The Fix For Afflictions

Well, good morning. It's good to be with you. We are in a year of seconds, I guess. Seconds, a new letter, but it's a second letter. We did 2 Kings. Earlier this year, we did 2 Thessalonians about a month ago or so, and we just started last week in 2 Corinthians.

So if you want to find that in your Bible, and again, as we've said before, we've got Scripture journals on the back. They're available for you. If you can make a donation, great.

If you can't, we want you to have one anyway. But find a place where you can open Scripture on your phone, in an actual old-fashioned Bible, in a Scripture journal.

It's all God's Word, and you can turn to chapter 1. We learned last week there has been some controversy in this situation with Corinth and the Apostle Paul. Paul planted this church. He lived here, ministered here. They got to know each other

quite well, the church and the Apostle Paul. He was here for 18 months. How many of you have lived with someone for 18 months? You get to know them. You get to know what they're like. And so after he had left, he was surprised to hear that some things

were not going very well. And so he wrote them a letter, the 1 Corinthians letter that we have in our Bible. But some people didn't really like what he had to say, the Apostle Paul.

They were resistant to him, and they even challenged his authority. It's like, you know, sometimes I think about these churches as like a bunch of rebellious teenagers, right?

They don't like your rules. They don't like what you want to say. And so their way of clapping back is by questioning your authority. And that's exactly what the Corinthians have done here. And it became another point of controversy once Paul said that he was going to come and

visit them. But something happened that made him delay. And so they were challenging now his legitimacy as an Apostle. So finally, overdue as it may have been perceived, we learned that the Apostle Paul did make them a visit, pay them a visit. And it's what's called the painful

visit. We talked about how it was painful for them because Paul brought truth. Paul brought the word, but it was also painful for Paul himself because as he left Corinth, the situation was not

completely resolved. He left without having their full backing. And that would lead him, we think, a few months later to write a letter that we no longer, we never had, what's called the severe letter, or maybe you could say 1.5 Corinthians. The severe letter where he basically rebuked the

church and challenged them to deal with the troublemakers. Well, things kind of went good and then not so good after that because there was some encouraging reports preliminarily from Titus that

there was progress being made in Corinth. But even as that progress was happening, another bigger problem emerged. It seems that the enemy, as he often does, seized upon this vulnerable relationship between

Paul and this church. And these rival apostles started to pop up or show up, and they were really throwing down the gauntlet at Paul. They were saying things like, hey, we are the real deal. We're the

real apostles, not that weak guy Paul who's always in trouble. We're not losers. We're winners. We're well-trained in Greek rhetoric. We're eloquent in speech. And we are, frankly, very successful apostles.

And so a big purpose behind this current letter that we have, as Paul now writes it in about the year 55 AD, is to deal with this new challenge. To challenge these now so-called super apostles, as Paul mocks them, because he writes to restore his relationship with this church. So let's pick up

our reading. In chapter 1, I'm going to actually read the first two verses again, and we'll read through verse 7. So 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 1.

2 Corinthians 1:1

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 Achaia, 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. Let's pray again, shall we? Father, we come to your word, we submit ourselves

in our hearts. Father, whether we come to you from moments of blessing, whether we come in moments of affliction, or as is often the case, a mixture of the two. We come and we want to listen to your word.

We want to be hearers who do your word. And so teach us this morning by your Holy Spirit. And we pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I think I tried to make a point last week when I said this,

but I don't think I can overemphasize enough just how startling it is for Paul to start a letter like this. Remember, this is a church that is challenging his authority. There are real problems here to deal

with. The very church Paul himself planted has basically told their founder to go fly a kite. We got better apostles now. We don't want you around here. Like I said, I've got kids in college right now. I've been talking about that. It's a life transition for us. And I don't know, maybe it'd

be like one of our kids in college in whom we've invested so much, right? We fed them, we cared for them, we provided for them, we're paying for college for them. And then they turn around and tell us, you know, you parents, we really don't like you. You don't know a thing. We've met these new

professors at college that know everything. You know nothing. And frankly, you're not a very good parent. Fortunately, that's not happening as we speak, at least not that I'm aware of. But that's the situation Paul is writing into. And how does he respond? If I was an apostle, here's what I would say.

Dear Corinthian church, you little ungrateful church. He doesn't do that, does he? It's a blessing. The first thing out of his mouth. Blessing. He proceeds to bless and thank God for comfort in

all our affliction. That's what he says. Because that's what the Father of mercies and God of all comfort has done for me, Paul says. He's given me comfort in all of our afflictions.

