, utterly burdened beyond strength.

Perhaps to the point that you despaired of life itself.

I know some of you have experienced what it's like to be abandoned, to be rejected.

You've lost people that you loved.

You've had dreams and hopes shattered.

You've been betrayed, abused, neglected, hated.

Each of our stories are different.

Our pains are not the same.

And it's usually not helpful to try to compare our sufferings one to another.

What we are united by is the experience that the fall gets to us all in one way or another.

And Paul, although he lived two thousand years ago, speaks to us today as the comforted comforter, one who endured so much and who could not teach us things we need to hear if he had not suffered so much.

Listen to just a little of what Paul endured from chapter 11 of this same letter.

Imprisonments, countless beatings, often near death.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews forty lashes, less one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwreck.

A night and a day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, and danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

I'm just stunned that Paul didn't give up.

I mean, I would have filed for early retirement.

But Paul, Paul had a message, a message he only learned through his suffering, a message that Jesus is the cure, the cure for eternal suffering.

And because he is, that Jesus makes a different difference in how we experience suffering here on earth.

In chapter 4 of this letter, Paul talks about the paradox of the cross.

He says we are perplexed but not in despair.

We are persecuted, but not forsaken.

We are struck down but not destroyed, because we are always carrying around in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our body.

You see, Paul is offering resurrection hope to those of us who grieve.

And grief takes many forms.

Grief is what you do when someone or something has died.

Maybe you've experienced what it's like to have someone not understand why you're grieving.

Because a person hasn't died.

But maybe your hopes, maybe your dreams, things you've prayed about for years, have died.

I want you to know that the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort grieves with you.

He weeps with you.

He cares about all of the pains in the hearts of his children.

He cares about lost relationships, lost dreams, lost plans, and the people you love who you have lost.

He hears your cries of pain and disappointment.

Listen to Psalm 18:6.

Psalms 18:6

In my distress I called upon the Lord, to my God, I cried for help.

From his temple he heard my voice.

My cry reached him to his ears.

The King of the universe holds all things in his hand, and yet he is not too busy, not distracted, not inattentive to the cry of every one of his children.

When you pray, he gives you his full attention.

Paul was comforted in prayer.

Paul was always praying to a big God about his big problems.

He prayed to the God who feels compassion and then acts on it.

As God said to Moses in Exodus 3, the Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt, and I am concerned about their suffering.

So I have come down to rescue them.

God is not inattentive to you, and that is why God came down to earth in the body of Jesus Christ, came down to live and die and to save us from eternal death.

Look at verses eight and nine in today's text.

Paul was so utterly burdened, he says, so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.

Where do you run when you feel like that?

You know, there's someone who wants you to run everywhere except to God.

Satan wants you to run anywhere else but to the Father of mercies.

He wants you to believe that God doesn't care, that he can't help, or simply won't help.

But I want you to know that in your suffering, God is offering us at least three things.

He's offering us his comfort and peace.

He's offering us a deeper sense of dependency and trust in him.

And he's offering us a ministry to one another to pass on the comfort which we receive.

Suffering can make us bitter, angry people who focus all of our energies on protecting ourselves and keeping others at arm's length, including God.

But Jesus desires to draw close to you, to meet you in your pain with his comfort.

And when he does, by his grace, we become more other-centered people, more hopeful people, more compassionate people.

You see, Paul's suffering had a purpose.

Verses 9 and 10.

But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.

On him we have set our hope, that he will deliver us again.

You see, suffering can make us either hopeless or hope-filled.

Listen to what Martin Luther King said before a march in Selma.

He's quoting Jeremiah, Jeremiah the weeping prophet, the suffering prophet.

King said, centuries ago, Jeremiah raised a question.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician?

Jeremiah raised the question because he saw the good people suffering so often, evil people prospering.

Centuries later, our slave foreparents came along and they too saw the injustices of life and had nothing to look forward to morning after morning but the raw-hide whip of the overseer, long rows of cotton, and the sizzling heat.

