Our God Who Delivers Us
1: 8-11
Our God who delivers us DIG: What causes you to be on the ropes? Can you identify recurring themes? Why is hope such a powerful thing? How is the hope described by Paul different than wishful thinking? What pressures do you suppose Paul was facing that caused him despair even of life? What reaction was Paul trying to get from the Corinthians?
REFLECT: Paul found that intense pressures led him to depend on God all the more. Who do you know that is under intense pressure now? How would Paul have you pray for them this week? Think about the last time you were discouraged in your faith. What led to that? What can you glean from Paul’s story that will help you handle it the next time it comes?
Problems force us to look to God and depend on Him rather than ourselves.
Paul was on the ropes. At the time of his writing Second Corinthians, he was up to his neck in spiritual warfare. The tone of this entire letter – particularly in the first two chapters – sounds understandably dire. The celebrated apostle found himself fighting on multiple fronts. The ministry in Ephesus was coming along. But any progress there came at quite a price. The situation in Corinth showed some signs of improvement. But cracks formed in the foundation of the church, its doctrine and unity, was coming apart. Fan clubs developed around various people in the church that threatened to undermine the only witness for Messiah in that sinful seaside city. Not only that, false apostles who claimed apostolic authority had infiltrated that infant church (to see link click Af – The Problem of the False Apostles), causing significant doubt in the minds of many of the members concerning Paul’s own apostolic authority.23 But ADONAI has a purpose behind every problem. He uses circumstances to develop our character. In fact, He depends more on circumstances to make us like Yeshua than He depends on our reading the Bible. The reason is obvious: You face circumstances twenty-four hours a day.
Discouragement is no respecter of persons. Yeshua warned us that we would have trouble in this world (John 16:33). No one is immune to pain or insulated from suffering, and no one gets to skate through life trouble-free. Life is a series of trials. Every time you solve one, another is waiting to take its place. Not all of them are big, but all are significant in God’s growth process for you. Peter assures us that problems are normal, saying: Don’t be bewildered or surprised when you go through the fiery trials ahead, for this is not a strange, unusual thing that is going to happen to you (First Peter 4:12 LB).
God uses trials to draw us closer to Himself. The Bible says: The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18 NLT). Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days – when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you’re out of options, when the pain is great – and you turn to ADONAI alone. It’s during suffering that we learn to pray our most authentic, heartfelt, honest-to-God prayers. When we’re in pain, we don’t have the energy for superficial prayers.
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You that you are a powerful God, always near Your children especially in times of pain and trial. For God Himself has said: I will never leave you or abandon you (Hebrews 13:5c). Thank You for giving us the excellent example of David as someone in a very hard and lonely situation – when King Sha’ul was seeking to kill him and he had to flee from family and friends – yet by focusing on Your steadfast love, he was encouraged and comforted. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. (Psalms 63:3 ESV).
We need to follow David’s example of not just throwing up a quick cry for help and then going our own way. His heart meditated on Your great power, and loved You all thru the night. David’s focus on You was not just a reading of Your Word and then forgetting what he had read, he meditated on how great Your power and love are in all situations. I meditate on You through the night watches (Psalms 63:7). May you guide us to meditate on You each night before we fall asleep and make it a point during the day to remember Your power and love.
May we learn, as David learned, where to go to get strengthened. His safe place was not in family or friends, but in You. His family had to be sent away to Mo’ab for their safety (First Samuel 22:3). The prophet Samuel was a wise person to flee to for help, but even there, King Sha’ul sent men to capture him (First Samuel 19:20). David found his refuge in You. Thank you dear Father, that when there is no place else to run to for refuge and safety – You are always there by us to comfort and help. We love and worship You in good and in hard times. In Your holy Son’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen.
