The Suffering No.1 Pressure

Oh, what a beautiful world For us it is very rare Oh, what a privilege to have and be Everything to God in prayer Oh, what is beyond the knowledge Oh, what genius may we have Oh, because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer Our meeting at every age Come and greet the Lord again Precious Savior, still our refuge Take me to the Lord in prayer Do Thy great desires forsake me Take me to the Lord in prayer In His arms He'll take and shield me Thou wilt find a solace there The reading is from 2 Corinthians chapter 1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother to the Church of God in Corinth together with all the saints throughout Achaia Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God for just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives so also through Christ our comfort overflows if we are distressed it is for your comfort and salvation if we are comforted it is for your comfort which produces in you the great patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer and our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you share in our sufferings so also you share in our comfort we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia we were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired even of life indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead he has delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us and you help us by your prayers then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many and have your Bibles open at 2nd Corinthians in chapter 1 so we look at the first 11 verses of this letter that Paul wrote to this church in Greece so many years ago and you will discover that some of the problems that confronted him and some of the problems that confronted them are difficulties which we ourselves in principle at any rate illustrate in our own lives even in the 1990s I'm sure none of you here ever gets into a circumstance where you feel that you're completely out of control you're also disciplined you've got your hand on the lever of your life you never know what it is to go into what the pilots call a tailspin I wish I could say that that was the case with me this past week I got myself in such an awful dilemma to describe it all would take too long but at one stage I was in St. Pancras Station in London my mother who I should have safely had ensconced on a train in Brighton through the grace of the British Rail who cut out a train she had to come with me to London to get the train for her in St. Pancras I managed to lose her the brotherhood rushed me from a funeral service I'd been at in South London to pick my mother up when I had to leave in Victoria Station for an hour or so he couldn't find anywhere to park so he was circling St. Pancras I couldn't contact him eventually found my mother so many difficulties just cropped up around that human situation to you as I related it may seem quite small but at that time in terms of my ability to cope with difficulty I wouldn't have put myself on the Richter scale of 1 to 10 and then because I think that God has got a sense of humour just going back on the train from London to Victoria I checked the preaching programme for this week on pressure and I'm sure my guardian angel had got a little chuckle as he decided along with the rest of his colleagues well let's put him through it for a little while so that he'll know a bit about what he's speaking you know Time Magazine some while ago brought out a full edition just dedicated to the concept of stress and the front page of the magazine had a man holding his head obviously he had a very bad migraine and just a little bit of the eyes that you could see indicated that he was really in a state of complete bewilderment the Apostle Paul when you come to his letter in Corinthians the second letter he tells us that he knows what it is to be under pressure he knows what it is to be stressed he knows what it is to be stressed to such a point that in one translation of one of these verses J.B. Phillips says he had been brought to the end of his tether now quite frankly if some enthusiastic evangelical had come along to St Pancras station on Thursday afternoon and quoted in my ear the peace of God that passeth all understanding will keep and garrison your heart through Christ Jesus our Lord I would probably have clouted him with my amplified version which is the thickest bible that I've got and we are glad sometimes aren't we when those that we esteem like the Apostle Paul allows us to know that things were not always so easy in his life indeed he says verse nine in our hearts we felt the sentence of death he goes on to tell us most graphically and in a very unusual fashion about the problems that he was going through as a leader in the first century and there is a sense in which we are glad that the Apostle wrote 2 Corinthians because he lifts the veil in an unusual fashion on his life and he gives us some cameo of himself when normally he is just engaged in didactic that is in doctrinal teaching in his epistles so Paul we put to you a question and we address it to you but really to the Father God whom you serve show us how you cope when you are at your wits end to the extent that at times you are almost despaired of life and you will see that in the first couple of verses what the Apostle Paul does is he sets down his convictions and to hold you in the stressful circumstance when you really do need to work out what the nature of your convictions are and how important they are to you when present circumstances seem to be in a spin these are your anchor points to hold you at that particular juncture in your life so verse 1 to 2 he spotlights his convictions and then from verses 3 to 8 he speaks about comfort something like 9 times in 5 verses he makes reference to comfort or to consolation and then from the 8th verse through to and including the 11th verse he tells us a little bit more about the conditions that he faced so here are three words if you like to hang our thoughts on not to arbitrarily deal with scripture but because they will help us as we try to come to grips