Theology of Suffering- 1 Cor 1:3-11- Kairo EM Worship

What is your view of God when you suffer?
I had a friend who broke up with his girlfriend and had a bad breakup. He no longer walks with God.
I had a roommate who was rejected by people at church and felt like he was never accepted. He no longer walks with God.
I have a friend who was drugged with the date rape drug, date raped, aquired an std, was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and told she could never have kids. She no longer walks with the Lord.
Today we are going to talk theology. When we talk about theology, it refers to our understanding of God. Who is God to you. What do you know and believe about him. What is your view and perspective of who he is according to Scripture. This is theology.
Today the message is “Theology of Suffering”, looking at 1 Cor 1:3-11. And so today I want to ask 2 questions: 1. Who Is God in our suffering? 2. Why does God allow us to suffer?

Who is God?
God is a Father of Compassion and Comfort
Paul typically opens up his letters by giving thanks regarding his audience. He finds something to be thankful for regarding them.
But this letter is different. Paul opens in a way that’s not normal of him.
Paul’s opening is the popular type of Jewish prayer following a “Berakah” formula, which means “blessing”. It’s a prayer of blessing to God for the benefits in which the speaker himself has experienced.
Instead of giving thanks for what God has done for the Corinthians, he gives thanks to God for the things God has done for himself .
See, Paul has just come out of a trying situation that he describes as “beyond the ability to endure. I was despairing of life. It was like a death sentence.”
This is coming from a man who has been stoned, beaten with rods 3x, whipped with the 39 lashes that Jesus receieved 5x, shipwrecked 3x, stranded at sea, imprisoned multimple times, flogged, and on and on.
And he says this past time in Asia, I was ready for death. I was unable to endure.
On top of that, he is being criticized and accused by people in Corinth.
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

So in this Berakah prayer, Paul’s theology comes out. His view of who God is, who he believes God to be, is exposed
EX: At our Marriage conference that we went to, Tripp gave an illustration that when you shake someone, whatever is inside comes out. Coke/coffee/candy doesn’t come out, water does, because water was in it.
8:03=8:13
In times of distress and trial, when we are shaken from the core, what’s inside comes out.
What we believe about God tends to come out. Our theology and our view of God comes out.
EX: Jesus Remember when Jesus was in the Garden, and he was in his most distressed moment of his entire human life, he was about to be crucified. What comes out?
“Abba, Father, daddy… please take this away from me”. The only time in the Bible that Jesus appeals to God as Abba, daddy, as a son cries out to his dad.
Here, Paul was shaken up by this traumatic experience that he just went through in Asia, where he said he felt like he was on a death sentence, despairing of life.
And so his theology starts coming out. How does he see God? As “God the Father”, who naturally is “The father of all Compassion” and the “God of all Comfort”.
Paul’s pointing out something here about God that he finds so essential to the character of God: his loving compassion as a father and the ability to comfort as a father. That’s what Father’s do.
EX: I was at Subway last week, and in line there was a cute little girl, blond hair, about 5 or 6 years old. She was adorable. She was with her dad, who was this big, guy with all black clothing and a black hat, scaring looking dude.
For all you sisters, here’s a look into a guys mind. I started to imagine what would happen if I pushed the girl over, or if I tripped her out of nowhere. Not because I have this dark desire to push little girls, but I wanted to imagine what such a big, buff father would do and how he would respond.
It’s kinda of dumb because I know the answer. I just needed to create a scenario. And naturally I concluded that he would destroy me. This guy would tear me to pieces.
Why? Because he’s her father, and that’s his child.
That’s what father’s do. They are compassionate toward their own.
They will do whatever it takes to protect their child. It is innate in the father.
Paul praises and blesses our Father in Heaven, who is relentlessly compassionate toward his children, and because of it, he brings comfort in our suffering.
Let’s understand this better. Let’s talk about Compassion and comfort.
EX: Compassion
I don’t know if you guys remember, but the Ancient Jewish and Greek understanding of compassion is a “movement in your bowels” toward another.
You know how sometimes your stomach turns for someone, or you get like butterflies in your stomach for certain people you really care about?
The bowels were believed to be the place of warm emotions and compassionate love toward another.
It’s like when we use our heart to describe our love, we say my “my heart goes out to you”, or “I love you with all my heart”.
It’s not weird to us, but if you think about it, it’s REALLY weird.
They would say, “my bowels move for you”. You think I’m kidding, but read the King James Bible.
God’s bowels move for you.
In a time where people look down on emotions, realize that God is described as being emotional toward you.
HE is compassionate toward you. You are His Compassion child.