But they did an amazing thing.

They looked back across the centuries and they took Jeremiah's question mark and straightened it into an exclamation point.

And they could sing, There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.

There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

My friends, there is a Father of mercies and a God of all comfort who hears you when you pray, who comforts us in all of our affliction.

So when today is full of pain and hardship, call out to the God who has already demonstrated his compassion and faithfulness yesterday.

Can you recall times when God has been faithful?

When he has delivered you?

Take 15 seconds right now.

Just think of one, two things God has done for you.

Now look again at verse 10.

God's faithfulness is the past.

In the past, it's the foundation of Paul's present hope.

That's how he could say he delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.

The biggest peril in Paul's life, and the biggest peril in your life, is our sin that makes us spiritually dead.

There is no suffering on earth that compares with the eternal suffering in hell that we would experience if we die apart from Christ.

But he endured that suffering in our place, that we might be able to say with Paul, He delivered us from the deadly peril of our sin, and therefore I know He will deliver me from this, either now or in eternity, He will deliver me.

You see, without the resurrection of Christ, our life on earth is meaningless.

And we can we might as well say, if the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

But if you trust in Christ, who died to remove your sin and the curse of death, who was raised from death to give us new life, then you are resurrected too, spiritually.

And that makes all the difference in how we endure suffering.

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.

Trust in the suffering Savior.

Trust in the one who suffered more than anyone who has ever lived and who shows us how to find comfort.

You know, Jesus himself found comfort in his Father, our Father.

Kenneth Chaffin says that all who share Christ's trials can also tap the resources that were his.

So we have the same access that Jesus himself had to the Father.

So my third point, that God's comfort flows to us and from us.

It's so often hard to experience God's comfort because we can't see him.

And so it's easy to question if he cares, especially when our problems are right in our face.

But his comfort is accessible to you in at least three ways.

The Holy Spirit, who dwells in you, who teaches you how to pray when you don't know what to say.

And the Holy Spirit, secondly, uses God's word to remind us of God's promises, to strengthen us when our faith fails.

You can meditate on texts like Psalm 62.

For God alone my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and salvation.

I shall not be greatly shaken.

Trust in him at all times, O people.

Pour out your heart before him.

God is a refuge for us.

God uses texts like that in his word, and he uses the Holy Spirit, and he also uses, thirdly, he uses us.

He uses one another.

The body of Christ is Jesus' visible, tangible presence on earth through whom he cares for his people.

I'm a self-centered person.

And I tend to think that everything is about me, including my suffering.

Suffering, especially, can make us obsessed with our own problems, our own need for help and for comfort.

But look at verse four.

He says, God comforts us in all of our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those in any affliction with the comfort we were comforted by God.

You see, God helps you and He pours into you something that is not only for you.

Are you a pond or a river?

A pond is a body of water that is filled with rain from above, and there is no outlet.

It just sits there, stagnant.

You're like a pond when God pours into you his courage, his comfort, his material resources, and you keep it all to yourself.

You think only of yourself, you pray only for yourself.

Don't be a pond.

Be a river.

A river is moving, living water.

A river is fed by streams, and then it flows, bringing life wherever it goes.

Rivers are open at both ends.

If they're not open at both ends, they're not rivers.

A river upstream, like our hearts, are filled, open to the Lord, and He feeds and fills us with living water, throw flowing from the throne of the Lamb.

And then it flows downstream, and we're open on the other end, open to pour the life and hope that we have received into the lives of those around us, flowing out to our families and neighbors and the world.

This flow is visible even in this letter.

In chapter 7, Paul says, God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus, by his coming, and also the comfort with which Titus was comforted by you.

So Titus received comfort and encouragement from the church in Corinth, and then Titus went to comfort Paul.

And then Paul writes back to Corinth to comfort and encourage them.

And God's still not finished because now in verse 11, Paul asks his brothers and sisters in Corinth to pray for him.

He says, You must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

It's a river that is flowing in and out and through Paul's life and the life of the church in Corinth.

