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April 20/21, 2013
Jason Meyer | 2 Corinthians 1:8-11
For 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 that 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. 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.—2 Corinthians 1:8–11
Introduction
Last week I stressed that a culture of weakness is necessary to cultivate a culture of praise. We rob God of praise when we pretend that we have it altogether and don’t really need to be delivered. I gave an invitation for everyone to be in touch with their weakness and I gave permission for everyone to be able to confess that they do not have it altogether.
Sunday night, Pastor John led us with great humility. He said something that arrested my attention and made me stop in my tracks. It was a good thing I was already sitting down. He said, “The true spiritual strengths of this church are owing to the mercy of God, not the merit of the pastor. And I know that the weaknesses of this church are traceable to my weaknesses.” I almost wanted to interrupt. If it would have been a Q & A, I would have been tempted to jump in and say “No, you can’t make such a sweeping statement. You can’t take credit for all the weaknesses of the church.”
But as one reflects upon the Christian ministry, one must come to grips with the fact that no human can take credit for the successes of the church. They belong to God and God alone. Furthermore, no one can blame the failures on God. Therefore, humility does not want to shift the blame and point the finger at others. Humility says, “I will own the weaknesses of the church.” John, I am looking at you now. I continue to learn from you. Some day I hope to pass the baton of leadership with as much love, grace, faith, and humility as you did.
So right now when the baton has been passed to me I have no desire to pass the buck of responsibility. Here we are six days later and it is not hard for me to feel very weak. Let me say it as clearly as I can: Last week I was serious about giving you permission to admit that you do not have it all together because this week, right now, your leaders are confessing that we do not have it all together.
An email went out this week to all of our members and regular attenders. If we missed any members or regular attenders, you can receive the email one of three ways:
1) Email
2) Call the church office at 612-338-7653
3) Use the tear-off portion of your Worship folder to request the information (include your email address). You can turn it in at the Welcome Desk or drop it in one of the wooden boxes as you exit the Sanctuary.
The email is an update on something that was shared back in the Antioch Moment pre-sermon update of June 11, 2011. All those involved need to take responsibility for where we are today. It was wrong to let it get to this point. We do not want to pretend. We do not want to be polished or political or put on a plastic face. This has been a difficult journey. Internal attempts to resolve these staff tensions have been unsuccessful. We felt so stuck that we decided to turn to the ministry of Peacemakers who specialize in helping churches in situations like this. With their assistance personal peace was accomplished, but all parties involved also realized that at another level there was a genuine impasse. Probably the most painful upshot of this impasse is the willingness of David and Sally Michael to step aside from their ministry at Bethlehem.
We receive David and Sally’s resignation letter with deep sadness and in no way want to imply that the issues were one-sided. There are no perfect people in this mix and we all have flaws and sins to own.
We are sorry that we did not deal with the tensions better than we have. We want to express more than the fact that we are sorry. We do not want to assume your forgiveness. We sincerely ask for it now. I mean that. We also want to ask for your prayers. We have already learned much in this process and we don’t want to miss out on any of the spiritual or relational lessons that God has for us.
We are also asking you to give thanks to God for David and Sally Michael. David has faithfully served this body in pastoral ministry since 1986 and Sally as a staff member since 1996. We will confidently stand on their shoulders for many years to come in our ministry to children, youth, and their families.
David and Sally have not yet settled on a long term plan for their next chapter. An immediate next step is to be more involved with Children Desiring God. They know their overall calling to pursue the joy of the next generation. We commend them with deep appreciation for their labors among us, and we commit to pray for God’s richest blessing on them. In just a moment Pastor John is going to pray a prayer of blessing over them as we commend them to the Lord’s fullest blessing
Right now, the sovereignty of God is our lifeline. It allows us to look at things that are hard and not shrink back from saying that they are hard. But just as unflinchingly, we can look at hard things and confess that we never grieve like those who have no hope. The sovereignty of God allows us to say things are hard, but never hopeless. I urge you to read or re-read David Michael’s farewell letter. He is a model of what I was calling for last week. God has strengthened him with profound comfort and his letter is an expression of a strength-giving comforter—comforting and strengthening us with the comfort and strength God has given him.
