WWUTT 1647 Father of Mercies and God of All Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)

Paul begins 2nd Corinthians by saying, blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

May we also be comforted by these words when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of 2nd Corinthians. And as with yesterday, we're in chapter one.

I'll begin reading in verse one through verse 11 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. This is the word of the

Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout

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 will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For just as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. Or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is working in your perseverance in the same sufferings which we also suffer.

And our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even to live.

Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not have confidence in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who rescued us from so great a peril of death and will rescue us.

He on whom we have set our hope and he will yet rescue us. You also joining in helping us through your prayers on our behalf so that thanks may be given on our behalf by many persons for the gracious gift bestowed on us through the prayers of many.

Yesterday, as we got into this letter, I pointed out some of those key words that stick out to us, particularly the words affliction and comfort.

We go through affliction, we are comforted in the midst of those afflictions. In fact, the word comfort comes first.

We're gonna look at that today in verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the

God of all comfort who comforts us in our afflictions. And this builds all the way up to verse nine where Paul says, indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not have confidence in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

We go through these afflictions, we endure these trials that we may look not to ourselves, not thinking that we're greater than we really are or that we have the power and strength to overcome these things, but so that we would turn to the

Lord who we know has raised the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us and was risen again so that all who believe in him, our sins are forgiven, we have fellowship with God and everlasting life with him in an eternal imperishable kingdom where there will be no more afflictions and we will experience nothing less than everlasting comfort.

So let's come back to verse one here as we desire to be comforted by these words we're reading today.

Paul introduces himself, of course, as being the author of this letter, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

That was the same way he started the previous letter. Exact same words, 1

Corinthians 1 .1, Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

And then he mentions Sostenes, our brother, who was probably a co -writer with Paul.

Paul was dictating the letter, Sostenes was writing it down. This time he mentions Timothy. So he says,

Timothy, our brother, who's likely the one writing what Paul is telling him to write. And he says to the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout

Achaia. Achaia was that region that Corinth was in. We've seen Paul mentioned the saints of Achaia along with the

Corinthians, even in the previous letter that we read, 1 Corinthians. Paul makes mention of Achaia.

We talked about Achaia last week when we were wrapping up 1 Corinthians for Paul mentions it in his conclusion.

So the understanding or the concept here would be that Paul is writing to a particular church. He is addressing that church in that city, the church in Corinth.

But the people of Achaia, the rest of the saints, the rest of the saints around Achaia, they would be the first to receive this letter as it would be copied and redistributed.

And we know that's what happened with a lot of Paul's letters. Peter talks about this in 2

Peter 3, where he addresses the saints that he's writing to about some of the things that Paul writes about.

And he says, there are things in his letters that are difficult and hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the rest of the scriptures.

That's in 2 Peter 3 .16. And so Peter equates Paul's letters with the rest of scripture.

But we also see in that, that there was kind of this tradition of copying those letters and distributing throughout the churches so that the churches would have the apostolic teaching on how

Christ is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets. And you see that in the apostles' teaching.

And then the apostles further saying, now as followers of Christ, here's what that should look like for you.

Here's how to live as Christians in this world. So as this letter is gonna be copied and distributed out to other churches, the first ones who are gonna receive it will be the other

Christians in Achaia. So therefore you have to the church of God, which is at Corinth with all the saints who are throughout

Achaia. It's almost like, hey, you guys that are in Achaia too, I'm considering you even as I write these things.

Verse two, grace to you and peace from God our father and the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the interesting thing about this greeting, it's the same greeting in all of Paul's letters.

It's the inspiration behind grace to use ministry. That's the ministry extension of John MacArthur's pastoral teaching.

His radio ministry is called grace to you. Well, that comes from the way that Paul starts all of his letters, grace to you and peace from God our father.

Now, this is a play off of a Greek greeting and a Jewish greeting.

You've probably not considered that before with regard to how Paul starts his letters, but you know that in many of his letters, he will address things concerning Jews and Gentiles.

Like even Romans chapter one, for example, where we have that statement about the gospel,

Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe to the

Jew first and also to the Greek. And there are some of Paul's letters, Ephesians, Romans, Galatians, where he talks about how

Christ is a savior, not just for Jews, but also for Gentiles. And it's in Christ that Jews and Gentiles have been reconciled to God and to one another.

