I have had many trials this year of my life. I lost my assistant pastor at the beginning of the year. I have battled severe back pain for eighteen months, my wife was gone for 6 months, we sent out two of our best church members out on the mission field (this one is kind of bitter sweet I guess!), I have seen several people leave my church, my personal finances have been tight, my daughter got in a severe auto accident, and our church finances have been really down by about $6,000 the past two months.
While all the circumstances of my life ebb and flow and the sands shift, the foundation I want to be building on is the bedrock of God’s Word. I have sought to be like the man in Luke’s Gospel whom Jesus said built his house by digging deep and laying a foundation on solid rock (Luke 6:48).
The teachings and life of Paul have been a firm foundation for me to build my life upon during these tough times. I just love this man! I have endured this year largely because of the apostle Paul. I don’t come close to having gone through all that Paul did, but I’ve been a Christian for 34 years and a pastor for 31 years and 21 years here in San Juan Capistrano at the same church. It has been long enough to see just about every kind of attack on my character, life, and ministry; so I’ve made a study of Paul’s life to learn how to persevere.
When Paul was at the end of his life he wrote that he “had fought the good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7). Even to the end of his days, he was at the Mount Everest peak of his life, breathing the rarefied air understood only by those who not only climb to the very pinnacle but also make that climb with nobility and integrity. Paul managed to do that, even though all in Asia had forsaken him. We read in 2 Timothy 4:10,14-16, “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia… Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me.”
Paul’s life even at the end was filled with disappointments. There was no great crowd cheering Paul on when he reached his epic moment and finally approached the finish line. In fact, the church had largely turned their affections away from him, and the world was about to chop his head off.
2 Corinthians is an amazing autobiographical account of Paul’s adversities. I refer to it over and over when I am discouraged, tired, depressed, weak, feeling like quitting, having a pity party, and lonely. I wanted to encourage all of you to read the statements that Paul makes about his sufferings here on earth.
Let’s go back to Paul’s life at the beginning of 2 Corinthians:
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:3–9)
The comfort came because Paul’s life was saturated with suffering and affliction. Everything that could come at that man came at him: physical persecution, deprivation, and illness, alongside spiritual battles and disappointments.
The thematic backbone of 2 Corinthians, in fact, is a chronicle of Paul’s highs and lows:
• “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh.” (2 Corinthians 4:8–11)
• “As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger . . . dishonor . . . slander. . . . We are treated as impostors . . . having nothing.” (2 Corinthians 6:4–10)
• “When we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us.” (2 Corinthians 7:5–6)
• “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” (2 Corinthians 11:23–29)
• “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:7–10)
I can hardly read these each time without a sense of wonder and awe at this man’s devotion. I just want you to see all those passages because that’s the man who came to the end of his life and said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” How did Paul manage to do that? We will discuss this next time.
Following Paul's example,
Pastor Bill
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