The Bible gives us a story of leadership conflict remarkable similar to the one we have been through. We think it’s in the Bible to help us handle a situation that just doesn’t seem to make sense. Acts 15:39 tells us that Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement over whether to take John Mark along on the second missionary journey. They must have had a deeply different assessment of what would be best for the mission. Paul said: We can’t take Mark. Barnabas said: We should take Mark. This dispute became so sharp and no doubt so painful that these two mean who had risked their lives together on the first missionary journey could not even work together for a season. They went their separate ways. And we can only imagine what this meant to the church in Antioch. They must have been baffled that the two most spiritually mature leaders—the ones who had taught them the deeper things of the gospel—could not work this out.
We don’t think this story excuses us. We’ve made our sense of failure plain in what we have said. What the story does is, we hope, is give you a way to think about this situation without feeling like you must choose between loving and supporting David and Sally, and loving and supporting the other leaders of the church. We can imagine that many in the church at Antioch said: Well, I love Paul and Barnabas and I am going to support both missions. Both are heroes in our book. We hope in fact that is what you feel and what will do.
More than anything else, we hope you will look to the Great Shepherd, who is with us and for us. Some things change—but thank God—he never changes. Therefore, we are going to pray to Him and commend David and Sally to the grace of our Lord. I am going to ask David and Sally to join me here. Pastor John and I are going to pray a prayer of blessing over them.
Some of you are going to be watching this on the different campuses on Sunday. Perhaps you will feel a loss in that you did not get to connect with them in person. While they are making their way up here, let me say that you will have the opportunity to personally connect with them at a farewell reception held on May 19 at the Downtown Campus Main Hall, 2–4pm.
Prayers of Blessing for Pastor David & Sally Michael
Transition
I want you to know that we are having Paul Cornwell, one of the conciliators we have engaged from Peacemakers is coming to the Quarterly Strategy Meeting on April 28 and we hope to help this people process this further. For now, where do we go in our processing?
Why preach from this text in 2 Corinthians? I thought about continuing to unpack the Paul and Barnabas paradigm in Acts 15 in this sermon, but then I realized that we needed a bigger paradigm than two ministries splitting apart. With the Boston Marathon bombing and the Texas plant explosion we are at a place in our world where we feel very vulnerable. We need a bigger paradigm than Acts 15. We need a paradigm for life and death and all points in between. What do we do when times get tough? Paul has a four-point paradigm:
Let’s read the text again. I want you see it for yourself in the text.
For 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 that 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. 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.—2 Corinthians 1:8–11
I want to take a moment to unpack each point briefly and then I will try to zero in on some contemporary application.
Notice that this passage begins with the word “For.” Paul highlights that this passage is an explanation of the previous one. The word “affliction” appeared three times in the previous passage (the noun and the verb) and now it shows up again here. Paul wants us to see a specific example of how God comforts Paul in affliction.
Now you have to feel the weight of this passage. Paul gives a catalogue of suffering in 2 Corinthians that really defies anything that I can imagine. So if this affliction could shake him to the core like this, you know that it is severe. He says that they simply could not cope with it—it taxed their resources until they were spent and then some. They came to despair of life itself—they thought that God had given them the death sentence.
Why would God do such a thing? Notice that Paul does not imply that this suffering was somehow an accident. Paul points to God’s purpose in it in the next verse, which takes us to our next point.
Paul looks beyond the situation and sees sovereignty. This happened in order to make us rely not on ourselves. This is a stupendous claim. It is saying that the default mode of the soul is self-reliance or self-dependence. When things seem manageable, it is easier to buy into this mirage. On Facebook this week, my wife quoted something J.I. Packer said. “God doesn't allow us to stay with the idea that we are strong. We may have that idea, but the Lord is going to disabuse us one way or another, and it will be good for us.”
What God brought into Paul’s life was hard to see as a blessing at first no doubt. But God was disabusing Paul of the very thing that would disable his very faith—self-reliance. How loving of God to get Paul’s eyes off of self-sufficiency so that he would look to God.