with what Paul has to say inspired by the Spirit his convictions, his consolations and his conditions what does Paul know about himself? what do you know about yourself? whether you're in a flat spin at St Pancras' station or you're panicking as a 70 year old trying to cross a road in Worthing and some of you younger people remember this that when age gobbles up the years sometimes just to cross a road and to go into a post office or a shop can demand all the courage that you have got and we need to be a little bit more careful and a little bit more sensitive and a little bit more courteous to all the friends whose sight is not like yours whose hearing is not like yours whose legs do not carry their body with the same agility as yours do well whether you're in a flat spin in the post office or at St Pancras' station or wherever as the apostle Paul reminds us in his situation in his circumstance the relationship that he has with God himself Paul talks about himself he talks about the church and he talks about God as to himself, who are you Paul? I am an apostle of Christ Jesus how Paul? did you write into the Jewish Chronicle because they got a vacancy and after yourself? no did you go to the final meeting of the Independent Evangelical Church in Jerusalem and they voted you in because you were the best candidate? no an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God God drew him to himself as God has drawn you to himself and having planted the seed of his spirit in you he will not let you go however far you may stray from him he knows he's an apostle he knows he's in relationship to Christ Jesus as does Timothy although he serves God so to speak at a lesser level in as much as he's not an apostle though he has a vital responsibility to the church at Corinth and the church at large Timothy our brother remember who you are remember the church to which you belong to the church of God in Corinth to the church at Corinth but not of Corinth the church of God you belong to the church of God did you hear that? if you're called to belong to Jesus then you're in his church I care not a whit whether you're a member of the Worthing Tabernacle that is utterly unimportant related to what I'm trying to teach at this moment I'm born of the spirit I'm a member of the church of God at Worthing I'm a representative of all the saints throughout the whole world who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord that's what the apostle here is saying and he suggests that every individual Christian is actually a saint made holy by the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ the convictions Paul holds about himself and about the church and the conviction that he holds about God look at verse 2 grace and peace to you from God our Father the Father from whom all blessings flow the Father who will grant to you grace and peace which actually are summaries of the benefits of the gospel this God he smiles upon Christian people grace well that's what God showed towards the world in sending the Lord Jesus to die on the cross of Calvary peace, well that's the result from the death of our Lord Jesus now it's coincidental that grace was the Greek salutation meet a Greek in the marketplace in Paul's day and you'll say hail or charis meet a Jew in the bazaars in Jerusalem and you'll say shalom or peace now Paul is not here just being diplomatic he's taking grace and peace the Greek salutation the Hebrew salutation he conjoins them because they are a summary statement of God's attitude towards his own he's gracious and he grants peace so the next time I'm in a flap and I wasn't proud about being it let me remember being in it let me remember you remember this too what are you? despite your secondary circumstances you're a child of God you're a member of his church you're a recipient of grace and peace they're benefits of the gospel these are the convictions that held Paul these are the convictions that are to hold us the comforts he drew from the third verse through to the seventh inclusive I've got a parallel reference because I think the apostle Paul may have had this verse at the back of his mind when he starts on the third verse in 2 Corinthians 1 he says the psalmist says in Psalm 103 speaking of God as the Father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him now I've got verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 1 praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ say it with me together the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort you didn't say that convincingly let's say it again the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort now were you listening to the tape that Fieber had skillfully brought together it's not always easy for us English to get hold of the English language with a strong Indian accent but reference was made by one of our Christian producer brothers in India to the God that he used to worship in Hinduism there's a pantheon of gods that means there's lots of gods at least a million and they're hateful I really do mean this I never go into a Hindu temple unless I'm going to try and win a priest for the Lord the reason why because Hinduism is not just a sort of religious vacuum religion that is not Christian is a poor statement of what religion should be let me try again to explain what I mean if you go to the centre of Calcutta at least just away from the centre in one of the roughest toughest areas I've ever been in you will find that remarkable woman and her equally remarkable friends Mother Teresa now you may have some misgivings on certain areas of her theology but when my life is equivalent to her life then I'll start to pick more holes in her theology now she has got a clinic and she deliberately chose the site alongside the temple erected to the Hindu god Kali and he's a monster and when you go into the Hindu temples and you feel something of the power and the pressures of paganism the very antipathy of what true religion should really be then you realise how far short Hinduism is of being able to say praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of compassion and the God of all mercies don't