Now let me define a couple of words here because anytime we take an ancient language like Greek and try to translate it into our modern English, we do the best we can. But there are times where one word isn't quite sufficient because there isn't exactly a one-to-one equivalency. This is one of

those times when it comes to the word afflictions. This word afflictions can also be translated trouble or distress or really pressure. Think about pressure pushing down. It's a word that's used to

describe what happens when troubling circumstances are pressing in and squeezing a person. Afflictions. And it's more than just external. Experiencing difficulty on the outside, the affliction that Paul talks about here also means there is an internal pressure that's felt. A kind of internal

torment that gets produced by outward circumstances. Now Paul will go on in this letter later and he's going to talk about his afflictions. It's kind of interesting how it goes. In chapter 4 he's very broad. Chapter 6 he gets a little more specific and by chapter 11 he's like naming them.

So he starts out in chapter 4 he's like we've been afflicted in every way. We've been perplexed and persecuted and that sort of thing. Then in chapter 6 he's going to be more specific. He'll say

we've undergone calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. He'll talk about being punished and sorrowful and poor. And by the time we reach chapter 11 here's where we get this

really powerful list. Listen to what it says. Paul writes in chapter 11 verse 24. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with

rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. 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, 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.

You wonder how somebody survives all this stuff. You know it's bad enough when you've received 39 lashes on your back making, I'm sure, spaghetti out of his back. Not that I would know. But how much worse is it when they're stretching you out to flog you and you already know what it's like? The second

time. Or when you're arrested the third time. This is a guy who literally has, what, just shy of 200 scars on his back. He's no criminal either. He doesn't deserve this. He's not like some kind of a bad person.

Paul's not running around breaking any legitimate laws. But nevertheless, he often has found himself accosted and arrested and beaten and put in prison. And for what, we ask? Because he starts riots?

No, because he shares Jesus. Because he brings good news about life and Jesus. But on top of all the external things, Paul goes right on in that same chapter, chapter 11, to talk about the kinds of

internal pressures that he faced. He goes on in verse 28, 2 Corinthians 11, 28, and apart from all those other things, there's also the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. All the churches.

You know, I pastor one church, you guys. You're pretty good. You're not bad. Have I told you that lately? Is that like loving words from a pastor to say, you're not bad. You're great. But Paul's

churches are not that great. They're very dysfunctional. And he doesn't have, you know, one or two. He's got how many that he's planted? And many of them, again, are quite dysfunctional.

So this anxiety that he talks about, it must have been quite the affliction. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. About all the afflictions that he mentions, they aren't even his focus.

That's not what he's focusing on. This is not a pity party. I read some stuff from later in the letter. He doesn't mention any of that yet. He just says afflictions. His focus is on the comfort.

He almost waves off his afflictions because he only mentions them because he wants to talk about the comfort that he's received. Verse 4, the God of all comfort and mercy who comforts us in all our

affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction. Paul will go on to mention comfort like eight different times if you count the nouns and the verbs. Eight different times in five verses. He will mention the word comfort more often than he mentions affliction or suffering.

And what does he mean by comfort? Again, maybe let's define this a bit more. Well, for you and I, our English word comfort really almost doesn't do it justice. I was this week, my wife and I, we were out shopping because a few years ago, well, I guess seven years ago, I herniated a disc in my back

and we need a new couch. We need a couple of new couches. And so comfort, I got to tell you, I mean, they make brands with comfort in the name. You read about a couch. Well, what about this couch?

Well, it's comfortable. And we have found that the kind of comfort that I need is something with a little more support in the lower back. And so when you're out there in the world and you hear the word comfortable, you tend to associate it with things like furniture or maybe a comfortable mattress,

you know, falls upon us. It's not going to feel like it for another week or two, but fall is coming and people think of like, oh, a comfortable sweater or the air conditioning makes me feel comfortable.

But that falls far, far short of this Greek word and what it actually means. Commentator David Garland observes how the word comfort, he says this, it has gone soft in the modern English language.

Isn't that kind of funny? Comfort, the word has gone soft. It usually for us connotes emotional relief or physical ease and well-being. Are you comfortable? Freedom from pain, freedom from anxiety.