The other word that Paul uses is Comfort. Not only is he a Father of Compassion, but he’s a God of all comfort.
EX: Comfort
The word for comfort used here is “parakaleo”. It’s the same word translated as encourage. It literally means to “call at one’s side”. To come alongside in order to help encourage or to comfort.
EX: It’s a term used for a person on trial in a courtroom. A paraklete was the lawyer who came to the side of a person on trial, not just to defend him, but to comfort and encourage him.
In your times of trial, of suffering, We have a Father who is so deeply in love with you, that he is filled with compassion and will come to your side, proactively reaching out to comfort you.
How does he comfort us in our trial?
I don’t have a blanket answer for you, and I think that really is the compassionate love of God. He knows each one of us, and what each of you is going specifically. Instead of a blanket answer to everyone’s problems, I believe that God divinely demonstrates his compassion and comfort in a way that reaches you and your need.
EX: When I buy a card for my mom, it takes me forever to find one. Why? Cuz I don’t want just a generic card that says “Thank you”. I want one that gets specific and will speak to her heart. I want one that says “Thank you mom for always asking if I have dinner and making sure I have my orange juice before I go back to UCI.” That’s why handmade cards are better. They are personal and speaks to her specifically.
Our Father may not have one blanket solution for our suffering, but is able to meet each one of us in a way that is specific to our situation.

Who is God to you? What is your theology of God when things get difficult?
The Bibles says that God is a relentlessly compassionate and comforting Father.

Why does a Compassionate Father allow us to Suffer?
So that we would be prepared for ministry (5-7)
5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If 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. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

When we suffer, we always ask “Why God? Why me? Why is this happening to me?”
What if our trials and suffering, weren’t really about you?
What if the things that really kill us and make us want to kill ourselves, were given to us so that we could be greater ministers, greater servants, to others?
James Denney writes, "We are selfish and instinctively regard ourselves as the center of all providences; we naturally seek to explain everything by its bearing on ourselves alone."
Consider Joni Erickson Tada, a famous Christian quadriplegic who reaches out to other disabled: “This calls into question the individualism of modern Christianity and the sense of remoteness within … many contemporary churches" (Barnett, 73).
Sometimes we make Christianity so individualized. We always think it’s about us. How does this affect me.

But if you had never suffered, of what good would you be to others who do?
It’s clear in this passage that Paul explains that the degree to which we can comfort others is the degree which we have been comforted ourselves.
It is only when we have experienced God’s comfort firsthand that we can assure others that God will comfort them.
EX: In counseling class, they teach us never to listen to someone going through a trial, and then say “I know how you must feel”, or “I understand your pain.”
Because you don’t! You’ve never gone through what they’ve gone through. You haven’t been put through their situation.
But what if you have? Like what if you really have gone through what they’re going through, and you actually have a good idea of what it’s like to be in their shoe?
Ok, maybe you don’t want to say “I know what you’re going through,” but don’t you have the credibility and right to assure them that God is able to supernaturally and divinely comfort them?
Why? Because you’ve experienced it!
Paul says here that his suffering and his comfort from God is SO THAT he would be able to comfort the Corinthians when they go through the suffering he’s gone through.

Paul sees the flow of suffering and comfort flowing down a one way stream.
Just as Christ suffered, so does Paul suffer as Christ suffered, and the believers too will suffer.
But it’s clear to Paul that just as often as he experiences suffering, he experiences the divine comfort from God. God NEVER leaves him hanging. He has raised him up every time.
And so along the same stream where suffering flows, Paul receives comfort from the Father in his darkest hours, and his comfort overflows onto others so that they too may be comforted in their suffering.
Paul has this TOTALLY UNSELFISH view of his own suffering. It’s not just about him, it’s for the good of others. For the ministry of others.
(V. 6) If I suffer, it’s So that you would be comforted; And if I am comforted, it’s So that you would comforted.