you see the God that Fieber is endeavouring to bring pagans away from are the gods are those gods that tyrannise they're not gods that pity they're not gods that have mercy this is the reason why the Hindu on the streets of Calcutta or Bombay will have his little primitive altar that he will set up every night to ward off the evil spirits sent by these malevolent gods but Paul is speaking about the God of the Lord Jesus and he draws this comfort because he is the Father of compassion he is the God who knows all about Paul when Paul is bitterly misunderstood you see here Paul is revealing his heart he tells us something in the first letter and he makes reference in the second letter to the way that he's been treated by some of the people that he's one to the Lord look at verse 17 saying in this chapter they said he was fickle he had to change his mind well there were circumstances that were problematic and he couldn't come to Corinth to the timetable that he had pre-planned when he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians and some have said look you can't trust this man when I plan this did I do it lightly or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say yes yes and no no what do you know about the physique of the Apostle Paul you see Paul would not favour in some of our modern TV broadcasts in terms of religious evangelism certainly not in the United States of America he wasn't straight from Beverly Hills he wasn't equivalent on the Christian scale to the film star of Hollywood Augustine says in his Confessions that the Apostle Paul was a man small in size bald headed though well built eyebrows meeting rather long nosed but full of grace and says St. Augustine sometimes he seemed like a man and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel but he wasn't over six foot he wasn't a good looking man and there were those who when they made reference to their pastor the Apostle Paul the one who'd pioneered the church they looked at the nature of the man and the fact that when he spoke he wasn't perhaps the greatest orator that had ever lived 1st 10, 2nd Corinthians his letters are weighty and forceful but in person he's unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing can you imagine the hurt that must have eclipsed the emotions of Paul as he hears what people are saying about him but despite all these problems that he gets from within the church he makes reference to the father of compassion and the God of all comfort you see he's got his anchor points you can go in a tailspin not necessarily in the circumstances I've illustrated here in Worthing or in London you can go in a tailspin because of what people are saying about you but the Apostle is not so concerned with what people are saying about him but the attitude that God has towards him do you know the word Paul means small and there are some who think that Paul actually was a nickname and that Paul because of the humility that he had towards the end of his life writing his last letter he calls himself less than the least of all saints and Paul he decides to swap the title Saul for Paul the little man you see Saul if you remember your old testament scriptures he speaks to the Jewish memory King Saul the first king that they ever had who was a tall man head and shoulders above the rest a man with long hair a man's man a masculine man if you please from Tarsus Saul Paul the little man with a little message as the Apostle say I I'll take the very nickname and although it's used in contempt I appreciate not myself but I magnify the grace of God that is within me the fact that I've been called by the express will of God to be an Apostle and I will continue to discharge my ministry and I will look to the God of all compassion and the God of all comfort and when I find that I am in difficulty physical difficulty or difficulty within the church then I'll draw my sustenance and my strength from God you see it's only the anchor points when stress comes that will really hold you who you are to whom you belong and what God's attitude is towards you far more important than anything else dear the comforts that he drew he is the God of all comfort says the Apostle Paul and the fact that I have received comfort from him qualifies me to dispense comforts with others look at verse 4 if you receive from the Lord it's not for you to become a reservoir a dam to keep the blessing but rather to pass on what you have received and says the Apostle these comforts that he gives they are frequent who comforts us presence tense in all our troubles so when you're my 70 year old pensioner or 80 year old and you are in a panic or when you're worrying what's going to happen in the latter years of your life when your partner's away or you're on your own your anchor point is this this God who cares who pities and understands not a novel doctrine that Paul conjures up but laced into the Old Testament is this description of the character of God who is only to be feared in the sense that well, sin is appalling to him but he is to be loved because he deals so tenderly with the sinner and makes it possible for you and him to be in a relationship one with the other that's your anchor point in life are you understanding me? that's the implication of the gospel as you find it within his word I got more to say about that but time's marching on let's just get those final few verses in this section not because they're unimportant they're terribly important but for you to work out this afternoon after you finish your roast or whatever it is that you're going to satisfy yourself with later on and let's go to the eighth verse I've talked about Paul the convictions that he held the convictions that he faced in terms of hardship are such that sometimes we blush some of us, not perhaps all need to do this but someone like myself blushes when thinking of his particular problems my particular problems in terms of persecution or difficulty look, says Paul as he unveils further and shares the secrets of his ministry in Asia with these Corinthian believers we don't want you to be uninformed of the difficulties that we suffered in the province