Prayer is the current of encouragement that flows when you pray.

So Paul says, You must help us by your prayer.

And Paul practices what he preaches.

He was always praying for his brothers and sisters in Corinth and Ephesus and Philippi.

He says in Ephesians 1 16, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you.

In my prayers.

Philippians 1:3.

Philippians 1:3

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.

Paul needs the body of Christ.

He needs their prayer and their help in hardship.

Have you tried to help someone who's in a hard place and felt helpless?

I have felt that so many times.

Where you're sitting in front of somebody and you know you can't fix their financial problems, you can't cure their illness, you can't fix their relationships, you can't bring back their loved one from the dead, and you don't know what to do.

The first thing you can do, the first thing you should do, is listen.

Before you speak, before you speak to God or before you speak to your friend, let your friend share the pain and the hurt.

Listen without judgment, without fixing.

Kurt Thompson is a Christian psychiatrist who has found that there is healing that happens on the emotional, the spiritual, and even the physical level of your brain.

That painful memories are healed at the synaptic physical level in your brain simply when you share with a compassionate person who listens.

God brings healing as we listen to one another.

And after we listen, we pray.

We pray to the one who knows all things, who can do all things.

We pray for our friends' circumstances, we pray for their heart, we pray for the Spirit's help.

And we pray with confidence.

Confidence not in how we pray, not in the words we pray, but in whom we pray to.

Confident that our Father listens because we come to Him in the name of His Son.

He listens if we pray.

Next week is the Super Bowl, and I went on StubHub to see how much tickets are going for.

Not because I'm going to go.

Especially because the cheapest ticket available was$4,000.

Better seats, better seats are going for$15,000.

If you want club seats, they are$50,000 to$100,000 per person.

Now imagine a friend of yours has one of those tickets.

And tomorrow at work he says, Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm going to the game.

You would say, My friend, you're nuts.

That access cost you thousands of dollars.

I don't care how you feel on Sunday, you're going to that game.

My friends, your access to the Father cost infinitely more.

It costs the blood of his precious son.

Brothers and sisters, we need to use that access.

To use that access to be here in worship, to pray without ceasing.

In fact, the worse you feel, the further that God feels from you, the more you need to use the access Jesus has given you.

To speak to your Father in prayer for yourself and for your friends.

We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.

So let us hold fast our confession.

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and grace and help in the time of need.

Brothers and sisters, let's be rivers of prayer, open on both ends, open upstream as the Father pours into us all of his mercy and encouragement and comfort, and then lovingly pouring out into the lives our compassionate presence, our prayers.

And prayer is hard.

There's two books I've put down on the book table for you downstairs to consider.

Pay for them if you can, pick them up if you can't.

But a little book by J.C.

Ryle, A Call to Prayer, and Paul Miller's book, A Praying Life.

They're downstairs at the book table.

I want to wrap up by just summarizing what we've considered this morning.

The Apostle Paul suffered more than many of us ever will.

But Paul had resurrection hope.

God's rescue of Paul from spiritual death gave Paul confidence to face anything in life or in death.

And so Paul urges us to trust in the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

And when we do, God pours abundantly into us, so that the banks of the river of our heart overflow into the lives of those around us.

So let's be rivers, rivers full of resurrection hope that flows out to our community and the world.

And I want to close by asking you to close your eyes as I read these promises from God your Father.

Let these streams of comfort flow into your heart.

I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear.

I will help you.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength.

They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired.

They will walk and not become weary.

Amen.

Jesus, we put our trust and hope in you.

Help us to turn to you in trouble for ourselves and for our friends and family.

Give us the same hope that Paul had, that we might say with him that through glory and dishonor, in bad report and good report, whether regarded as unknown or dying, we yet live on, beaten and yet not killed, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, poor yet made rich, having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Lord Jesus, we possess everything if we have you.

Fill us until the river banks of our hearts overflow with peace and hope and gratitude.

For the good of your church, for your sake, and for your glory.

Amen.