But Paul's idea of comfort, the Pauline understanding of comfort is much more like what you read about in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Comfort, comfort for my people where there is a strength in God that's going to come do something about their plight. Comfort, there's a quote from David Garland,

it is not some tranquilizing dose of grace. Isn't that an interesting turn of phrase? It's not a tranquilizing dose of grace, uncomfortable, that only dulls the pain, but a stiffening agent that

fortifies one in heart, mind, and soul. I got that bad back. I need support. I mean, I need like a couch that's got a basketball built into the lumbar. I don't want something soft and gushy. I need support. I need firm support. And that is a better sense of what this word comfort

here means as Paul uses it. And Paul rightly recognizes the true source. The true source of any comfort is only going to be in God. It's only going to come from God himself. This is why Paul's

going to go on and write what he does later in chapter 7 of this letter. Later in chapter 7, verse 5, here's what he writes. He says, For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn,

fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you.

As he told of us of your longing and your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. Remember, this is between the painful visit and this severe letter. This is before the super apostles showed up when it looked like the Corinthian church was improving. Paul says,

I was comforted. Paul's referring to the actual presence of a person, right? To the actual words, the report that his friend and fellow worker Titus brought to him when he physically showed up.

Paul tells these Corinthian church members, I was really downcast. I was alone and in the midst of a lot of fears. I'm telling you, I had fears on the outside and I had a lot of fears within. But when

Titus showed up and rejoined me and told me all the ways that you guys loved him and comforted him, he brought that comfort back to me. It was so abundant, he could share it with me, your apostle.

And that was absolutely huge for me, guys. That's what he's saying. This is the comfort from God that Paul's talking about here. And as he describes it coming with Titus, it is meant to be shared.

It goes on in verse 5. Take a look. Verse 5, For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. You see, Paul's reminding his Corinthian readers that his sufferings were tied directly

to his ministry. It wasn't that he was upset about other things. It wasn't that other factors in life were getting Paul down. We need to remember that. I mean, all of his sufferings were because of ministry. It wasn't because Paul was doing poorly physically, which was also true. As Jesus said,

he suffered and he faced affliction. That's something that Paul should have expected. It's something that Paul did know and did expect because it was actually told to him. Take us back to Acts chapter 9 when he got saved, his conversion. This is what God told the man that would mentor him first, Ananias.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 9 verse 15, he said to Ananias, For I will show him, Paul, how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. And Paul himself will later say in this very letter, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 10, he'll say,

Acts 9:15 2 Corinthians 4:10

We're always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our bodies. Over in his letter to the Philippians, he'll say that, Philippians chapter 3 verse 10,

Philippians 3:10

You see, for Paul, suffering, salvation, I should say, necessarily includes suffering.

That's how Paul sees it. You're going to follow Jesus. You're going to be a believer. You're going to suffer. And for a faithful apostle like Paul, he saw suffering. He saw a lot of suffering.

Here's what he writes to the Christians in Philippi. Chapter 1 this time, chapter 1 verse 29, he says, For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. He'll later tell Timothy that that's how it is for anybody that wants

to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, they're going to experience persecution and suffering. They will face affliction. And honestly, as I stand before you up here today, I mean, this is not something that I like to tell you. It's not something I feel great about. It's hard to hear that you're

going to suffer. It really goes against the grain of our modern society, doesn't it? This isn't exactly the American dream. We want a more perfect union so people can suffer. It's not what we like to hear.

The funny thing is, it was also true in the ancient world too. In fact, we have pretty good reason to think that the Corinthian church had not really suffered much at this point. It really wasn't that bad yet. In point of fact, in AD 55, when Paul wrote this second letter, we have no indication that

the church is having a hard time, that they're suffering any affliction. And so, here they are in Corinth. What we do hear from the first letter is that they're kind of hobnobbing about society.

They're still going to the pagan idolatrous festivals. Paul has to address that. They're still very, very welcome in their neighbor's homes. They're being invited over for dinner. They're not being ostracized the way that the Christians were, say, up in Thessalonica, at least not yet.

But Paul knew that that would change. Paul knew that with their growth, there would be a change. And he knew this because he saw it time and time again, over and over in other places. He saw it in

Ephesus, where he also spent a lengthy period of time, a couple of years. He saw people come to faith in Jesus and be very excited about it. But he also saw what happens when the effects of our conversion begin to be lived out in a holy life. Things start happening. You can't go over to the neighbors for

dinner and eat whatever's there if they're like, you know, I did buy this meat at the pagan goddess Aphrodite's temple. You have to decline that. That's what he says in 1 Corinthians. Or when your neighbors want you to go join in some carousing, some big wild party, you've got to step back from sexual immorality.