YHVH could have kept Joseph out of prison (Genesis 39:20-22), kept Dani’el out of the lion’s den (Dani’el 6:16-23), kept Jeremiah from being thrown into a cistern (Jer 38:6), kept Paul from being beaten with rods three times (2 Cor 11:25), and kept the three Hebrew young men from being thrown into the blazing furnace (Dan 3:1-26). But He didn’t. He let those problems happen, and every one of those persons was drawn closer to ADONAI as a result. Problems force us to look to God and depend on Him rather than ourselves. Paul testified: In our hearts we felt we were under sentence of death. However, this was to get us to rely not on ourselves but on God (1:9). You will never know that God is all you need until God is all you’ve got.24
Suffering causes us to focus on what really matters: For, brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed. This was a standard phrase that a writer in that day used to introduce new information, or, more probably in this case, a new perspective about the seriousness of the trials he and his coworkers had undergone in the province of Asia. That the event occurred recently seems to be indicated by the vividness of Paul’s description of divine deliverance. It was fresh in his mind. Although he gives no further details of the trials, Paul is most likely referring to the city-wide uprising in Ephesus that brought to an end his ministry there (see the commentary on Acts Ch – Idol-Makers Start a Riot in Ephesus). Given the well-known passion of the Ephesians for their goddess Artemis, it is likely that the Acts incident was extremely dangerous for Paul.25
The burden laid on us was so far beyond what we could bear that we even despaired (Greek: exaporethenai, meaning no way of escape) of living through it (1:8). No stranger to extreme danger (11:23-27), the apostle here expresses his exceptionally dire circumstances. He stared death in the face and fully expected it to embrace him, a sentiment he repeats in 1:9a below. He was overpowered with despair. It was beyond his strength to endure, but not beyond ADONAI’s grace to deliver him. When a near-death event happens to us or a loved one and we or they survive, it really puts things into perspective. All the little, insignificant things that used to bother us just don’t matter anymore.
Suffering reminds us that ADONAI alone is the One who can deliver us: Following closely on his despair of life in the previous verse, Paul declares: In our hearts we felt we were under sentence of death (1:9a). Paul equated his position to be like a prisoner whose request for mercy had been denied and was condemned to die. So futile did the situation appear that when deliverance came it was tantamount to a resurrection: However, ADONAI, who raises the dead (1:9c) has delivered us (1:10)! The verb delivered denotes the LORD’s ability to preserve or keep in tact. The purpose of this near-death experience, Paul states, was to substitute dependence of God for reliance on self.26
This was to get us to rely not on ourselves but on God (1:9b). From the TaNaKh, Deuteronomy 32:39 exclaims: See now that I, yes, I, am He; and there is no god beside Me. I put to death, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; no one saves anyone from My hand! First Samuel declares: ADONAI kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave, and He brings up. And Solomon adds: Trust in ADONAI with all your heart; do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him; and He will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). For the believer, self-reliance is not only an inadequate resource for life that is to be pleasing to the LORD (Second Corinthians 5:9; Colossians 1:10; First Thessalonians 4:1); it is an affront to God on whom we are totally dependent for our physical life and spiritual well being.27
There is a cliché that we often hear, but one that is simply not biblical. It goes like this, “God will never give us more than we can handle.” Do you really believe that? Does the Bible really teach that? When asked to give scriptural support for such a statement, they usually turn to First Corinthians 10:13, which says: No temptation has seized you beyond what people normally experience, and God can be trusted not to allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. On the contrary, along with the temptation He will also provide a way out, so that you will be able to endure. Now it is true that temptation can be translated into trial or testing. But this verse does not convey the idea that ADONAI will never give us more than we can handle. What it does say is that God will never give us more than He can handle. When we exhaust all of our own physical, mental, or emotional resources. He is the One who He delivers us from such deadly peril (1:10).28 He is the One who will hold you by the hand and walk you through the trials of life.
Suffering causes us to realize that we need each other: YHVH came alongside us during our trials, so that we can come alongside others during their trials in their moment of need. The Ruach Ha’Kodesh inspired Paul to write that ADONAI is the God of all comfort Who comforts us in all our suffering so that we can comfort others in whatever trials they may be undergoing with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (1:4b). The question for believers is not why we suffer, but how we suffer. What do we do with it when it comes? Paul decided not to wallow in his suffering. Not to feel sorry for himself. He chose to channel his suffering in a positive direction by using his pain to comfort others.29
Suffering causes us to become more thankful: He delivers us from such deadly peril (in Ephesus), and He will deliver us (from other deadly situations) again (from death)! Paul’s brush with death had caused him to trust in ADONAI even more fully than he had before. The apostle now reintroduces the note of hope in God (1:7). The one in whom we have placed our hope will indeed continue to deliver us (1:10). Since YHVH, who raises the dead, had delivered him in Asia, His servants may both rely on Him in the present and hope in Him in the future. And for this both Paul, and we, are most thankful.
