Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
This fall, we're studying the book of Second
Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt
and practical book calling us back to the life
of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often
pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,
hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel
of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after
a cross. comfort comes after being crushed, that
the way up is the way down, that the way to glory
is through suffering, that his strength is made
perfect in our weakness. We'd love to meet you
and we hope you'll consider coming and joining
with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m. in the
heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find us
online at SecondCityChurch .org and on Facebook,
Instagram, and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this
sermon. God bless. Lord God, we're thankful for
this beautiful text that you've given to us from
the pen of Paul to the Corinthian church long
ago, 2 Corinthians. You've got to pray that you
would continue to speak to us here this morning.
Lord, it's often that we come into this space
and we come into other places in our lives and
other conversations clouded by so much that is
going on in our lives. And yet, Lord, I pray
now, that you would push away the cares of tomorrow
that we all have, the baggage from our past that
we all have, and that now you would speak truth
to us and that we would be eager to receive it
from you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. The
Lord our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. All right.
I was glad to get away last week. Don't hear
what I'm not saying. I was not glad to be away
from you all. Actually, I missed being with you
all. And I was very blessed by getting to listen
in on the service and particularly blessed by
Jed's sermon. I hope you all heard that. I thought
I did a wonderful job at what could be a hard
passage. But I was blessed because I got to connect
with friends, relationships that I had built
long ago, it seems now, when we lived in Richmond,
that I don't have many opportunities to foster.
And so it's wonderful to be with them and to
connect and to play and to talk and just be with
older friends. And yet my joy in that time was
broken heavily and significantly by a text of
a friend that I received. The basic content of
the story, this is not the place to share this,
and I'm not the one to share all the details
of this, but the basic gist was that one of my
close friends had been arrested the day before
soliciting prostitution. And as you can imagine,
it was devastating. I spent most of the night
talking to that friend, actually. I was able
to talk with him and talk to Melissa. Most of
the night was filled with tears. The obvious
difficulty that that creates with his church
and his family and all of that and just the distance.
Human relationships that are fractured, sin that
has its ugly effects. The next day I learned
from actually a friend that I stayed with while
I drove down to North Carolina, who's also a
pastor and in my pastor cohort, this friend,
that his mother -in -law had passed away totally
unexpectedly. When I spent the night his house
one of the things that he did was he gave me
a tour of the home That is just 20 feet away
from his own his in -laws moved from the Midwest
a few years back and Just in these last few months.
They were building a house Right next to their
own house where they could be right next door
to their grandchildren and she unexpectedly passed
away It's devastating it's depressing And I have
no doubt that each one of you has stories that
create a heartache that maybe throw you into
a tailspin, an emotional depth that you're not
sure if you will recover from. And probably for
a lot of you, it's not really the life that you
were expecting when you started following Jesus.
Certainly it's not the life that you desire,
dark nights of life, dark nights of the soul.
Often this depression, this affliction is relational,
right? It's there because of this great gap between
you and others. And often it's because of sin.
Often it's actually sin itself that creates this
deep distance. And the relational healing, and
healing from sin is often painful and hard, and
oftentimes it just feels sort of impossible.
What good is going to come out of this? How could
this be done? So you find yourself not just in
a place of deep affliction, but actually of dark
despair. And I think, so this is part of what
I want to say to you. I think that it's common
for us to think that as Christians, we are immune
from this. We're immune from that kind of darkness,
those sorts of dynamics, those dark feelings,
places of depression and affliction. And so when
we come upon them, when we are shocked and we
wonder if God actually loves us, we wonder if
there's something just deeply wrong with us.
And think about it, so many of our contemporary
Christian songs are written for triumphalism.
They're made, actually, I read this a while ago,
that much of Christian music shifted after Coldplay.
Isn't that interesting? And Coldplay wrote its
songs with the idea of arena music. Tons of people
gathered together, hyped up. triumphalistic.
Not of course that all of Coldplay's songs are
triumphalistic, but you know, and then we hear
like words like what we had just read the chapter
before, by the way, I know Jed preached chapter
eight, I'm back in chapter seven. So chapter
six now, where we read things like what fellowship
does light have with darkness? It's a rhetorical
question. The answer is none. And yet sometimes
our life just feels so dark. So I wanna try to
dispel this idea that Christians are immune from
darkness, affliction, despair, but also to tell
you that there is a hope that Christians have
that is actually deeper than the darkness, okay?
So first, I wanna dispel this idea that we're
immune from despair. Turn with me to the front
cover of the bulletin, okay? I have three quotes
there. I'm actually gonna read each one of them
for you. And the first is from Charles Spurgeon.