Or when your neighbor makes his livelihood by carving, say, silver idols, like this guy Demetrius did up in Ephesus. You see, what happened in Ephesus is, as Christians got real about their faith, and they put away these things and stopped participating in these things, what happened in the book of Acts

Acts 19 · chapter mention

chapter 19. The city turned on them. The idol maker silversmiths got really mad. Yeah, Paul understood that the counter-cultural way of Jesus means living a holy life. And when you live a holy life,

it will eventually put you at odds with pagan-minded people. I don't know about you, but as I look around our world today, and even honestly this past week, I am reminded of that. It's getting harder to be a

Bible-believing Christian in America. I think it is. No, our persecution does not appear to yet be at, like, early church level. I don't walk around in fear of my life as a pastor, but things are beginning

to change. And when you allow God's Word to shape your worldview and your values and your morals, it can upset some people. I think we saw a very tragic example of this, like I said a few days ago

in Utah. What do we have? And I'm not up here to stand 100% behind anything anybody ever says. I wouldn't stand 100% behind everything I say, let alone what you would say. But I know this young man, 31-year-old Charlie Kirk, said some very good things, especially in the last couple of years.

I know that he was a light for the gospel. He shared it in places that I'll never have access. He shared it with a level of giftedness that I wish I had. And we saw what the brokenness and sin of our world did. It struck out and attacked. It's a reminder.

But here's the thing. Here's the thing. Paul wants this church to know it's not all about affliction and gloom. It's not that we only suffer as we share in Christ's sufferings, who himself was rejected

and killed. Because there's another thing that happens. There's what you might call a glory side to the equation. There is comfort for every affliction. Because I mean, after all, we remind

ourselves of this one who died on a cross. This one who suffered and died an unjust execution and was laid in a tomb. Did he stay there? No, he did not. Did Jesus only suffer persecution

and humiliation from those who crucified and mocked him? No. He rose again and he was worshipped first by his disciples. He rose again and after his ascension is now in heaven where we know he's

seated in power and authority and we're told that one day every knee is going to bow before him. And I'm telling you that as his followers, as Jesus' followers, that's a pattern for us.

Persecution, humiliation, trial and affliction now, maybe. But glorious vindication and resurrection later, most certainly. You know, there's another apostle, a colleague and friend of Paul's, his name's

Peter. He helps explain this to us in his letter, 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 13. He says this, But rejoice that insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad

1 Peter 4:13

when his glory is revealed. And sometimes that happens even on this earth. We get a glimpse, don't we, of some glory being revealed. Sometimes a believer is vindicated when they're falsely slandered.

Or sometimes an imprisoned worker somewhere in a part of the world where it's very dangerous to share Jesus gets released from a prison, a pastor, a missionary. But we are not promised that on this earth.

And sometimes we don't see the vindication or the glory. And we have to wait for it to be revealed. And in the meantime, while we wait, we need to live faithfully. We need to take refuge in God's

comfort and share out of the abundance of his comfort with others around us, fellow believers, who also need it. That's what Paul's trying to say in verse 6. Take a look. Verse 6. He says,

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.

And just like that, Paul finally shows us way down here in verse 6. He finally reveals where he's going with all this, where he's going to push them. Because, you know, really up to verse 6, we haven't

really been told or even given an implication from Paul what we should do. And now here he comes to it down in verse 6. What does every believer need to do in their afflictions and sufferings?

What is going to enable us to receive the comfort of God? Paul names it in verse 6. Patient endurance. It is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings, he says,

by patient endurance. And Paul's so confident that he can finish in verse 7 and tell them that our hope for you guys, Corinthian church, our hope for you is unshaken, unshaken. For we know that as you share in our sufferings, which again, we don't think they've had them yet, but they're coming.

As you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. He says this because he knows that the key to this happening is patient endurance. And so as we turn from this first century letter,

first century world, and think about life today, think about our own lives and the kinds of trials and afflictions that maybe you walked in here with on your heart, in your mind, I would ask you,

what is causing your affliction? Trials are different. For some of us, it's a physical trial that we're facing, a struggle in the form of some physical ailment, an illness, a diagnosis maybe. Listen, Paul writes

as an apostle who knows this kind of affliction. He knows what it's like to be ailing. He knows what it's like both from being actively mistreated and also just from suffering regular physical infirmities, which he suffered in his life. Most scholars think the thorn in the flesh is some kind of

physical ailment. Maybe for you, it's a different kind of affliction. Maybe you're suffering affliction in the area of a relationship. You know, Paul had that too, didn't he? Do you suffer a relational

affliction? Maybe an adversity in some friendship that's become strained? Or maybe even trouble with a family member, a spouse, a sibling, a child? Something that for you has become a source

of great affliction and heartache? Some of us here suffer with some mental afflictions. It's okay to name that because we are mental and physical and emotional beings.