But Paul’s point runs deeper still. He does not just trust in a generic God. His faith has specific content: He trusts in the God “Who raises the dead.” It may have seemed like a death sentence, but Paul remembered the resurrecting power of God. God displayed that power in the next verse, which leads us to the third point of Paul’s paradigm.
Repeated words are really helpful when you are learning to read the Bible. They almost start shouting at you. Delivered, will deliver, will deliver again! OK—I see the word Paul. What does it mean?
The first thing one notices is the change in the tense of the verb. Paul moves from a past deliverance (he delivered us) to a future deliverance (he will deliver us). When he repeats the word a third time, he once again puts it in the future tense: “He will deliver us again.” Paul’s point is not only that God will deliver again and again. He goes deeper once more into the logic of Resurrection. Notice that he uses the word “death” again. The deliverance is from a “deadly” peril. The hope in seeming death is defined as deliverance.
But what specific deliverance does he have in mind? Temporary relief from affliction? Or is he talking about actual Resurrection and permanent relief from affliction and death? The answer is “Yes.” More on that in a moment. I want to get our fourth point in view before spending some time on application.
Paul once again brings the Corinthians in at the end of the cycle. He says that they play a part in this deliverance. God wants a bigger stage upon which to display his delivering power. He wants more people to see it or know it so that more people will praise him and give him thanks. The way that God enlists participants in the drama of deliverance is through prayer.
God delivers us when we cry out to him so that we get the help and he gets the glory. This is the same point as Psalm 50:15 (“Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will answer you and you will glorify me”). God ordains that the scope of prayer would increase so that the stage of deliverance would be seen by more people—who are not passive spectators but active participants through prayer. It is something of the same dynamic of what happens when fans are on the edge of their seat at the end of a close game and they are rooting for their favorite team. When they pull it out in the end, the crowd will erupt with cheering. O for more worship eruptions at Bethlehem for all of the ways that God’s deliverance is daily on display!
Application
The Bible is a big book. Some events are so pivotal that they create a pattern for the future. One such example is the Exodus deliverance picture. God has a people he has chosen, they were physical slaves and living under oppression by Pharaoh, they cried out to the Lord, and he heard their cry and sent a deliverer, Moses, to lead them out of Egypt into the Land of Promise. The deliverance itself came in the midst of darkness and death. A Passover Lamb needed to be slaughtered and the blood had to be applied over the doorposts so that destruction would not come to their house.
Through that deliverance and on the way to the Promised Land, God showed Moses his glory. God revealed that he is “merciful and gracious” (Exodus 34:6). The picture applies to the covenant people corporately.
Then all throughout the OT, people begin individually calling on the name of the Lord according to this confession of faith: the covenant God is merciful and gracious.
For example, David says that “insolent men have risen up against him” and a “band of ruthless men” are seeking his life (Psalm 86:14). But then he confesses “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me” (Psalm 86:15–16). The confession is individualized by each covenant member and it becomes part of the pattern of their lives.
The same thing happens in the most pivotal event of all: the death and resurrection of Jesus. God has a people He has chosen, but they were spiritual slaves to sin and were under the oppression of the Prince of Darkness, Satan. This time, they did not cry out for help because they were dead in their sins. So God sent the Deliverer, Jesus, before they could cry for help. This time the Deliverer and the slaughtered Passover Lamb were one and the same. The blood of the Passover Lamb had to be applied to the sinner, not to the door. Through death, Jesus even conquered the final enemy: death itself. Jesus’ resurrection has become the guarantee of the future resurrection of God’s new covenant people. This is for all the new covenant people corporately. Paul individualizes so that the picture applies as a pattern for their lives.
The gospel is God’s best story and so he weaves it into our story at many different points so that our story becomes interconnected with God’s story.
Each time you walk in the valley of the shadow of death, the cycle kicks in—you think to yourself—here comes death, but God will rescue one way or another. The rescue may be temporary relief from suffering (resurrection picture), or permanent relief by resurrection (resurrection reality).
The deadly peril comes to us like a prophet in rough clothing—prophesying to us that the last enemy is real. We are all going to face death. We are powerless to overcome this enemy on our own.