EX: How deep is your love for others in the family of Christ? We’re called to love one another as ourselves. Would you be willing to suffer with the body of Christ?
When we think of being there for others, we think of sacrificing ourselves for them. When a brother mourns, would you mourn with him? If a sister is hurting, would you hurt with her. If one is lonely, will you comfort them. If one is depressed, will you be there for them?
I believe you would! But what if what you had to offer those who are hurting, wasn’t’ received until later? Much later? A year, 5 years? 10 years?
Like you know that your willingness to hurt and suffer is good for a friend, that it really will help them through their time of need. But what if their time was to come later, and your suffering were to come now?
Would you still go through it?
See, what if God was preparing you now and allowing you to suffer, just so that you could comfort someone else later on with the comfort your received from God?
God is showing you how hard trial is, and what it looks like to be comforted by a deeply compassionate God? And once you get it, then you’ll be ready to share it when someone else goes through it?
(v. 6) Paul says his comfort, comforts them because it gives them hope to endure patiently because it is the same suffering that Paul went through before.
Since God’s comfort brought him through the worst of the worst of trials in the past, it gives them the strength to know that they too will experience his comfort in the future..
God allows us to go through Suffering to prepare us for ministry.

Why else would God allow us to suffer?
So that we would believe in him.
8 “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.
9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. 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, 11as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our[a] behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”
How many of you rely on God and trust him to carry you?
EX: This week, I finally had one of those weeks where I felt utterly stressed out and helpless.
And by TUESDAY night, I’m stressed out and I sat back, and said “God, I NEED you.”
But only after I tried to work it out myself.
It seems to me that our natural instinct in trials and difficult situations is to try to figure it out ourselves and make it through on our own.
And THEN when we’ve come to the end of ourselves, we turn to outside help, namely God.
EX: When we’ve lost our keys. What do we do? We search all over the house and ransack our rooms, and when we’ve come to the end of ourselves, THEN we say “God, please help me.”
Sometimes God, as he did with Paul, will bring us to the end of ourselves.
He may bring us to the point where we feel “pressed beyond measure, even wanting “to be with Jesus” already, despairing of life, in order that we have no other choice but to call on the Lord for help.
We’re so proud and self confident that we love to say, “I need me.”
It is a great day when we come to the end of ourselves and say, “Ok God, I need you.”
It is when we are in the weakest and most broken place when the comfort and compassion of God can be most clearly seen and most powerfully demonstrated.

When we rely on God, we put our confidence in Him. We believe in Him.
(V 9) Paul says that his death sentence situation in Asia “happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”
You do believe in Jesus, Amen?
You do believe he died for us?
You do believe he raised from the dead for us?
And if we believe that God can raise Christ from the dead, do we believe that he can raise us out of our trial? Our suffering? Our brokenness?
EX: In a time of trial, My friend prayed was having a difficult and stressful time with his business, and so he aske me to pray for him. We pray, and he prays “Help us to trust you Lord, for how can we call ourselves believers if we don’t even trust in you.”
It was the most profound prayer I’ve heard. He the words trust and believe are synonymous in the Greek. They are the same word, pistos. Faith, trust, and believe.
Essentially he was saying “Help us to believe, for how can we call ourselves believers if don’t even believe?”
And that is what we are. We are believers. It is our identity. It is foundational to our faith. It is everything we stand on.
WE believe Christ died, and we believe that he was raised on the third day.
Why is it that we are can so boldly proclaim that we believe in something that the whole world finds so hard to believe. That a man died, and he died for all your sins, and then was buried in the tomb, and by the power of God, the logically and physically impossible is accomplished. Jesus was raised from the dead.
And then we find it so hard sometimes to believe in practice? In the times when we are being tried? In the lowest times of our life? In the most stressful times that we experience.
EX: Mike cooked a wonderful 9 course meal for us. It would not make any sense for me to doubt and deny that he could make me a piece of toast. Of course he could!
If God can raise Jesus from the Dead, and has taken you from being spiritually dead and has raised you to eternal life, don’t you know that God can raise us up out our temporary suffering?
We have a relentlessly compassionate Father who is able to comfort us as often as we suffer.
As often as suffering flows into our lives, Paul says, the comfort of God will overflow.
EX: In Eph 1 Paul says that the very same power that God exerted in Christ to raise him from the dead and exalted him over all things, is the same POWER that is at work in you today!`
Paul prays, “I hope that your eyes will be open to see this!”

Are you a believer? Do we believe that God is powerful to comfort us out of his compassion?
Perhaps God allows us to suffer so that we would believe that. We would believe him.

What is your theology? Many of us are not suffering. Let’s develop it now, so when you are shaken, it’ll come out.
Who Is God? He is a relentlessly Compassionate father who’s comfort overflows.
Why does a Compassionate God let us suffer? To prepare us for ministry, and to cause us to believe.