Sometimes we suffer in our mental state. We suffer depression. We have anxiety. We suffer from obsessive ways of thinking. And a lot of times these things don't just disappear with a pill and two Bible verses. We have to learn to patiently endure, church. Patiently endure

whatever it is that is our affliction. You know, the funny thing here in this passage, ironic, not funny. The ironic thing is that Paul directs us to do this, you know, kind of implicitly says, patiently endure, church. But did you notice he doesn't exactly or at least explicitly tell

us how? So how are we going to do it? What's it going to look like to patiently endure our afflictions? Is there a fix to our afflictions? And I would say to you, I don't think there's

exactly a fix, but I would say that there are things for you and I to fix our eyes and our attention on. Paul may not name these explicitly, but I think he does allude to them in his words.

And I think he certainly shows us by his example. And maybe with a little help from a couple of other scriptures, I can offer us four fixes. So if you're taking notes, four places, I guess you could say,

to fix your eyes in your affliction. Here's the first place. It'll come as no surprise. The first place. Number one, fix your eyes on your God. Sometimes that sounds so basic. But Paul shows

us this right off the bat in verse 3. It's not you ungrateful Corinthians. It's blessed be the God. Fixed eyes fixed on God. It's the first thing Paul does here in verse 3. Praise to the Father of

Mercies. Praise to the God of all comfort. He's not fixated on the Corinthians and all the problems. And listen, there are problems. The problems have just gotten worse with the super apostles.

His attention is not consumed with his own personal need for vindication or with his waning influence on this very troubled church. His eyes are fixed first and foremost on his God. On what God was doing.

And on what he knew God could do and would do. This is why a few verses later, if you go down to verse 11, we'll look at this next week, he's going to go on and he's going to ask this troubled church that doesn't even really accept his apostleship anymore, he's going to ask for their prayers.

Verse 11, you must also help us by prayer. So I would ask you, if you're finding it hard right now in the midst of your trial, in the midst of some affliction that you're suffering in some way, where are your eyes? Are they fixed first and foremost on

your God? Because he loves you and he has a plan for you and he will not abandon you. He cares for you. And more than just your heavenly father, there's actually a second person to fix your eyes on.

And he also happens to be the second person of the Trinity. Number two, fix your eyes on your savior. Fix your eyes on your savior. Notice how much Paul, in the midst of all of his own sufferings and troubles, notice how he talks so much about the sufferings of Christ.

How he very intentionally puts Christ's sufferings on display. Yeah, he'll mention some things later in the letter that he's undergoing, but it's really all about Christ.

And really, we could preach a whole sermon on this point. Because the New Testament is riddled with this theme of fixing your eyes on Jesus.

Hebrews 12.2 tells us to do just that. Fix your eyes on Jesus. I like the NIV in that verse. Fix your eyes on Jesus. ESV says it a little different. Looking to Jesus. Focused on Jesus.

Because this is a member of the Godhead who actually suffered like you do. He knows human suffering. He's a man acquainted with sorrows. He's familiar with all kinds of pain and afflictions.

You remember that he experienced temptation. He was tempted in every way, Hebrews says, just as we are, but he didn't sin. He was made flesh, as John says.

He had all of our creaturely limitations. He got hungry. He got thirsty. He got upset. He got hangry. He didn't sin, but he experienced all these things.

He got tired. He got sick of people. He got irritated with his disciples, with the crowds, with the religious leaders. Think about this. The God-man Jesus got a headache.

You say, did he get a migraine? I don't know. He got headaches. He got sick. He felt injury and pain and disappointment and loneliness and abandonment.

Jesus knows what it's like to be hated, to be rejected, to be ridiculed. And Hebrews tells us that he learned obedience through what he suffered.

Probably not the best translation. We read that and think that he was disobedient in some way. He had to learn to be obedient. And that's not what it means.

You can learn something without ever failing in it, and that would be Jesus. But for us, we do learn obedience from failure, don't we? Our trials and sufferings, they can have a purifying effect on us,

in the sense that they help us put away sin. That's what Peter talks about. 1 Peter 4, verses 1 and 2, he says this, Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, I want you to arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.

1 Peter 4:1

For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.