Some of you may know Charles Spurgeon. He was
one of the great preachers of London in the mid
sort of second half of the 19th century. He was
the pastor at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle.
And when he began his ministry, there were 80
people in his church. And yet, after a number
of years, that church regularly was packed out
with multiple services. And regularly, every
Sunday, mid -late 19th century in London, 5 ,000
people would come and hear Charles Spurgeon preach.
Actually, it's kind of interesting. So there
was a great exhibition in London. Think of the
World's Fair. Which was actually the reason for
a lot of cities building great buildings and
monuments. Think of the Eiffel Tower or the Space
Needle for all of you lovers of Seattle. I know
many of you love the Northwest. Well, the Crystal
Palace was built for that exhibition in 1851
and he packed it out. 23 ,000 people went to
the Crystal Palace in London. hear somebody preach.
I mean, if there was somebody who was a successful
minister for Jesus in the mid to late 19th century
in London, it was Charles Spurgeon. And yet,
listen, or look, I'm the subject of depressions
of spirit. So fearful. That I hope none of you
ever gets to such extremes of wretchedness as
I go to The greatest preacher of the age in the
dark place of despair and it wasn't sort of a
one -off thing He later said from the same pulpit
personally. I've often passed through the dark
valley Christians are not immune from this affliction.
We're not immune from despair. Look at the next
quote, John Henry Jowett. Some of you might know
that name. Maybe it's certainly not as well known,
but he was the pastor of the great Fifth Avenue
Presbyterian Church in New York City before he
actually moved to London. This was the late teens,
where he became the pastor at Westminster Chapel.
Some of you will be familiar with that church,
maybe, because the minister who preceded him
was G. Campbell Morgan, who many considered to
be one of the great preachers early on in the
20th century. And the preacher who succeeded
him was none other than Martin Lloyd Jones, who
was a great pastor and preacher there in London
in the 20th century. I say all that to say a
towering figure, towering preacher in 20th century
New York City in London is what he said. And
this is what we think right often as we approach
Christianity and maybe particularly the great,
greats of Christianity. You seem to imagine I
have no ups and downs, but just a level and lofty
stretch of spiritual attainment with unbroken
joy and equanimity by no means. I'm often perfectly
wretched and everything appears murky. You might
know that experience of everything appearing
murky. Finally, there's a quote about Alexander
White. Alexander White was a great Scottish preacher.
Some people consider Alexander White to be the
greatest Scottish preacher after John Knox, the
great reformer. So this is spoken of Dr. White.
Resolute as was Dr. White's character. He had
seasons of deep depression regarding the results
of his work in the pulpit and among his people.
Depressions are not immune from affliction. We're
not immune from despair. We're not immune from
the dark nights of depression. And there are
two kind of big reasons for this. And Paul kind
of gets into these actually. I think this is
kind of the main thing that's going on in this
passage in a way. And the first thing that happens
is distance in human relationships, okay? So
if you look with me down at verse two, open up
your Bible there to 2 Corinthians chapter seven.
Our first verse was verse two. It says, what's
the title to this section? Anybody? Paul's Joy,
right? Well, listen to this. Make room in your
hearts for us. Which behind that is, I'm not
sure there's room in your heart for us. Okay?
We've wronged no one. We've corrupted no one.
We've taken advantage of no one. I do not say
this to condemn you. All right, now again, why
would he say this? There is a distance, there's
a relational distance at play. He's desiring
them to actually open up their hearts to him
because as far as he is concerned, actually,
well, before he wrote this at least, there's
a great distance at play. We'll get into this
in a second. Verse four, then he says, I'm acting
with great boldness toward you. I have pride
in you. I'm filled with comfort in all our affliction.
flowing with joy. So there's this connection
with affliction here. And the darkness that's
present, even we're going to get to the joy stuff,
but the darkness that is present is because there
is this relational distance between Paul and
the people there in Corinth. And this is often
the case of how affliction actually works. Think
with me. Did you hear the passage that was read
from the Old Testament? He wanted to die. Why
did he want to die? Why was he sitting underneath
the broom tree and needing to be ministered to?
