A Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

This fall, we're studying the book of Second

Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt

and practical book calling us back to the life

of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often

pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,

hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel

of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after

a cross. comfort comes after being crushed, that

the way up is the way down, that the way to glory

is through suffering, that his strength is made

perfect in our weakness. We'd love to meet you

and we hope you'll consider coming and joining

with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m. in the

heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find us

online at SecondCityChurch .org and on Facebook,

Instagram, and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this

sermon. God bless. Lord God, we're thankful for

this beautiful text that you've given to us from

the pen of Paul to the Corinthian church long

ago, 2 Corinthians. You've got to pray that you

would continue to speak to us here this morning.

Lord, it's often that we come into this space

and we come into other places in our lives and

other conversations clouded by so much that is

going on in our lives. And yet, Lord, I pray

now, that you would push away the cares of tomorrow

that we all have, the baggage from our past that

we all have, and that now you would speak truth

to us and that we would be eager to receive it

from you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations

of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. The

Lord our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. All right.

I was glad to get away last week. Don't hear

what I'm not saying. I was not glad to be away

from you all. Actually, I missed being with you

all. And I was very blessed by getting to listen

in on the service and particularly blessed by

Jed's sermon. I hope you all heard that. I thought

I did a wonderful job at what could be a hard

passage. But I was blessed because I got to connect

with friends, relationships that I had built

long ago, it seems now, when we lived in Richmond,

that I don't have many opportunities to foster.

And so it's wonderful to be with them and to

connect and to play and to talk and just be with

older friends. And yet my joy in that time was

broken heavily and significantly by a text of

a friend that I received. The basic content of

the story, this is not the place to share this,

and I'm not the one to share all the details

of this, but the basic gist was that one of my

close friends had been arrested the day before

soliciting prostitution. And as you can imagine,

it was devastating. I spent most of the night

talking to that friend, actually. I was able

to talk with him and talk to Melissa. Most of

the night was filled with tears. The obvious

difficulty that that creates with his church

and his family and all of that and just the distance.

Human relationships that are fractured, sin that

has its ugly effects. The next day I learned

from actually a friend that I stayed with while

I drove down to North Carolina, who's also a

pastor and in my pastor cohort, this friend,

that his mother -in -law had passed away totally

unexpectedly. When I spent the night his house

one of the things that he did was he gave me

a tour of the home That is just 20 feet away

from his own his in -laws moved from the Midwest

a few years back and Just in these last few months.

They were building a house Right next to their

own house where they could be right next door

to their grandchildren and she unexpectedly passed

away It's devastating it's depressing And I have

no doubt that each one of you has stories that

create a heartache that maybe throw you into

a tailspin, an emotional depth that you're not

sure if you will recover from. And probably for

a lot of you, it's not really the life that you

were expecting when you started following Jesus.

Certainly it's not the life that you desire,

dark nights of life, dark nights of the soul.

Often this depression, this affliction is relational,

right? It's there because of this great gap between

you and others. And often it's because of sin.

Often it's actually sin itself that creates this

deep distance. And the relational healing, and

healing from sin is often painful and hard, and

oftentimes it just feels sort of impossible.

What good is going to come out of this? How could

this be done? So you find yourself not just in

a place of deep affliction, but actually of dark

despair. And I think, so this is part of what

I want to say to you. I think that it's common

for us to think that as Christians, we are immune

from this. We're immune from that kind of darkness,

those sorts of dynamics, those dark feelings,

places of depression and affliction. And so when

we come upon them, when we are shocked and we

wonder if God actually loves us, we wonder if

there's something just deeply wrong with us.

And think about it, so many of our contemporary

Christian songs are written for triumphalism.

They're made, actually, I read this a while ago,

that much of Christian music shifted after Coldplay.

Isn't that interesting? And Coldplay wrote its

songs with the idea of arena music. Tons of people

gathered together, hyped up. triumphalistic.

Not of course that all of Coldplay's songs are

triumphalistic, but you know, and then we hear

like words like what we had just read the chapter

before, by the way, I know Jed preached chapter

eight, I'm back in chapter seven. So chapter

six now, where we read things like what fellowship

does light have with darkness? It's a rhetorical

question. The answer is none. And yet sometimes

our life just feels so dark. So I wanna try to

dispel this idea that Christians are immune from

darkness, affliction, despair, but also to tell

you that there is a hope that Christians have

that is actually deeper than the darkness, okay?

So first, I wanna dispel this idea that we're

immune from despair. Turn with me to the front

cover of the bulletin, okay? I have three quotes

there. I'm actually gonna read each one of them

for you. And the first is from Charles Spurgeon.