But we are to trust not in ourselves, but in the God who raises the dead. God’s repeated rescues engrave the picture of resurrection upon our hearts to reinforce the resurrection story as the story of our lives. We praise God for the repeated rescues and the many answers to prayer for earthly deliverances from death.
The many rescues are echoes of the one great rescue that is coming: our resurrection.
Therefore, Christians need not fear death. If God does not answer our prayer to heal a fellow Christian that is dying of cancer, He has answered with ultimate love.
Death is not defeat. Death is not a lack of love—it is the height of love—it is gain! Christians do not fear death, but neither do they love death. It cannot be said that we have a death wish as though we glorify death and love death itself. Paul presents it in 1 Corinthians 15 as an enemy, indeed the last enemy, not a close friend. We long for what will be on the other side of death. We have a resurrection wish—a wish to meet God more fully and have every tear wiped away, and have ever-increasing, everlasting joy in His presence.
Someone who falls asleep in Christ is not dead. They are more alive than ever. They are more alive than ever because they will never die and they are more alive than ever because they are face to face with Christ which is what life is! To live is Christ. To die is more of Christ; life forever with Christ.
Conclusion
Some may be struggling because their experience does not match this text. Paul went through suffering and then experienced temporary relief before the cycle started over again. Temporary relief from suffering is experienced as love.
Some of you struggle with things that have not been relieved—they are chronic—they are always there—you live with them like an unwanted houseguest with whom you share your life.
How can these experiences be seen as loving? Does Paul have anything to say to you? He has more to say than you think.
First, notice back in last week’s text that sometimes suffering must simply be endured. Did you notice the key word that comfort produces? Patient endurance (2 Corinthians 1:6). The Corinthians have already heard of this type of deliverance in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
Second, we will hear about it again in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul showed that God had a purpose in it that superintended Satan’s purpose of torment. God gave the thorn to keep Paul humble. “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Paul asked three times that it be taken away (12:8). God’s response was to highlight his purpose in making this a chronic thorn. God wanted Paul to feel weak so that the strength of God’s grace would be on clear display.
Some of you are in chronic pain. I confess that I have not experienced this kind of suffering like some of you have. But Paul did. And God’s explanation to him was simple. Because pride is a perennial problem, you need some chronic pain to remind you in your weakness of your perpetual need for my strength.
I had never seen that before because I had not stopped to read chapter 12 in the light of chapter 11. The false apostles were arrogant. If Paul became arrogant he would be in danger of driving on the same path with the same destination.
Therefore, in suffering, don’t think about what God is keeping from you, think about what God is keeping you from.
Paul makes a human judgment and says, “This is bad. Take it away, take it away, take it away.” God says, “No.” Paul you do not see what I am keeping you from. Paul you have a chronic problem with pride. You need chronic pain so that you will perpetually be in touch with your weakness so that you do not drift away from me because of independence and self-sufficiency like the “super apostles.”
You need to be in touch with your weakness so that you will stay focused on my strength. Paul says, ok, I will stop asking to take it away and I will start saying thanks for it and boast only about my weakness and God’s strength—not mine.
People with chronic pain are not weaker than the rest of us—they are simply more in touch with how weak we all really are. They feel more deeply what we all are really. Being in touch with weakness makes one be more in touch with and more thankful for God’s strength—grace.
Please don’t make the mistake of suffering in a law-based or performance based way. Law-based suffering always asks how you are doing in handling the suffering. The problem with this is that it starts to sound like something you are performing. Are you supposed to focus on your strength in weakness? No, the gospel says focus on God’s strength in your weakness. He has given all that you need—he will keep giving it. Your weakness does not compromise his leading; he leads you in your weakness. Being in touch with your weakness helps you see your need for his leading and carrying.
If God does not take care of our sin problem, then it will not matter how we endure suffering in this life—we will have eternal suffering to endure after this life. That is why the only hope for suffering is Christ’s suffering for us. Look at the cross and say, “How Deep the Father’s love for us.” I see your love most clearly there.
So I will not boast in anything, no gifts, no power, no wisdom. I will boast in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection!
Closing Song: "How Deep the Father’s Love for Us"
Discussion Questions