In Ephesians chapter two, addressing that dividing wall of hostility that existed there between Jews and Gentiles.

There's kind of a literal connotation because there was a wall in the temple area that separated where the

Jews could go and where the Gentiles could be. And so Paul makes that comment in Ephesians two about how through the death of Christ and his resurrection, that dividing wall of hostility has been broken down.

So there's no longer two people, there's no longer Jew and Gentile, for we are all one people of God in Christ Jesus.

So as we see those matters addressed in some of Paul's letters, there's even something to his greeting that draws

Jews and Gentiles together in Christ. For that statement, grace to you, that's a play off of a common

Greek greeting. Whenever the Greeks would introduce one another or encounter one another, they would say,

Kyrian. And that would be like saying hello. When you meet somebody or greet someone today, you're gonna say, hey, or greetings or whatever.

When I open up my podcast episodes, a lot of times I'll say, greetings, friends. I don't know why.

I don't know why I latched onto that word, greetings. But we will have some sort of introductory word like saying, hey, how are you?

Howdy to those of you who are common to the South or the Midwest. For the

Greeks, they would say, Kyrian. And the Greek word for grace is charis.

So it's very close to Kyrian. And it's Paul expressing the grace of God to one another.

So not just simply saying, hey, how are ya? But extending

God's grace to each other by saying charis, by saying, hey, we who are in Christ, who trust in God's sovereignty, we are all sharers of this grace that he has given to us.

None of us deserve the kindness that God has given to us.

And yet we have this grace to the praise of his glory. And so we who are in God's grace, extend that same grace to one another, even with our greetings.

We don't yet know this person that we are addressing, but we would extend grace to them because God has extended grace to us.

So right from the start of his letter, Paul, of course, knows the church in Corinth. He knows many of the people there, but not everybody.

And even those people whom he is addressing in Achaia with this greeting also, extending grace, the same grace of God that we have been shown in Jesus Christ, Paul gives to the brothers.

And I wanna say here that this grace that he's extending, this is the grace that we have by faith in Christ Jesus.

Paul is not extending a common grace here, although he certainly had that, right? The very fact that he would go to anybody, whether they are

Jew or Greek, barbarians get the enslaved free. He's gonna share the gospel with everybody out of the common grace of God.

But here as he's addressing the brotherhood, those who are saints in Christ Jesus by faith, this extension of grace is specifically to the church.

So grace to you, and then peace from God. Where do you hear about peace in Jewish greetings?

You know this one, right? It's that word shalom. Traditionally among Hebrews, among Jews, they would greet one another by saying shalom.

That's a word that means peace. So when they greet one another, they extend peace. I come in kindness,

I come in a peacefulness. There's no hostilities between us. We extend the peace of God.

And so Paul has the grace of God and the peace of God in mind in his greetings whenever he starts his letters in these ways.

Grace to you and peace from God, our father, and the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, even that, God, our father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, these are not just throw away titles that Paul is sticking as some kind of formality at the beginning of his letter.

But this is a reference to knowing God as Yahweh. God, the father is

Yahweh. The Lord Jesus Christ is Yahweh. Calling him Lord, the Greek word for Lord was the word that was used for Yahweh in the

Greek Septuagint or the Greek Old Testament. The Old Testament written or translated into Greek.

And so the word Lord would be used for Yahweh. So calling Jesus the Lord Christ is to make a reference to him as Yahweh.

It is also to recognize that Christ is ultimately our king because Caesar would be hailed as Lord among the

Romans, among the Greeks, but we don't consider Caesar as Lord. He cannot save us.

He cannot even save himself. He's a mere man. He will die. Jesus Christ is

Lord. He is the one who reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so there is a grace and a peace that is extended to us when we recognize and worship

God for his sovereignty. We are children of God, the father.

We are subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in these things, we know we have extended to us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places as Paul puts it in Ephesians 1.

There's grace. There is peace in that. There is charis.

There is shalom. And we are comforted even by those words, even by this greeting that starts off this letter.

And then Paul goes immediately from there into blessing and mercy and comfort.

Verse three, blessed be the God and father of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And that just shows you right there. These are not just throwaway titles. Grace to you and peace from God, our father and the

Lord Jesus Christ. He exalts those names again in the very next verse.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The God and father. Notice there's the definite article there. So he is one

God. You have an address of monotheism here at the start. So though we have a reference to God the father and the

Lord Jesus Christ, these are not two different gods. It is still a reference to the one God, the father of mercies and the

God of all comfort. If there is any mercy to be had, it is gonna come from the father himself.

