Topical · Week 4 of 5

Comfort for the Grieving

2 Corinthians 1:3-11, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, Philippians 3:7-14

Hope in the resurrection

Main Point

God is the God of all comfort. He doesn't remove grief, but He enters into it with us. And He offers us the hope of resurrection — that death is not the final word.

Application Ideas

The resurrection reframes our grief. We're not grieving as those without hope. Our loved ones are not lost forever; they're with Jesus. This week, meditate on what the resurrection means for those we've lost and for us.

Discussion Questions

How does 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 show that God comforts us so we can comfort others? What hope does the resurrection offer? How should the promise of resurrection comfort us now?

Detailed Sermon Outline

Primary Text: 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, Philippians 3:7-14

Supporting Texts: Isaiah 61:1-3; John 14:1-3; 1 Corinthians 15:53-57

Big Idea: God is the Father of compassion who comforts us in our troubles, and the comfort we receive becomes the comfort we can give.

Target Length: 35-40 minutes

Introduction

Paul opens his most personal letter with a burst of praise, and it is not the praise of a man having an easy year. He had just come through something that nearly finished him.

That is what makes this passage trustworthy. The words about comfort are written by someone who needed it badly and received it, and who then had to decide what to do with what he had received.

The main point: God does not remove our grief so much as enter it, and what He gives us there is meant to be passed on.

I. The God of All Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-11; Isaiah 61:1-3)

The word comfort appears repeatedly in a few verses. Paul is not being repetitive by accident; he is pressing on a bruise until we feel where the relief comes from.

'The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.' In them, notice. Not instead of them.
'So that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.' The purpose is stated immediately. Comfort is meant to travel.
'We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.' Paul says that about himself, in Scripture.

And what the pressure taught him: 'this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.' He does not say the suffering was good. He says where it drove him.

II. A Tent and a Building (2 Corinthians 5:1-10; John 14:1-3)

Then Paul reaches for an image any traveler understands. The body we have now is a tent; what is coming is a house.

'If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.'
'Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling.' Groaning is allowed here. Paul is doing it.
'We live by faith, not by sight.' Said not as a slogan but as a description of how he is getting through.

This is where grief and hope meet without canceling each other. Paul is homesick and he is confident, at the same time, in the same paragraph. Most grieving believers live exactly there.

III. Knowing Him in the Loss (Philippians 3:7-14; 1 Corinthians 15:53-57)

Philippians brings a third note. Paul takes everything he once counted as gain and reckons it loss, and he names what he wants instead.

'I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings.' He asks for both, in that order.
'Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.' Not erasing the past. Refusing to be held in place by it.
'I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward.' Grief slows the walk. It does not end the race.

Behind all of it stands the promise Paul states elsewhere: the perishable will be clothed with the imperishable, and death will be swallowed up in victory. That is the ground the comfort stands on.

Conclusion & Appeal

Two things are worth saying clearly. First, your loved one who belonged to Christ is not lost. Paul's confidence is that death cannot separate them from God's love, and when Christ returns we will be together again.

Second, the comfort you have received in your own trouble is not only for you. Some of the most useful people in any church are those who have sat where someone else is sitting now and can say, truthfully, I have been here.

So this week, think of one person in the same valley you have walked and make contact. Do not bring advice or explanations. Bring the comfort you were given. That is what it was for.