Extending Received Comfort to Others

Why does God let me go through the hard thing at all?

Paul does not treat his suffering as an interruption to his ministry but as the place it was built. He was crushed past his own strength in Asia and came out saying it had a purpose, that he would stop trusting himself and start trusting the God who raises the dead.

For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life. Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver, on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us, you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift given to us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on your behalf.

2 Corinthians 1:8–11

Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive, as is happening today.

Genesis 50:20

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

How do I help someone who is hurting when I don't have an answer for them?

Paul's answer is not technique but memory. God comforted him in his affliction, and that received comfort is what he carries to the next person in the same shape. Father Damien went to the leper colony as a helper and ended up one of them, and that was what made his comfort land.

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, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Our hope for you is steadfast, knowing that, since you are partakers of the sufferings, so you are also of the comfort.

2 Corinthians 1:3–7

For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life. Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver, on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us, you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift given to us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on your behalf.

2 Corinthians 1:8–11

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

Romans 12:15

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job 2:11–13

For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you. For we write no other things to you than what you read or even acknowledge, and I hope you will acknowledge to the end— as also you acknowledged us in part—that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

2 Corinthians 1:12–14

What is an ambassador of Christ actually supposed to be doing?

An ambassador represents someone else and speaks for them. Paul takes that word and puts it on ordinary believers, so that God's appeal to be reconciled reaches people through the life and voice of a Christian. It is not a title for clergy, it is a job description for the church.

We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:20–21

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. In the past, you were not a people, but now are God’s people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

1 Peter 2:9–10

Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20

“You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can’t be hidden. Neither do you light a lamp and put it under a measuring basket, but on a stand; and it shines to all who are in the house. Even so, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:14–16

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

How do I keep going when I am worn out and running on empty?

Paul hits the wall and says so, and then says he did not lose heart. What he does in that place is run to the cross, to the mercy of God and to the Spirit who lets him call God Father. It is the noonday demon met with a brokenhearted joy, the kind Jonathan Edwards described.

Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often. Five times I received forty stripes minus one from the Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies.

2 Corinthians 11:23–28

For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God;…

Romans 8:15–16

Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.

Psalms 42:5–6

For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace for help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:15–16

Does any of this hold up after someone I love dies?

Paul grounds the whole letter in a God who raises the dead, and twice in the passage he says ambassadors travel with hope. The sermon holds that up against the funeral of a woman who suffered for thirty years and against a writer on depression who could find nothing on the other side of the dark.

Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver, on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us,…

2 Corinthians 1:9–10

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:1–8

But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:54–57

But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–14

I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:3–4