Suffering motivates us to pray: A request for prayer usually appears in the closing section of Paul’s letters. The fact that he departs from his usual practice and includes it here should get our attention. His request for prayer highlights what is probably a sore spot in his relationship with the Corinthians, namely, a lack of reciprocity. As Paul would say later: We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us (6:12). There had been a cooling of the Corinthians’ affection for Paul. So Paul seeks at the start of his letter to rekindle that affection and concern by sharing with them how close he came to dying and how his very well-being depended on their taking a personal interest in his affairs. Perhaps he is even suggesting that his encounter with death was due to the fact that they had stopped praying for him.30
And you must add your help by praying for us; for the more people there are praying, the more people there will be to give thanks when their prayer for us is answered (1:11). Paul does not hide behind the façade of a superman who pretends that he can survive quite well on his own without help from anyone else. He has no qualms about expressing his desperate need for prayers. Paul is firmly convinced of the power of prayer because he knows that YHVH listens, responds, and delivers.31
One of the great mysteries of spiritual warfare is the role of our intercessory prayer in the midst of the battle. You might remember the Ephesians 6:11 passage in which Paul encourages the believers in Ephesus to put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand against the deceptive tactics of the Adversary. After listing the primary pieces of armor, Paul then made a most thought-provoking request. He flat-out asked the Ephesian believers to continue to pray at all times, with all kinds of prayers and requests, in the Spirit, vigilantly and persistently, for all of God’s people . . . and for me too (Eph 6:18-19a). When do we pray? Always! How do we pray? As the Ruach Ha’Kodesh prompts our hearts to pray! What should characterize our prayers? Perseverance! We never stop praying. For whom do we pray? For all of God’s people!32
Suffering allows us to be conformed in the pattern of Messiah: Because ADONAI is sovereign and in control, trials are merely His good plan for you. For every day of your life was written on God’s calendar before you were born (Psalm 139:16). Everything that happens to you has spiritual significance. Romans 8:28-29a explains why: Furthermore, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called in accordance with His purpose; because those whom he knew in advance, He also determined in advance would be conformed to the pattern of his Son.
This is one of the most misquoted and misunderstood passages in the Bible. It doesn’t say, “God causes everything to work out the way I want it to.” Obviously that isn’t true. It also doesn’t say, “God causes everything to work out to have a happy ending in my life.” That isn’t true either. There are many unhappy endings in this life. We live in a fallen world. Only in heaven is everything done perfectly the way God intends. That is why we are to pray: May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10b). To fully understand Romans 8:28-29 we must consider it phrase by phrase.
We know: Our hope in difficult times is not based on positive thinking, wishful thinking, or natural optimism. It is certainly based on the truth that ADONAI is in complete control of our universe and that He loves us. Hope based in favorable circumstances will always disappoint, but when based on the love of God and our proven character, we will never be disappointed.
that God causes: There is a Grand Designer behind everything. Your life is not a result of random chance, fate, or luck. There is a master plan. History is His story. YHVH is pulling the strings. We make mistakes, but God never does. The LORD cannot make a mistake – because He is God.
everything: Ha’Shem’s plan for your life involves all that happens to you – including your mistakes, your sins, and your hurts. It includes illness, debt, disasters, divorce, and the death of loved ones. He did it on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:2).
to work together: Not separately or independently. The events in your life work together in God’s plan. They are not isolated events, but interdependent parts of the same process to mold you like Messiah. To bake a cake you must use flour, salt, raw eggs, sugar, and oil. Eaten individually, each is pretty distasteful or even bitter. But bake them together and they become delicious. If you will give ADONAI all of your distasteful, unpleasant experiences, he will blend them together for your good.
for the good: God does not promise to make a bad thing good, that everything would turn out exactly as we would like, nor has He assured us that He will keep bad things from happening to us. Much of what happens in our world is evil and bad, but YHVH specializes in bringing good out of it. In the official family tree of Yeshua Messiah, four women are listed: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Tamar seduced her father-in-law Judah to get pregnant. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was not even Jewish and broke the Torah by marrying a Jewish man. And Bathsheba committed adultery with David, which resulted in her husband’s murder. These were not exactly spotless reputations, but Ha’Shem brought good out of bad, and Yeshua came through their lineage. God’s purpose is greater than our problems, our pain, or even our sin.
of those who love God and are called: Nothing more characterizes the true believer than genuine love for God, are sensitive to His will, loves the things that He loves, hates the things that He hates, and is obedient to His Word. It is through the content of His Word, specifically the truth of the Good News, and through the power of the Ruach Ha’Kodesh, that ADONAI brings people to Himself. Therefore, this promise is only for God’s children. It is not for everyone. All things don’t work for those living in opposition to the LORD and insist on having their own way.
according to His purpose: What is the purpose? It is that we be conformed to the pattern of his Son. Everything God allows to happen in your life is permitted for that purpose!33 The question we need to be asking is not why we suffer, but what does God want me to learn from my suffering. ADONAI will cause your suffering to work for your good if you will trust Him.
That’s your choice.
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