Some of you may know Charles Spurgeon. He was

one of the great preachers of London in the mid

sort of second half of the 19th century. He was

the pastor at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle.

And when he began his ministry, there were 80

people in his church. And yet, after a number

of years, that church regularly was packed out

with multiple services. And regularly, every

Sunday, mid -late 19th century in London, 5 ,000

people would come and hear Charles Spurgeon preach.

Actually, it's kind of interesting. So there

was a great exhibition in London. Think of the

World's Fair. Which was actually the reason for

a lot of cities building great buildings and

monuments. Think of the Eiffel Tower or the Space

Needle for all of you lovers of Seattle. I know

many of you love the Northwest. Well, the Crystal

Palace was built for that exhibition in 1851

and he packed it out. 23 ,000 people went to

the Crystal Palace in London. hear somebody preach.

I mean, if there was somebody who was a successful

minister for Jesus in the mid to late 19th century

in London, it was Charles Spurgeon. And yet,

listen, or look, I'm the subject of depressions

of spirit. So fearful. That I hope none of you

ever gets to such extremes of wretchedness as

I go to The greatest preacher of the age in the

dark place of despair and it wasn't sort of a

one -off thing He later said from the same pulpit

personally. I've often passed through the dark

valley Christians are not immune from this affliction.

We're not immune from despair. Look at the next

quote, John Henry Jowett. Some of you might know

that name. Maybe it's certainly not as well known,

but he was the pastor of the great Fifth Avenue

Presbyterian Church in New York City before he

actually moved to London. This was the late teens,

where he became the pastor at Westminster Chapel.

Some of you will be familiar with that church,

maybe, because the minister who preceded him

was G. Campbell Morgan, who many considered to

be one of the great preachers early on in the

20th century. And the preacher who succeeded

him was none other than Martin Lloyd Jones, who

was a great pastor and preacher there in London

in the 20th century. I say all that to say a

towering figure, towering preacher in 20th century

New York City in London is what he said. And

this is what we think right often as we approach

Christianity and maybe particularly the great,

greats of Christianity. You seem to imagine I

have no ups and downs, but just a level and lofty

stretch of spiritual attainment with unbroken

joy and equanimity by no means. I'm often perfectly

wretched and everything appears murky. You might

know that experience of everything appearing

murky. Finally, there's a quote about Alexander

White. Alexander White was a great Scottish preacher.

Some people consider Alexander White to be the

greatest Scottish preacher after John Knox, the

great reformer. So this is spoken of Dr. White.

Resolute as was Dr. White's character. He had

seasons of deep depression regarding the results

of his work in the pulpit and among his people.

Depressions are not immune from affliction. We're

not immune from despair. We're not immune from

the dark nights of depression. And there are

two kind of big reasons for this. And Paul kind

of gets into these actually. I think this is

kind of the main thing that's going on in this

passage in a way. And the first thing that happens

is distance in human relationships, okay? So

if you look with me down at verse two, open up

your Bible there to 2 Corinthians chapter seven.

Our first verse was verse two. It says, what's

the title to this section? Anybody? Paul's Joy,

right? Well, listen to this. Make room in your

hearts for us. Which behind that is, I'm not

sure there's room in your heart for us. Okay?

We've wronged no one. We've corrupted no one.

We've taken advantage of no one. I do not say

this to condemn you. All right, now again, why

would he say this? There is a distance, there's

a relational distance at play. He's desiring

them to actually open up their hearts to him

because as far as he is concerned, actually,

well, before he wrote this at least, there's

a great distance at play. We'll get into this

in a second. Verse four, then he says, I'm acting

with great boldness toward you. I have pride

in you. I'm filled with comfort in all our affliction.

flowing with joy. So there's this connection

with affliction here. And the darkness that's

present, even we're going to get to the joy stuff,

but the darkness that is present is because there

is this relational distance between Paul and

the people there in Corinth. And this is often

the case of how affliction actually works. Think

with me. Did you hear the passage that was read

from the Old Testament? He wanted to die. Why

did he want to die? Why was he sitting underneath

the broom tree and needing to be ministered to?