Anybody? He thought he was alone, right? He thought
he was alone. Think of King David in the Old
Testament. One of the darkest times of his life
is when his rebellious son, Absalom, dies. Oh,
my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom, would
that I had died instead of you, relationally
distant, effects of sin. Think of how the greatest
category, I mean, if this isn't a challenge to
how we sing, I don't know what is. The greatest
category of Psalms in the book of Psalms is the
category of lament. It's not, God has done great
things, let's praise Him. It's, oh my word, where
are you, my God, my God? Why have you forsaken
me? And what does Psalm 22 do? But actually go
on to say, I am distant from others. Relational
distance. They so often speak about enemies,
being alone with... With regards to the very
people of faith relational distance and think
of your own life, okay? So often we actually
can say with Joe it that great early 20th century
preacher That we we actually are perfectly wretched
and everything appears murky the times when that
feels most present is When our children aren't
talking to us or when our parents are on their
deathbed, or when we experience an estrangement
from a friend that we thought we were so close,
or simply in the reality of death seeming to
be very present to us in all different places
in our lives where it feels like there's such
a gap, where we feel deeply alone, where there's
a relational distance. It's actually pretty similar
in some ways to the Corinthian community. I mean,
part of what's happening, you know, Paul mentions
Macedonia here and he's waiting for Titus. Titus
comes up and he's going to come up again. But
if you remember back a few chapters, he had waited
in Troas to go to the Corinthian church, even
though the Corinthian church was so dear to him.
He spent so much time there. He loved that church,
but he waited because he desired to hear how
they would have received his other letter. Did
they receive it with a desire to listen? He was
fearful as we are in our communications with
other humans because there was a distance that
was at play between him and this Christian community.
I think this reality is so prevalent in the Christian
life. And this reason is actually why so many
of the great hymns that speak to us come out
of hymn writers who knew this darkness, knew
this affliction. Maybe the most well known of
those is William Cooper, who spent much of his
adult life in deep depression, the deepest of
which, which he never recovered from and which
we know led to a lot of at least suicidal ideation.
came after his own wife's death. It's so often
the case that our times of affliction come out
of relational distance. Some of that's because
of sin, some of that's from living in a world
that is simply so broken that the lives of those
whom we love are taken from us. He wrote the
Mass for hymns, God moves in a mysterious way,
his wonders to perform, and he knew how oddly
and sadly mysterious God's ways are. He also
wrote the hymn, there's a fountain filled with
blood. He knew the anguish of our Lord Jesus.
So part of what I'm saying is that Paul's speaking
to this reality of affliction that often comes
out of human distance, relational distance. But
also he actually does get at this idea of affliction
through the idea of distance from God. Okay,
because of sin. So verse 5, if you look down
at the next paragraph, I mentioned this, that
he was still in Macedonia wondering if he was
going to go to the Corinthian church. But why
was that the case? Why was there this relational
distance? Well, part of it was because he was
calling out the sin of the Corinthian community.
If you remember back to 1 Corinthians, a lot
of it is correcting wrongdoing. People taking
each other to court without actually engaging
with one another. People having sexual relations
that were very inappropriate. All kinds of things.
He's calling them out. So he's saying there's
a distance that is being created in your sin
between you and God. If we go farther down in
that paragraph, verse eight, it says, for even
if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not
regret it. He's saying there's a distance that's
at play in sin. There's a distance at play with
you and God in your sin. He says, I don't regret
that I called it out. Though I did regret it,
for I see that that letter grieved you. He doesn't
desire the grief. Only for a while. As it is,
I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because
you were grieved into repenting. They properly
understood sin. You felt a godly grief so that
you suffered no less through us. We should say
part of The pain part of affliction of this chapter
is because Paul had corrected this sin. We say
he knew that sin was creating this distance from
God. Sin always distances. Sin always pushes
us towards hiding as it did in the garden long
ago. And hiding always relates to darkness. Again,
of course, this is so often the case in our own
lives. You and I are made to be near God. Think
of God again in the garden, calling them out,
walk with me. Where are you? I desire you. We're
made for relational repair with God. Yet so often
the very thing that harms our lives, our sin,
we treat lightly, worldly. Brush it off. Minimize
it. Don't really face it head -on And this always
is for our harm it always aggravates the affliction
Always invites the despair Think of this It's
hard to really face and name the ways that you
have gone against God because so often you actually
have to face and name the ways that you have
sinned against others in doing that. And so what
we often do is we kind of treat this call to
this grief in a worldly way. We think that if
we really own it, if we really name the harm
that it's caused, then our pain will only increase.
and we want our pain alleviated. So what we do
is we often sweep it under the rug, deal with
it face to face, but it's still dirty. It's still
harmful. There's still no closeness at play.
