Pay it Forward

2 Corinthians 1:3-11

Ahh, comfort. We love to be comfortable and we love to be comforted when we are uncomfortable. But when trouble strikes, what is your primary source of comfort? Will you be uncomfortable until everything settles down again? Or can you find peace in the midst of the storm? Can you comfort yourself? Can you engage in some sort of stoic self-discipline, in which we attempt to conquer suffering by controlling our emotions? Can you use will power? How about the power of positive thinking, in which we try to psyche ourselves up into believing that things are really not as bad as they seem? Can we overcome our circumstances if we only put our mind to it? Certainly, Paul is thought not talking about some “new age” conviction that all we have to do is get in touch with the “god within us.”

In stark contrast to all such self-help strategies, by “endurance” Paul means that trust in God’s power and purposes in the midst of adversity that expresses itself in a steady not giving up.¹ And what does this have to do with evangelism? We are after all in the middle of a series about sharing the faith. The over view is: PRAY, CARE, LISTEN, SHARE, OFFER and BRING. Last week we focused on the fact that God wants to use us in the work of evangelism and that as we obey and preach or share the gospel we will see unsaved people come to life in Christ, as if they are being raised from the dead.

This week our focus will be on what it is we have to share, this comfort that comes from knowing the gospel and how that ought to actually motivate us to want to share the gospel that can comfort others with the same comfort that comforts us. But, … do we care about the others in our world enough so that we actually want to comfort them? Or are we afraid of offending them or upsetting them? And if we are afraid of upsetting them is that really because we are concerned about them? Or is it that we are more concerned about ourselves getting uncomfortable in the lash back?

Are we so afraid of rocking the boat with people that we decide instead to let them go their own way and only hope and pray that somehow, someday they will hear the gospel from somebody, and probably, or maybe even preferably from somebody else, so that we don’t have to personally risk their rejection of us, their possible anger at us for daring to bring up the subject.

The very idea of sharing the gospel can make us feel uncomfortable. So how shall we be comforted? Shall we be comforted by not sharing the gospel? Is that what God wants for us? I think our text today will show that clearly, God’s call, and God’s great commission, require us to step out of our comfort zones and trust in a better comfort that comes from Him. As pastor of a Christian church, I am called to equip the saints to do the work that God calls all of us to do. So today’s sermon is not to preach the gospel so that some unbeliever among us might be saved by my proclamation of the gospel.

My message today is designed to exhort the believers to go and preach the gospel to people who do not come to our worship services yet, people you know in your families and neighborhoods and work environments, especially the one person you have picked, through prayer and God’s guidance, and for whom you are praying during this Lenten season. So believers, am I now making you uncomfortable?

Let me tell you about that better comfort, a kind of comfort that can help us get comfortable with the idea of living outside of our comfort zones. Let us begin where Paul began his exhortation in today’s text: “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 receive from God.” Does it say that God comforts us by removing all our troubles? No it says he comforts us in our troubles.

This puts me in mind of Jesus sleeping in the boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee. The disciples were overwhelmed by the trouble they were in. They were terrified and were sure that they were all going to drown. But Jesus was asleep in the bow. The same storm that frightened and alarmed the disciples so that sleep was the farthest things from their minds, was to Jesus a rocking cradle, where he could rest in the loving arms of Father God, who would always make sure that His children are in his care, and exactly where he can do the most good through them, no matter what the external circumstances look like.

If the disciples had been able, by faith, to take the same perspective as Jesus, they would have gotten as close to Jesus as they could, and trust in God the same way He did, and felt the storm as rocking them to sleep and not tossing them overboard. Then perhaps Jesus would not have been required to calm the storm. They could have let the raging surf do all the work of getting the boat to its destination! But they were not yet able, not yet filled with the Holy Spirit, and so in grace and mercy Jesus calmed the storm. They were babies then. But one day they would be mature.

My little granddaughter loves to play with me, and I with her. But of course I have to be careful to not frighten her. Even though I can take very good care to keep her safe, it has taken her a while to believe that. Once, a year or so ago, I put her in a dining room chair and I wanted to see if she would enjoy rocking back and forth. The moment she tipped too far back, her little body and reflexes naturally told her she was going to fall and land hard. She screamed and cried and wanted out of that chair. There was no way I could convince her she would be okay if she trusted me.

But this year, just last Tuesday evening, I played the game again, and at first her reflexes told her to defend herself. She started up. But this time when I told her she would be alright, she tried trusting me and was delighted to find that she could rock all the way back until the back of the chair rested on the floor, and it became fun! She wanted to do it again and again. Now she has faith in me and she is comforted by my strength and presence with her! You can bet she will never try to rock that chair all the way back to the floor if I am not there with her. But as long as I am with her. She will be comfortable.

That is the kind of comfort God offers us. God says, “Lo, I am with you always!” And he first said that specifically in connection with his command that we share the gospel throughout the whole world. As we trust in that we will be able to respond to the comfort of God’s sovereign presence to endure any “suffering” that comes our way. We can rest assured, confident that all our circumstances are in some mysterious way divinely orchestrated aspects of our school of faith.