Anybody? He thought he was alone, right? He thought

he was alone. Think of King David in the Old

Testament. One of the darkest times of his life

is when his rebellious son, Absalom, dies. Oh,

my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom, would

that I had died instead of you, relationally

distant, effects of sin. Think of how the greatest

category, I mean, if this isn't a challenge to

how we sing, I don't know what is. The greatest

category of Psalms in the book of Psalms is the

category of lament. It's not, God has done great

things, let's praise Him. It's, oh my word, where

are you, my God, my God? Why have you forsaken

me? And what does Psalm 22 do? But actually go

on to say, I am distant from others. Relational

distance. They so often speak about enemies,

being alone with... With regards to the very

people of faith relational distance and think

of your own life, okay? So often we actually

can say with Joe it that great early 20th century

preacher That we we actually are perfectly wretched

and everything appears murky the times when that

feels most present is When our children aren't

talking to us or when our parents are on their

deathbed, or when we experience an estrangement

from a friend that we thought we were so close,

or simply in the reality of death seeming to

be very present to us in all different places

in our lives where it feels like there's such

a gap, where we feel deeply alone, where there's

a relational distance. It's actually pretty similar

in some ways to the Corinthian community. I mean,

part of what's happening, you know, Paul mentions

Macedonia here and he's waiting for Titus. Titus

comes up and he's going to come up again. But

if you remember back a few chapters, he had waited

in Troas to go to the Corinthian church, even

though the Corinthian church was so dear to him.

He spent so much time there. He loved that church,

but he waited because he desired to hear how

they would have received his other letter. Did

they receive it with a desire to listen? He was

fearful as we are in our communications with

other humans because there was a distance that

was at play between him and this Christian community.

I think this reality is so prevalent in the Christian

life. And this reason is actually why so many

of the great hymns that speak to us come out

of hymn writers who knew this darkness, knew

this affliction. Maybe the most well known of

those is William Cooper, who spent much of his

adult life in deep depression, the deepest of

which, which he never recovered from and which

we know led to a lot of at least suicidal ideation.

came after his own wife's death. It's so often

the case that our times of affliction come out

of relational distance. Some of that's because

of sin, some of that's from living in a world

that is simply so broken that the lives of those

whom we love are taken from us. He wrote the

Mass for hymns, God moves in a mysterious way,

his wonders to perform, and he knew how oddly

and sadly mysterious God's ways are. He also

wrote the hymn, there's a fountain filled with

blood. He knew the anguish of our Lord Jesus.

So part of what I'm saying is that Paul's speaking

to this reality of affliction that often comes

out of human distance, relational distance. But

also he actually does get at this idea of affliction

through the idea of distance from God. Okay,

because of sin. So verse 5, if you look down

at the next paragraph, I mentioned this, that

he was still in Macedonia wondering if he was

going to go to the Corinthian church. But why

was that the case? Why was there this relational

distance? Well, part of it was because he was

calling out the sin of the Corinthian community.

If you remember back to 1 Corinthians, a lot

of it is correcting wrongdoing. People taking

each other to court without actually engaging

with one another. People having sexual relations

that were very inappropriate. All kinds of things.

He's calling them out. So he's saying there's

a distance that is being created in your sin

between you and God. If we go farther down in

that paragraph, verse eight, it says, for even

if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not

regret it. He's saying there's a distance that's

at play in sin. There's a distance at play with

you and God in your sin. He says, I don't regret

that I called it out. Though I did regret it,

for I see that that letter grieved you. He doesn't

desire the grief. Only for a while. As it is,

I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because

you were grieved into repenting. They properly

understood sin. You felt a godly grief so that

you suffered no less through us. We should say

part of The pain part of affliction of this chapter

is because Paul had corrected this sin. We say

he knew that sin was creating this distance from

God. Sin always distances. Sin always pushes

us towards hiding as it did in the garden long

ago. And hiding always relates to darkness. Again,

of course, this is so often the case in our own

lives. You and I are made to be near God. Think

of God again in the garden, calling them out,

walk with me. Where are you? I desire you. We're

made for relational repair with God. Yet so often

the very thing that harms our lives, our sin,

we treat lightly, worldly. Brush it off. Minimize

it. Don't really face it head -on And this always

is for our harm it always aggravates the affliction

Always invites the despair Think of this It's

hard to really face and name the ways that you

have gone against God because so often you actually

have to face and name the ways that you have

sinned against others in doing that. And so what

we often do is we kind of treat this call to

this grief in a worldly way. We think that if

we really own it, if we really name the harm

that it's caused, then our pain will only increase.

and we want our pain alleviated. So what we do

is we often sweep it under the rug, deal with

it face to face, but it's still dirty. It's still

harmful. There's still no closeness at play.

