Gospel-Centered Suffering: Shared Sorrow Is Endurable Sorrow
Note from Bob: You’re reading the seventh and final part of my Changing Lives blog mini-series on Gospel-Centered Self-Counsel for Suffering. Read Part One. Read Part Two. Read Part Three. Read Part Four. Read Part Five. Read Part Six.
Mutual Dependence on Christ and One-Another
Throughout 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, Paul constantly glides back and forth between our need to depend upon Christ and our need to support one another as Christians. He moves from Jesus the ultimate Soul Physician to Christians as human soul physicians.
He does so once more in verse 11.
“As you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”
Paul chooses an intriguing word for “help” that means to operate together, to join in supporting. This is important because it would be easy to think that Paul is saying that mature Christians commune with Christ, but don’t connect with other Christians. But that is galaxies away from Paul’s point and Paul’s practice. Paul’s hope is firmly fixed on God and on his fellow believers.
Joining together as Christians doesn’t mean we build some Tower of Babel in independence from God. It means exactly the opposite and Paul highlights that when he says “as you help us by your prayers.” Paul’s word for “prayer” expresses personal need and intercession for others. It emphasizes utter dependence and resourcelessness. In corporate prayer, human impotence casts itself at the feet of Divine omnipotence.
The result of mutual God-dependence? It is mutual God-worship. “Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”
Why was Paul brutally honest about his utter despair? So that the Body of Christ could rally around him in mutual radical reliance upon Christ which results not in a pity party for Paul, but in a worship celebration for Christ’s grace for suffering!
Acting like we have it all together doesn’t prompt Christ-worship or Christian fellowship. Admitting that we desperately need Christ and one another—that results in worship and fellowship.
Gospel-Centered Mutual Ministry Then and Now
Quobna Cugoano was born in the Fante village of Agimaque in 1757, thirteen years later he was playing with other children when he was led away at gunpoint by slavers. Shoved in the hole of a slave ship, he later described his agony and that of his fellow enslaved Africans.
“The cries of some, and the sight of their misery, may be seen and heard afar; but the deep sounding groans of thousands, and the great sadness of their misery and woe, under the heavy load of oppressions and calamities inflicted upon them, are such as can only be distinctly known to the ear of Jehovah Sabaoth.”
Cugoano, like the Apostle Paul, practiced the spiritual art of speaking with brutal honesty to the “ear of Jehovah.” His image of God was of an Almighty Warrior God with ears to hear and a heart that cared and comforted those who humbly cried out to Him.
Cugoano, like the Apostle Paul, also practiced the spiritual art of radical reliance upon God and clinging trust in the “good intentions of Jehovah.”
“I may say with Joseph, as he did with respect to the evil intentions of his brethren, that whatever evil intentions and bad motives those insidious robbers had in carrying me away from my native country and friends, I trust, was what the Lord intended for my good.”
Cugoano trusted God’s goodness with radical reliance. Why? Because his image of God focused on God who continually raises the dead from the pit of despair.
As competent gospel-centered one-another ministers who want to help others to apply the gospel to their suffering we need to ask ourselves from our hearts:
• Am I brutally honest with Christ and Christians about my suffering?
• Am I climbing in the casket with my hurting friends?
• Do I acknowledge my need for the Soul Physician?
• Do I acknowledge my need for a soul physician today?
• Am I trusting in the God-who-continually-raises-the-dead?
• Do I cling to Christ to experience mini-resurrections every day from my mini-casket experiences?
• Am I jointly supporting others by pointing them to Christ?
Being brutally honest with Christ about our hurts is the pathway to radical reliance upon Christ who supernaturally resurrects our hope.
The Gospel Deals with All of Life
Scripture is so comprehensive that sometimes we miss its simplicity. One way Scripture simplifies our struggle is to see them in two large categories: sin and suffering.
“Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins” (Psalm 25:18).
In harmony with this, fully biblical one-another ministry seeks to deals thoroughly both with the sins we have committed and with the evils we have suffered. That’s because the gospel deals with all of life.
Join the Conversation
Am I brutally honest with Christ and Christians about my suffering?
Am I jointly supporting others by pointing them to Christ?
RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