He is the father of mercies. We have mercy in the sense that we have sinned against God and what we deserve is death.

We deserve judgment. We deserve the wrath of God. And yet it is through our

Lord Jesus Christ that we have been extended mercy. God does not destroy us though that is what we deserve.

He spares us. He loves us. And we have extended to us even much more than this, but we become fellow inheritors of the blessings of God.

So as Paul says, blessed be the God and father. He alone is worthy of our worship, but the blessings of God are extended to us who are in Christ Jesus.

He is the father of mercies. He is the God of all comfort. Once again, the theme of this letter is joyful endurance in the midst of suffering.

That Paul would continue as a faithful minister of the gospel of Christ, even though he is suffering, he does not despair, he does not lose heart, but he continues to place his trust in God who raises the dead.

And in so doing, he sets himself as an example to the Corinthians that they would do the same, that they also would rejoice in God in the midst of any affliction.

Paul talks about the Corinthians afflictions here at the start of the letter, not just his own, but even those whom he is writing to, they are being afflicted.

They go through suffering, but they can be comforted with the same comfort that Paul has received as he goes through afflictions and he's comforted, he extends that comfort to them.

This is a major theme in this letter, very autobiographical because Paul will talk a lot about some of the things that he goes through and he endures and even confronting and addressing false teachers that try to malign him or contradict those things that he's taught to the

Corinthians. But even though this is very autobiographical, it's Paul extending himself to the

Corinthians. He's sharing himself with them and setting for them an example of joyful endurance in the midst of suffering that they may also endure with joy and know the comfort of God that comes through our faith in Jesus Christ.

And so we would receive that same comfort as well. As we read 2 Corinthians, it's not just, oh, this sweet letter that was written 2000 years ago between this church planter and his church, but we are reading about things that we ourselves are sharers in, that we would be comforted by the grace of God, by the mercy of God, knowing that he loves us by faith in Jesus Christ.

We have this comfort from the God of all comfort who comforts us in our affliction, verse four, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

So as I started at the very beginning, all of this kind of comes to a head and we'll finish up this introduction tomorrow, but in verse nine where Paul says, indeed, we had received the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not have confidence in ourselves, but God who raises the dead.

So we go through suffering that we would trust not in ourselves, but in God, for he's the one who raises us from the dead.

The worst thing that can happen to us is death. That's it. Well, we as Christians, that's the worst thing that will happen to us.

And after we die, we are forever in the presence of God. So as the worst thing that we can experience is death, we put our trust in the one who raises the dead so that death itself does not even have power over us.

And if we know that God will raise us from the dead, that's the way we concluded 1 Corinthians. So we know, we put our trust in God who will raise us from the dead.

Then what do we have to fear of anything else in life? It is that truth that will remind us of the comfort we have in Christ Jesus.

But not only that, since we are comforted by God in this faith, we are also able to endure any affliction so that we can help comfort others who are in any affliction.

With that same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God, that's verse four.

So Paul gives two reasons here for the suffering that we endure. It's so that we would learn to rely on God and that we might be able to extend this same comfort to others who go through affliction so that they also would rely on God.

They also would set their hope and their strength in Christ alone who strengthens us, who comforts us in all of our afflictions.

And so once again, as we're gonna go through this letter, this second letter to the Corinthians, may you be comforted by the words that we read and even this day, set your hope and your trust in Christ who raises the dead, he himself who was raised from the dead.

Heavenly father, you are the God of mercies, the God of all comfort.

And we ask that you show us mercy today that we would know, we would be reminded as followers of Jesus Christ, of the mercy of God that has been given to us.

And that would be a comfort to us. We are comforted today because we know the God of the universe who created all things.

You love us, that Jesus died for us. He was raised for us. He is seated in the heavenly places at the right hand of the throne of God where he intercedes for us.

We have an advocate before the father who is the Lord Jesus Christ, as it says in 1

John 3, 1. And it's these truths that comfort us. And may we also be a comfort to others as we all go through these afflictions, these trials in life, we do not lose sight of God who raises the dead.

Give life to our spirits today. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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