Sin has to be dealt with. It always has to be

faced head on. There to be closeness. So much

of our affliction and our despair does come from

our sin. I may have mentioned just a great example

with my friend, but it's always the case. It's

always the case. Christians are not immune from

this. Paul is writing to a church, a people of

faith. He's warning them not to treat their sin

in a worldly way, a way of controlling it. a

way of diminishing it, a way of disregarding

it, but embrace the sorrow and the grief that

leads to repentance and salvation. This passage

is not just about the fact that Christians are

not immune from despair and affliction. It is

about that. It is about how Christians, we ourselves,

live in the reality of distance, humanly speaking,

and distance with God. But also this passage

is titled Paul's Joy, which is also a very prominent

idea here in this passage. Comfort and Joy. If

you read through it, actually, you would probably,

and I said, what's the main word? Probably would

have said comfort, which of course relates to

affliction, doesn't it? And also joy and rejoicing,

which and in some ways is the inverse of sorrow.

So look with me down the third paragraph, verse

11. I'm going to read to the end of that paragraph.

It was not for the sake of the one who did the

wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered

the wrong. But in order that your earnestness

for us might be revealed to you in the sight

of God, therefore we are comforted. Paul did

write to the church to correct their sin. We

know that. They truly had been distant from God.

And what that did, if you read through 1 Corinthians,

is they just created division, division, division

in the life of the church. I mean, if you think

of this poem that I read, they were distant from

God and distance from God is always saying, I

can do this myself. You said, don't eat that.

I'm going to decide for myself. I don't need

you. But that always creates a further distance

from others, right? Sin is always doing this.

So he does. write them to correct their sin,

they truly had been distant from God. He says

that it wasn't just for their sake that He wrote

them, but quote, in order that your earnestness

for us might be revealing to you in the sight

of God. He desires for them to come close to

God, be in the sight of God. His comfort and

their comfort came from a healed relationship

with the Lord, from a repentance that leads to

salvation, from a godly sorrow, acknowledging

their sin to a close communion with the Lord.

Their grief over their sin had not been a worldly

grief, but a godly grief that produced this nearness

to God. What Paul actually says is their salvation.

So Paul has comfort and joy and the comfort and

joy is specifically because that distance from

God, which is so often related to our affliction

is being healed out of repentance and salvation.

But it's not just the human, the divine sort

of relationship that's at play here. He also

often is talking about the human relationship.

So his comfort and joy is also about the human

relationships that are at play here. So look

with me there at the final paragraph. Verse 13,

as these things go, started in the last paragraph,

but look at verse 13. It says, and beside our

own comfort, we rejoice still more at the mention

of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed

by you all. He needed refreshment. Their relationship

with God had come close. But it's not just that

their relationship with God had come close. Their

human relationships were beginning to mend and

to heal and to give life. While so much of our

affliction in this life is in regards to our

human relationships, here's the truth is that

so much of our comfort and our joy is also in

regards to our human relationships. The affliction

that Paul mentioned early on is because of the

distance between him and this community and his

comfort and his joy and his rejoicing. is because

of the healing of this human community between

the Corinthian church and Titus and Paul. He

was wondering, would they hear his voice? Were

their hearts soft to him? Were they open towards

him? Right? Make room in your hearts for us.

And the answer was yes. And this is how it works.

His comfort in the midst of his affliction was

being met by the presence of the people of God

coming to him and opening their hearts to him.

He has confidence in the healing of this human

relationship because they have been healed first

by repentance that led to salvation. Okay, here's

what I'm saying. The key for comfort and affliction

is the community of Christ. The difference between

godly grief and worldly grief is the work of

Christ. So at the heart of the affliction and

the despair that Paul is experiencing, and that

Titus also experiences, and also you could say

that these Christian communities were experiencing,

was a relational, human relational distance.

and a divine relational distance. And he says,

because of the work of Jesus, you can have godly

grief that produces salvation, but out of the

godly grief that produces salvation, you can

also have the community of Christ. A community

that says, let's look under that rug. Let's open

it up. Let's live in self -dependence with one

another. So much of our sorrow and our despair

in our human relationships. It's coming out of

the fear that they're just simply unredeemable.

That they're just bound to be distant. And so

much of the despair that we experience in this

life is that our sin is what defines us. Imagine

my friend thinking right now. I've talked to

them some this week. Define me. No doubt you've

had that experience. It's what defines me. The

gospel addresses both of these fears. My relationship's

irredeemable. My sin what defines me? No. Absolutely

not. Jesus says that it's as far as the East

is from the West that He removes our sins from

us. As far as the East is from the West. Totally

gone. Godly grief produces salvation, repentance

to salvation. And what it also does is it brings

a healing. We could never imagine human relationships

being healed and yet they are there. They're

healed. I'm sure that in a community like ours,

there are different takes on Halloween. I'm not

going to take a poll on who gave out candy and

who received it. But I imagine there's different

takes on it and that's fine. I understand why

some may not want to participate in a holiday

that has really kind of become grotesque at times.