Sin has to be dealt with. It always has to be
faced head on. There to be closeness. So much
of our affliction and our despair does come from
our sin. I may have mentioned just a great example
with my friend, but it's always the case. It's
always the case. Christians are not immune from
this. Paul is writing to a church, a people of
faith. He's warning them not to treat their sin
in a worldly way, a way of controlling it. a
way of diminishing it, a way of disregarding
it, but embrace the sorrow and the grief that
leads to repentance and salvation. This passage
is not just about the fact that Christians are
not immune from despair and affliction. It is
about that. It is about how Christians, we ourselves,
live in the reality of distance, humanly speaking,
and distance with God. But also this passage
is titled Paul's Joy, which is also a very prominent
idea here in this passage. Comfort and Joy. If
you read through it, actually, you would probably,
and I said, what's the main word? Probably would
have said comfort, which of course relates to
affliction, doesn't it? And also joy and rejoicing,
which and in some ways is the inverse of sorrow.
So look with me down the third paragraph, verse
11. I'm going to read to the end of that paragraph.
It was not for the sake of the one who did the
wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered
the wrong. But in order that your earnestness
for us might be revealed to you in the sight
of God, therefore we are comforted. Paul did
write to the church to correct their sin. We
know that. They truly had been distant from God.
And what that did, if you read through 1 Corinthians,
is they just created division, division, division
in the life of the church. I mean, if you think
of this poem that I read, they were distant from
God and distance from God is always saying, I
can do this myself. You said, don't eat that.
I'm going to decide for myself. I don't need
you. But that always creates a further distance
from others, right? Sin is always doing this.
So he does. write them to correct their sin,
they truly had been distant from God. He says
that it wasn't just for their sake that He wrote
them, but quote, in order that your earnestness
for us might be revealing to you in the sight
of God. He desires for them to come close to
God, be in the sight of God. His comfort and
their comfort came from a healed relationship
with the Lord, from a repentance that leads to
salvation, from a godly sorrow, acknowledging
their sin to a close communion with the Lord.
Their grief over their sin had not been a worldly
grief, but a godly grief that produced this nearness
to God. What Paul actually says is their salvation.
So Paul has comfort and joy and the comfort and
joy is specifically because that distance from
God, which is so often related to our affliction
is being healed out of repentance and salvation.
But it's not just the human, the divine sort
of relationship that's at play here. He also
often is talking about the human relationship.
So his comfort and joy is also about the human
relationships that are at play here. So look
with me there at the final paragraph. Verse 13,
as these things go, started in the last paragraph,
but look at verse 13. It says, and beside our
own comfort, we rejoice still more at the mention
of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed
by you all. He needed refreshment. Their relationship
with God had come close. But it's not just that
their relationship with God had come close. Their
human relationships were beginning to mend and
to heal and to give life. While so much of our
affliction in this life is in regards to our
human relationships, here's the truth is that
so much of our comfort and our joy is also in
regards to our human relationships. The affliction
that Paul mentioned early on is because of the
distance between him and this community and his
comfort and his joy and his rejoicing. is because
of the healing of this human community between
the Corinthian church and Titus and Paul. He
was wondering, would they hear his voice? Were
their hearts soft to him? Were they open towards
him? Right? Make room in your hearts for us.
And the answer was yes. And this is how it works.
His comfort in the midst of his affliction was
being met by the presence of the people of God
coming to him and opening their hearts to him.
He has confidence in the healing of this human
relationship because they have been healed first
by repentance that led to salvation. Okay, here's
what I'm saying. The key for comfort and affliction
is the community of Christ. The difference between
godly grief and worldly grief is the work of
Christ. So at the heart of the affliction and
the despair that Paul is experiencing, and that
Titus also experiences, and also you could say
that these Christian communities were experiencing,
was a relational, human relational distance.
and a divine relational distance. And he says,
because of the work of Jesus, you can have godly
grief that produces salvation, but out of the
godly grief that produces salvation, you can
also have the community of Christ. A community
that says, let's look under that rug. Let's open
it up. Let's live in self -dependence with one
another. So much of our sorrow and our despair
in our human relationships. It's coming out of
the fear that they're just simply unredeemable.
That they're just bound to be distant. And so
much of the despair that we experience in this
life is that our sin is what defines us. Imagine
my friend thinking right now. I've talked to
them some this week. Define me. No doubt you've
had that experience. It's what defines me. The
gospel addresses both of these fears. My relationship's
irredeemable. My sin what defines me? No. Absolutely
not. Jesus says that it's as far as the East
is from the West that He removes our sins from
us. As far as the East is from the West. Totally
gone. Godly grief produces salvation, repentance
to salvation. And what it also does is it brings
a healing. We could never imagine human relationships
being healed and yet they are there. They're
healed. I'm sure that in a community like ours,
there are different takes on Halloween. I'm not
going to take a poll on who gave out candy and
who received it. But I imagine there's different
takes on it and that's fine. I understand why
some may not want to participate in a holiday
that has really kind of become grotesque at times.