We are further encouraged in this by the rest of the exhortation in today’s text. “For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” It is right there in black and white. The life of faith and obedience is not necessarily a life of ease and abundance. We like those creature comforts, but those things do not provide the kind of comfort Paul is talking about in this passage. The great abounding comfort Paul is talking about comes from knowing we are free to do God’s will and rest in his care with a strength that comes from him and makes us able to do far more than we could do without him. I am constantly inspired and motivated by the stories that come from our brothers and sisters who are enduring persecution.

I want to tell you today the story of an unnamed Christian prisoner in Cuba, who was in prison for being a Christian. The guard yelled at him, “Sign the paper.” If he signed, he would be released from prison. But the paper contained the names of other Christians who would be arrested if he betrayed them. So he said, calmly, “I cannot sign this paper.” The guard screamed at him, “Why can’t you sign? Can’t you even write your own name?”

The prisoner, with a very peaceful demeanor looked right into the guard’s eyes and said, “It is because of the chain, my friend. The chain keeps me from signing this.”

Grabbing the prisoner’s hands roughly, the officer held them in front of his face. “But you are not in chains, you idiot!” He screamed.

“Oh, but I am,” said the Christian believer. “I am bound by the chain of witnesses who through the centuries have given their lives for Christ. I am yet one more link in this chain and I will not break it.”

Christian martyrs leave behind a rich testimony of incredible poise in the midst of horrific circumstances. Their strength is heroic. Their words are wise. Their calm is unshakable.² We are under so much less strain than that. It is hard for us to know how we would deal with that kind of discomfort. But our easy life, our enjoyment of creature comforts can somehow also keep us from being brave enough to get out of our comfort zones and do something to share the gospel and care about the people who need to hear it even though we will not be arrested or beaten, just uncomfortable.

And yet, the distress endured by our Christian brothers and sisters speaks loudly to the ones who hold them captive and speaks loudly to the other believers who are suffering in persecuted lands, to embolden them. It also speaks to us about the power of the comfort that comes from God, to embolden us. Just as Jesus’ suffering on the cross was really and absolutely for our comfort and salvation, Paul says his suffering in the mission work he was doing was also for the comfort and salvation of the people to whom he spoke, not that his suffering has the power to save them, but that his suffering had the power to demonstrate that gospel comfort is real comfort. 

So he says, “If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation.” People can see that the gospel must be real if the person talking about it is willing to put up with suffering to preach it. And so the suffering of Paul actually helped people to believe the gospel. That is why he saw his suffering as being for their comfort and salvation.  Then he says, “If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.”

What comforted Paul? Was it relief from all the stress and suffering he endured in his missionary journeys? No. It was power to continue, and seeing lost souls come to faith. That is what comforted Paul! And that comfort did not deliver him from suffering. It enabled him to endure it! Do you know that all the suffering that Paul suffered came because he cared enough about the lost to use up all his strength and resources to go and tell everyone he could about the gospel that could save them?

Then he says, that same comfort, once we believe and obey the gospel, will produce in us the same kind of patient endurance of the same kinds of sufferings that have been suffered by all the saints who have ever preached the gospel faithfully. It is not that we love to suffer and want to. It is that if suffering comes, we are willing to pay that price for the sake of following Jesus, so that we can see ourselves as taking up a cross for Christ, just as He said we should.

This has everything to do with evangelism. How much do you care for the lost, what are you willing to endure for the sake of reaching the lost? You will not be arrested, though you might be maligned. You will not be tortured, though you might be shunned. You will not be beaten, though you might be berated. Do you know and believe in the comfort that comes from God? Do you care enough about the lost to step out of your normal comfort zone and dare to raise the subject of the one thing in life that can conquer death?

Remember that bit of wisdom that says that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care? How will they know you care if you don’t even try to reach them because you are afraid you might suffer for it? But I am not advocating that you just walk up to people and start telling them what they ought to believe, or just hand them a tract and hope they read it. No. If you care about people, the first thing you do is listen to their story, in an appropriate place and at an appropriate time. “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” Romans 15:1-2. How will you know how to do this unless you listen? We need to know our loved one’s story.  We need to know how to help them gain what they truly need.

Want to take a baby step? The first line of suffering is what Jesus meant when he said “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Allow them in. Let them draw near. Care about their welfare enough to put up with a little inconvenience of paying attention to them. Put their needs ahead of your own. Or as I like to say, be otherish in loving them. And not just children. Let everybody in through your otherish love. Listen, ask questions and be patient to hear how they are dealing with life. Let God lead you to see the areas of their lives that connect with the ways the gospel has blessed you, then you will have something to share. You will be coming alongside of people able to say, “Me too. This is how God helped me, may I share?”

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. In that final word of the text today Paul is saying that as we are obedient and offer ourselves as living sacrifices to reach out to people, listen to their stories and learn when and how to share the gospel, if this work causes suffering, we will also be comforted by the comfort that God gives. Real comfort.

¹Hafemann, Scott, “2 Corinthians,” The NIV Application Commentary, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 2000, p. 75.

²Voice of the Martyrs, “Extreme Devotion,” Thomas Nelson Pub. Inc., Nashville, TN, 2001, p. 68.