But it's also the eve of the hallowed one's day,

right? Halloween is the eve of all saints' day.

And that invites us to mock the reality that

sin will win. It will create such human distance

and divine distance that Satan wins the day.

that hiding must be the norm. That you are so

irredeemably separated from those whom you love

in death that forget about it. That you're so

separated because of your sin right now that

you have no hope. You will once be known again

and loved again because of your sin. I mean All

Saints Day is a day to celebrate this reality

of what Christ did. He so unites us to one another.

And we can say there's one faith, there's one

Lord, one baptism that even in death, we cannot

be separated because Christ rose from the dead.

That is what we celebrate. And so we can mock,

dress up our little kids with little silly pitchforks.

That's all you've got? Death? Well, it's not

enough for Jesus. But some of you know that not

only is October 31st the eve of All Hallows Day,

All Saints Day, but it's also Reformation Day,

which we talked about in Sunday School, Sunday

School plug. Let me end with Martin Luther, because

that's actually the person we were talking about

in Sunday School, which I didn't know that. So

Martin Luther was kind of famous for mocking

Satan. We talked a little bit this morning about

how he once threw an inkwell, because he had

a vision of Satan. He threw an inkwell to hit

him with it. Great. But maybe you know this,

maybe you don't know this. Martin Luther was

also very well, is very well known for his dark

times. He was familiar with despair and with

depression. He kind of puts these two ideas together

when he was writing to a friend. I wanted to

read you the whole letter because it's just really

great, but it says, try as hard as you can to

despise these thoughts sent by Satan. In this

sort of temptation and battle, contempt is the

easiest road to victory. Laugh your enemy to

scorn. Laugh at Satan is what he's saying. And

ask to whom you are talking. By all means flee

solitude, for he lies in wait most for those

alone. This devil is conquered by despising him

and mocking him, not by resisting and arguing.

So a short story from Luther's life. Said Luther

was familiar with despair. He was often afflicted

with depression. In fact, we know that on many

occasions he actually would lock himself in his

room and his family would take away, take outside

of the house any implements where he could harm

himself. We know that's the case. Well, in the

middle of one of these times, his dear beer brewing

wife, Katerina, entered the room dressed all

in mourning clothes, looking like she was heading

to a funeral. And he was startled and he said,

who died? And she said, no one. But by the way

you're acting, it's as though God himself is

dead. But the fact of All Saints Day, And the

fact of our comfort in our affliction, which

our affliction is real, and our sorrow in the

midst of our, our joy in the midst of our sorrow,

which is real, is that fact. That God did not

stay in the tomb. Which does mean your relationships

which cause such deep despair are not irredeemable.

There is a union that you can have with other

Christians that passes our understanding. And

that your sin is fully dealt with. That you don't

have to engage with it like godly grief. You

know, thinking a little of it or thinking too

much of it, that it alone rules the day. But

on offer to you, repentance that leads to life.

Repentance that leads to life. God is not dead.

Jesus rose from the dead. Our despair, our affliction,

though real, is met with his comfort and joy.

Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your

word. God, thank you for First Corinthians, which

corrects so much sin. And for Second Corinthians,

this testimony that we can receive correction

with a proper repentance. God, I'm thankful for

the constant testimony of Your Word from the

giants of the faith that go before us. That we're

not alone in our dark nights, in the sadness

that overwhelms us. You know it fully. Our Jesus,

we think of how You there in the garden. We're

alone. Your disciples fell asleep when you asked

them to stay awake. How there on the cross, Lord

Jesus, you said, my God, my God, why have you

forsaken me? But also, Lord, we praise you that

there on the cross our sins were dealt with entirely

and completely. That they were removed from us

as far as the east is from the west. So Lord,

in the midst of a life that is more often than

not marked by sorrow, we, we who can be called

the holy ones of God, the saints of the everlasting

God, can have comfort and joy. Lord, would you

make us to be a church that meets one another

in those places? that does not pretend to have

it together, that certainly celebrates the triumph

of the empty tomb, but knows the deep sorrow

of Holy Saturday. God, would we live in these

realities of sin and its ugly effects, of relational

estrangement, divine distance. And also, Lord,

would we live in the reality of resurrection,

holding together the cross and the empty tomb.

Those who die with Christ would also be risen

with Him. In His name we pray. Amen. Please consider

subscribing to this podcast and joining us in

person each Sunday at 10 a .m. You can find us

online at SecondCityChurch .org and on Instagram,

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God bless.