Comfort - encouragement - 2 Cor. 1:3-7 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 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. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 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.
Word to the grad. Class of 2002. The American dream is a myth - a rabbit trail. Dead end. I hate to dash your hopes but you may as well know the truth. The problem with "Happily ever after" is that is hardly ever happens.
Bigger problem than ever before - We invest an enormous amount of energy making heaven on earth. My world more desirable than any heaven I can imagine, DVD, surround sound Taco bell
Why is it that things that matter deeply to me don’t seem to matter to God at all?
Inalienable rights? - life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Not according to God - Joy
Our GNP is up, income and standard of living is up - happiness is down, way down.
Happiness doesn’t bring joy - mostly a distraction to true joy - but you won’t believe me.
Ex. Of "happiness" ending in despair - lotto winners, actors and athletes, politicians and rich.
And living right is no guarantee of happiness either
Jesus told us to take courage, to fear not WHY?- He never said that we would escape pain, illness, despair. In this world you’ll have trouble - count on it - you were meant for another world
Film at 11 - Christian woman kidnapped, raped and dismembered. Christian father shot and killed in front of his sons. Pastor’s daughter loses a battle with leukemia, his faith shaken, he is released from the church he pastors. The best of homes experience divorce, addictions, unemployment, poverty, disease and death.
2 Cor. 1:8-9a 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. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.
Don’t fall for the lie that God wants you to be happy. The Bible never says that.
God’s goal isn’t to make you happy, that is Satan’s goal
Happy means satisfied without God - treating God like a vending machine or massage, genie
Porn, food, drugs offer immediate and predictable satisfaction, but not lasting - Have you been asking God to do in prayer to fulfill the lusts of your flesh?
What is the purpose of despair?
Use the story of Acts 27:1-43 - stop with the boat wreck.
God uses Despair to shatter false hopes, to crush second best dreams
God uses pain and shattered dreams to awaken us and help us discover our desire for God.
Shattered dreams - the intense pain is never random or senseless.
Tragedy is the corridor towards God
Most other things have to drop away - Paul and the crew even stopped eating - during the crisis
What about when God doesn’t act or listen for a long time, maybe as long as heaven
Darkest hour we see the least and are less likely to misstep - or go it alone
Shattered dreams open the doors to better dreams - but the old must be utterly destroyed (lifeboat cut away) Pain always has a purpose - to stir up an appetite for a higher purpose and plan, knowing God well enough to desire Him above all else
Shattered dreams are needed for spiritual growth - not many Christians drink deeply from the well of living water. Shattered dreams create excruciating pain but what arises from the ashes is lovely - like flowers on Mt. St. Helen’s
Jesus battled shattered dreams (gethsemene - wept after angels strengthen him see pg. 46
God uses despair so that we will abandon all hope in lessor gods.
What do these things represent?
Cargo - my stuff, cars, boats, homes, furniture, my junk (great loss but I can still get more)
Tackle - my ability to gain, load and accumulate stuff (greater loss, no hope to regain stuff)
Lifeboat - My plans for the future - hope and dreams (I’m not getting out of this alive)
Grain - My immediate future - burn last bridge (only God can save me now)
We let go in stages - like the cargo.
What’s the last thing they abandoned? - the ship - my life
Problem when we try to short cut the work of disappointment and pain and tragedy
1. If I get a grip on things - gain control
Abandon leaves no room for control, no claims - no "you owe me"
Suffering has the power to reduce those unworthy attitudes to zero.
Men try non-relational control and women try relational control
2. Addictions to deaden the pain
Addictions preoccupy the mind, sex, drugs, pastors who live to grow churches
3. If I follow the rules - tithe, pray, memorize script., witness - God owes me one - NOT
God owes me but God doesn’t bless me because I am good rather because He is good
Pity kills people self pity or from others. We are not defined by what we suffer
All the bad came but I still trusted Him, cancer not healed marriage still failed, yet I trust Him
Heb. 11:35-39 Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
God pleased with fools who trust Him though they ever were rewarded
What happens when we abandon all hopes and dreams to God and desire only Him?
Next to impossible to imagine that God desires you more than you desire anything
We discover our passion for God - He reveals His passion for us and it’s not what we expected
Wild ecstatic praise - may come later, but first it is usually humility, silence Awe
I had no idea - shaken to the core - don’t measure God’s presence by emotion
Why is it that things that matter deeply to me don’t seem to matter to God at all?
God wants to bless us - giving us what He considers best until my greatest and all consuming desire is Him and Him alone. He will never fully answer my prayers until I come to this
Blessing with goodness isn’t all we thought it would be
The essence of His character is pure love and pure love resists the shallow fixes
In the middle of our shattered dreams Jesus is restraining himself, for some reason we don’t understand but we can fully trust - from ending the pain. The solid ground you seek is found by entering the pain, not avoiding it
Nothing I can do will make God show up all I can do is invite Him
It is more difficult for Christ to restrain Himself from making our dreams come true than for us to watch them shatter. In the moment of our worst pain - Jesus’ pain is more intense. The pain of unlimited power. He could easily cure every illness, save every marriage, salvage every soul, why does he do nothing or is the "nothing " he does is a sign of His incredible strength
C. S. Lewis - if the deepest desires I have cannot be filled in this world, it stands to reason that I was not made for this world.
You don’t need a pep talk you need a soul mate, you don’t need an inspirational motivation speech, you need to admit that this world is not your home, the desires you have will never be fully satisfied by anything this world has to offer, you may as well face it - you were designed top to bottom for another world - your deepest desire leads only to God.
My bottom line - I want to encourage you - not fix you - go with you through the pain not detour you until you desire God completely. Encourage one another - make strong. Practice the discipline of encouragement rather than discouragement. Balcony people vs. basement people
Who has been an encouragement to you? How or why? What was the result
Purpose of comfort is to make strong - to give courage to go through tough times.
2 Cor. 1:9b-10 But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 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