Look to Jesus in your trial. Keep your eyes fixed on him and arm yourself with his attitude.

But there's more. We get here from Paul. There's a third thing to fix our eyes on. Number three. Fix your eyes on your future. Your future. You say, well, I didn't hear Paul talk about the future here.

But doesn't he mention hope in verse 7? An unshakable hope. Having a hope that is unshaken. And it's unshaken because Paul has his eyes on the future.

Paul is looking down the road. He's looking at the mighty deliverance that he knows God can bring. He'd seen it before. And Paul knew he would see it again.

Up in his own ministry. Up ahead. Of course, he also knew there would come a point. And actually, sooner rather than later for Paul, where deliverance, this deliverance that he was so confident in, would take on a different form.

It would then become an ultimate deliverance from a God, as he's going to say, who raises the dead. That is Paul's hope in the future resurrection.

Paul has his eyes on the future. And you and I need to have our eyes fixed on the future, too. Because sometimes God, yeah, he does deliver.

And he heals us in this life. And he prevents tragedy. And brings us relief in our moment of affliction. And as we were reminded this week, sometimes he does not.

Sometimes God mends and restores a relationship. And fixes what's broken. And we get to see it. And sometimes we don't.

Will I get relief now? I don't know. Maybe. Will you see vindication later? Yes. Ultimately. Because he's promised that. The God of glory has promised he will glorify his saints.

And he's also promised us that our corrupted minds and bodies will someday be perfectly restored. You will not have a beef with someone in heaven.

It'll get worked out. Because sin gets worked out of us.

So remember, this is another way for you and me to patiently endure. By fixing our eyes on the future. And on a God who firmly holds it. And finally, before we go, I want to leave you with one last thing to fix your eyes on.

And actually, this one is a pretty major point in our passage. Fourth thing to fix your eyes on. Fix your eyes on your brothers and sisters.

How about that?

Are you the only one walking through a trial? No. Are you the only Christian acquainted with suffering? I guarantee you know. And when we actually take the time to take our eyes off of ourself for a minute

and look around at others, we see that they have afflictions and plights and trials too. And the scriptures are telling you this is another way for you to patiently endure.

Because as we go through the hard things we go through, and we endure patiently in them, and we witness the comfort of God through His Holy Spirit pouring down into our hearts, you know God always has more than we need.

It's like pouring into a cup. Pouring from a gallon jug into a cup that holds a pint. God has more than we need. And it will overflow if we let it.

And Paul tells us what we're to do with what's overflowing. We're to share it with others.

Take the abundant comfort that God through His Spirit pours out into your heart and share it with someone else. You know, Titus did that. Paul talks about this.

Paul was so worried about the situation in Corinth. He had sent Titus, his guy, back to the city. And at some point, Titus got there to the city, and things turned around.

And Titus' own worried heart was greatly comforted. God poured out His comfort. And then what He did is He went back to Paul. And He shared it.

Tangibly. The comfort that he had received from God. So I'm asking you, have you experienced any comfort from God's love? Have you walked some trial?

Or maybe you still are walking in one. Some kind of affliction you're experiencing. If God is pouring out comfort into your heart and your life, why not share it?

Because that's the intention, Paul says. That's what it's for. It's for sharing. Verse 5. For you to be able to take that comfort that the Lord has given you and comfort someone else.

I'd like to give you a moment just to reflect on that as our worship team comes again to the platform to lead us in a song. So let me ask you if you would stand with me as they come.

Stand with me and let's pray. Let's pray for eyes. To see what God wants us to see. Dear Father, will you fix our eyes on you first and foremost?

Will you, Lord, help those of us that get so overwhelmed, that feel like we're drowning in our affliction? Will you give us eyes to see you?

Will you give us eyes to see our Savior, your Son, that suffering servant who's no longer suffering, who has been vindicated and resurrected and glorified and ascended and who has power and authority?

Let us put our eyes on our Savior.

And Lord, as you pour out comfort into our lives, keep us oriented to the future. Because one day this world will be fixed. It will be restored and renewed.

One day you will, Lord, make that vision that we long for our own. Our eyes will see it.

And in this meantime, as we patiently endure, Lord, give us eyes to see others around us. Other friends, family members, fellow church members, Lord, who need some of that comfort that you provide for us.

That is how you created us to live and to operate and to serve in the church. And so we pray that you would help us. And Lord, you've given us a helper, a paraclete, to do just that.

And so, Lord, we trust you and we thank you and we commit our lives to you, even as we pray this in the name of our Savior, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.