This morning we’re in 2 Corinthians 12—next Sunday we will conclude our Hope Rising series. When the Apostle Paul writes letters he often “ends” in the very same place he “begins.” The reason we called his series “Hope Rising” is because Paul begins and ends talking about Hope. Paul did of course raise many other matters in this letter, but now he returns to hope.
It’s okay to wrestle with Hope. What exactly is hope? Should we only have hope for this life? Should we only have hope for whatever life is to come? At the beginning of this letter Paul describes ways we experience hope right now, in the
present.
For example, God comforts us RIGHT NOW. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction. . .” Sometimes we need a break, a second chance, a fresh start. God is the Father of Mercies! He doesn’t punish us as our sins deserve but gives grace! We all need grace to grow. Sometimes it’s inner peace, inner strength, and compassion we most need. In those moments, when it feels the whole weight of the world is upon us, God makes his presence known. He is the God of All Comfort. We’re never alone, not in our darkest moments.
You might wonder exactly how God shows up for us. In 2 Corinthians 1:4b-5 Paul describes how God’s comfort overflows through his people. First of all, were (4b) “able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” But second, in verse 5 Paul, observes that just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us (5b), “so also the comfort of Christ overflows.” If
we’re willing, God uses your experiences, your story, your testimony… to bring hope to others! You say to someone, “Here is how God touched my life. . .”
I’ve often felt convicted by this… that maybe there are people not finding hope because we the church aren’t doing our job. If we’re not showing up whenever and wherever people are hurting, perhaps they have cause to doubt God’s comfort. We are to be God’s comforting presence, his body, his tender hands, his swift feet, his watching eyes, his listening ear, his comforting mouthpiece. If we're to be God’s comforters, and we didn’t show up, we shouldn’t be surprised when people feel God is distant and cold!
Also, many times, God delivers us RIGHT NOW. In 2 Corinthians 1:10-11 Paul says, “He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us. We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.”
How many times have you prayed, or maybe other people prayed for you, and God immediately answered? God delivered you from worry, from anxiety... God delivered you from affliction, trouble, hardship, temptation, sickness, disease. Maybe God delivered you from death! Paul says, “Keep praying! You are tangibly helping us by your prayers! God is working!”
Perhaps you protest, “Well, I just don’t believe in the power of prayer.” If you are too proud to pray… If you are too proud to ask people to pray for you... then of course you don’t believe in the power of prayer! Its not like people pray and find prayer ineffectual. Its that they just don’t pray at all!
Now I have an important point to highlight—and its Apostle Paul’s point. God comforts us now. So many times, God delivers us. But thirdly, God prepares us RIGHT NOW. Consider Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 1:8b-9, “We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. . .” [Now why is this happening??] Paul continues, it was “. . .so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.”
There are two twin problems that afflict us more than any other. There is our crisis of anxiety—feeling completely overwhelmed—beyond our own strength. There is our crisis of despair—feeling as if we’re under a death sentence! Paul doesn’t mince any words. What if God has a purpose? What if our anxiety and despair is to shift the locus of our faith from trusting self to trusting God? The truth of anxiety is that we can’t muscle through every crisis. The truth of despair is that we, our bodies are fading, dying. But our hope is that the God who raises the dead… who raised Jesus… can do for us what he did for his Son Jesus! If so, we can transcend our anxiety and despair! But if not, were in wretched pitiful state of affairs! I have to accept that God is preparing me NOW for ETERNITY. I may think I have my whole act together. But maybe God sees a man whose pitiful and wretched, who hasn’t learned to trust in anything but himself. Paul acknowledges, “God is teaching us WHO we should really be trusting!”
So now we leap clear over 2 Corinthians 12. In 2 Corinthians 12:1-7a, Paul paints this bizarre, if not cryptic, picture of heaven. He says, “Boasting is necessary. It is not profitable, but I will move on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether he was in the body or out of the body, I don’t know; God knows. 3 I know that this man—whether in the body or out of the body I don’t know; God knows— 4 was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a human being is not allowed to speak. 5I will boast about this person, but not about myself, except of my weaknesses. 6 For if I want to boast, I wouldn’t be a fool, because I would be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me, 7 especially because of the extraordinary revelations.”
From time to time I’ve heard people say, “It’s not boasting, if you can back it up.” Most scholars believe that Paul is alluding to himself in these verses. That fourteen years ago he had this experience… he was caught up in to the third heaven (whatever that is), and found himself in mysterious state (whether in the body or out of the body he does not know), and he saw that are inexpressible, and he heard things he was forbidden from declaring on earth.
Now, we don’t need to speculate too much here. Paul saw HOPE. Paul came to understand we have this bodily, resurrection hope, this transformation, this glorification awaiting us at the end of this age. You can read about in 1 Corinthians 15 (the whole chapter). You can ready about it in 2 Corinthians 5—our future after death! I unpacked those chapters earlier in this series if you want to hear them.
Here is what I want to say: The only way we come by hope is by “extraordinary revelations. We don’t come by hope through experience only, through scientific inquiry, through philosophical speculation, through wishful thinking. The only way we come by hope is “Thus Saith the Lord.” And God showed Paul what a glorious hope, and future, lay in store for all who believe!
Now what I want you to really think about is what Paul says next. It completely parallels what he says in 2 Corinthians 1:9.
- We have this glorious future—resurrection hope—but right now… on earth, God is teaching us not to trust in ourselves but in “the One who raises the dead.”
- We have this promise of living in a glorious future state (3rd heaven??)— when we will be clothed with life, immortality, and be given new bodies—but right now we're still embodied in weakness, in mortality, in this perishable flesh and blood existence.
- We’ve been given this extraordinary vision of heaven—but right now… on earth… in 2 Corinthians 12:7 Paul says, “. . . Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself.”
We’re so prone not just to trusting in ourselves… trusting in our personal health, our personal affluence, our strengths and abilities, our judgements, our credentials. We’re also prone to exalting ourselves!
- The devil attempted to exalt himself into the place of God.
- Adam and Eve under the devil’s temptation, tried to exalt themselves in to the place of God.
- The citizens of the Babylonian Empire, built a tower, the Tower of Babel, to exalt themselves into place of God.
- This same pattern has persisted throughout all human history
- But then there was Jesus, who didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped but emptied himself. Satan tried to savage Jesus, but Jesus humbled himself and entrusted himself to the Father.
None of us are exempt from the danger of self-trust, self-exaltation. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9a, “… Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. . .”
Paul prayed that God would deliver him from his thorn, this profound affliction. I always thought it was gout. After talking a friend, I think it was a pinched sciatica nerve. It doesn’t matter! Paul prays again and again. And what does God say? 2 Corinthians 12:9a, “But [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
Hope doesn’t always take the form of deliverance. I would suggest far more often hope takes the form of preparation, of sanctification, of “perfecting”. Perfecting is where God says, “Trust me through death. Trust me through your affliction, your storm. Let my grace sustain you. Abide in me, let my words abide in you, let my Spirit abide in you, let my power and strength be made real even through your weakness.”
In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 Paul concludes, “Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”