But it's also the eve of the hallowed one's day,
right? Halloween is the eve of all saints' day.
And that invites us to mock the reality that
sin will win. It will create such human distance
and divine distance that Satan wins the day.
that hiding must be the norm. That you are so
irredeemably separated from those whom you love
in death that forget about it. That you're so
separated because of your sin right now that
you have no hope. You will once be known again
and loved again because of your sin. I mean All
Saints Day is a day to celebrate this reality
of what Christ did. He so unites us to one another.
And we can say there's one faith, there's one
Lord, one baptism that even in death, we cannot
be separated because Christ rose from the dead.
That is what we celebrate. And so we can mock,
dress up our little kids with little silly pitchforks.
That's all you've got? Death? Well, it's not
enough for Jesus. But some of you know that not
only is October 31st the eve of All Hallows Day,
All Saints Day, but it's also Reformation Day,
which we talked about in Sunday School, Sunday
School plug. Let me end with Martin Luther, because
that's actually the person we were talking about
in Sunday School, which I didn't know that. So
Martin Luther was kind of famous for mocking
Satan. We talked a little bit this morning about
how he once threw an inkwell, because he had
a vision of Satan. He threw an inkwell to hit
him with it. Great. But maybe you know this,
maybe you don't know this. Martin Luther was
also very well, is very well known for his dark
times. He was familiar with despair and with
depression. He kind of puts these two ideas together
when he was writing to a friend. I wanted to
read you the whole letter because it's just really
great, but it says, try as hard as you can to
despise these thoughts sent by Satan. In this
sort of temptation and battle, contempt is the
easiest road to victory. Laugh your enemy to
scorn. Laugh at Satan is what he's saying. And
ask to whom you are talking. By all means flee
solitude, for he lies in wait most for those
alone. This devil is conquered by despising him
and mocking him, not by resisting and arguing.
So a short story from Luther's life. Said Luther
was familiar with despair. He was often afflicted
with depression. In fact, we know that on many
occasions he actually would lock himself in his
room and his family would take away, take outside
of the house any implements where he could harm
himself. We know that's the case. Well, in the
middle of one of these times, his dear beer brewing
wife, Katerina, entered the room dressed all
in mourning clothes, looking like she was heading
to a funeral. And he was startled and he said,
who died? And she said, no one. But by the way
you're acting, it's as though God himself is
dead. But the fact of All Saints Day, And the
fact of our comfort in our affliction, which
our affliction is real, and our sorrow in the
midst of our, our joy in the midst of our sorrow,
which is real, is that fact. That God did not
stay in the tomb. Which does mean your relationships
which cause such deep despair are not irredeemable.
There is a union that you can have with other
Christians that passes our understanding. And
that your sin is fully dealt with. That you don't
have to engage with it like godly grief. You
know, thinking a little of it or thinking too
much of it, that it alone rules the day. But
on offer to you, repentance that leads to life.
Repentance that leads to life. God is not dead.
Jesus rose from the dead. Our despair, our affliction,
though real, is met with his comfort and joy.
Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your
word. God, thank you for First Corinthians, which
corrects so much sin. And for Second Corinthians,
this testimony that we can receive correction
with a proper repentance. God, I'm thankful for
the constant testimony of Your Word from the
giants of the faith that go before us. That we're
not alone in our dark nights, in the sadness
that overwhelms us. You know it fully. Our Jesus,
we think of how You there in the garden. We're
alone. Your disciples fell asleep when you asked
them to stay awake. How there on the cross, Lord
Jesus, you said, my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? But also, Lord, we praise you that
there on the cross our sins were dealt with entirely
and completely. That they were removed from us
as far as the east is from the west. So Lord,
in the midst of a life that is more often than
not marked by sorrow, we, we who can be called
the holy ones of God, the saints of the everlasting
God, can have comfort and joy. Lord, would you
make us to be a church that meets one another
in those places? that does not pretend to have
it together, that certainly celebrates the triumph
of the empty tomb, but knows the deep sorrow
of Holy Saturday. God, would we live in these
realities of sin and its ugly effects, of relational
estrangement, divine distance. And also, Lord,
would we live in the reality of resurrection,
holding together the cross and the empty tomb.
Those who die with Christ would also be risen
with Him. In His name we pray. Amen. Please consider
subscribing to this podcast and joining us in
person each Sunday at 10 a .m. You can find us
online at SecondCityChurch .org and on Instagram,
Facebook and YouTube. Thanks again for listening.
God bless.