of Asia he said we're under such great pressure far beyond our ability to endure we despaired even of life you know the apostle later on will tell you something about this he will give an enlarged statement of the lifestyle that he lived and some of you will remember but I'll not plunder the material that we shall be using later on in this series and expound it now but you will remember the lists later on as to the way that he hazarded his life as a disciple of Jesus Christ now he says the problems were so great verse 9 as he's working the conclusion through we felt the sentence of death now do you remember somebody in the Old Testament who felt the sentence of death remember when you're reading Paul you're reading a man whose mind is baptized in the Old Testament and you get little nuances of the Old Testament cropping up in his teaching for example when he refers to our beloved father the God and father of our Lord Jesus he said he did not balk at giving up his own son but freely delivered him for us and you have in mind Abraham delivering up his own son Isaac well it's Abraham possibly at the back of his mind he was a man Isaac was a boy who faced the jaws of death and what happened when Abraham is about to plunge the knife into Isaac's back believing in the purposes of God that God will have to raise Isaac from the dead because if he doesn't then he would renege on his promise to make Abraham's descendants a great nation so that God could raise Isaac from the dead now here's the apostle Paul with that Old Testament scripture very much in the background of his thinking and he's saying well this dicing with death that we have suffered in Asia Minor happened, continue verse 9 that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead you see Paul knows because he's an apostle that he's got a race to run he's got a fight to fight he's got a crown to win and he knows he's not through yet he's ready to be delivered oh yes he's always ready to go into the presence of God but he's got some idea as to the agenda that he has to cover on this earth and so he believes that even if he's robbed of life in order for God to remain true to the personal promise that God made necessary now you see his thinking it didn't come to that point don't misunderstand me but this is the dynamic of Paul this is the dynamic of the faith of Paul he is so anchored into those original points with which he leads off at the beginning of this chapter that he says when he's in Asia facing death well he trusts in a God who raises the dead if necessary as an ambassador of Christ I says the apostle and in one sense he has delivered us from such a deadly parable and he will deliver us on him we have set our hope do you see the tense sequence there look back at verse 9 God who raises present tense God who has delivered us past tense God who will deliver us future tense you see Paul's got it all worked out hasn't he he has got the best insurance policy and he's applying it in the condition that would have made him panic stricken he's got his anchor points and he's worked them through oh yes he's got problems with the church he's got problems within as he puts it within the Christian community he's got problems without the pressures of being a Christian in a pagan society but he's got God and one with God is of course a majority on him we set our hope that he will continue to deliver us as you help us by your prayers says the apostle speaking to the spiritual Corinthians who are still remembering their leader as he goes around proclaiming the gospel in Ishmael I'm through look how do you cope when you're under pressure and later on today probably when I get the Heathrow I shall find that they've given me the lousiest seat in the plane and the thing doesn't start and they keep me standing an hour on the tarmac and I'm a bundle of nerves and I'm getting cramped and I want to get off how do you cope under pressure that's really just a humorous aside because pressures can come very very you cope under pressure by remembering who you are you're a child of God you're a member of his church the body of Christ and God's attitude towards you is one of graciousness and one of peace and when you start to apply that whether you're in a panicky condition in the post office or whether you're lost in the centre of London or wherever you are you've got something to stabilise you something to hold on to and the realisation that as Paul worked it out as God worked it out for Paul brought him ultimately back to Corinth so God likewise has got his hand upon you because you're as special to God as Paul was special to God well in a moment we're going to remember the grace of our Lord Jesus as we take bread and wine together but before we do that through all the changing scenes of life in trouble and in joy 702 703 705 706 709 708 709 706 707 708 709 Father we pause just for a moment to bring to you some perhaps here who really are going through incredible pressure and for whom working out this address is appropriate but difficult Lord we just ask by your grace that your peace may sweep across their hearts and even if the circumstances themselves have not changed may they find that with you in the circumstances they can cope whether it's worry about illness whether it's worry about finance whether it's worry about family Lord we just bring it to you we bring to you the burdens of this church too we pray Lord for the many facets of its ministry but the compounded responsibilities of some people and some with too much load on their too much hay on their fork Lord we bring to you all those who are stressed and stretched and pray Lord for your healing for the balm of your spirit and we ask Lord that you'll be with those who must go to this stage but those who are able to come around the table of the Lord we ask that we may fetch more grace that we may fetch more strength as we eat bread and drink wine together and remember the incredible story of the man who kept his cool who was always in control of his circumstances throughout the whole of his strained life we bless you for our Lord Jesus whether we go or stay may we know his companionship Amen