God, Our Helper Lesson Plan

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Leader Guide Sunday, October 21, 2018

God, Our Helper Sermon Text:​​ Psalm 25 Study Texts:​​ 2 Cor. 4:7-18 Sermon Recap​​: Psalm 25 is a lesson in teaching. David is teaching us to learn from God, the true Teacher. It is only through God that we find true life, true help and true salvation. Throughout the Psalm, we find David reflecting on two great truths: the glory of God’s goodness and the wickedness of man’s sin. He leads us to think upon the topics of our enemies and the guilt of our sin. But, we also find David reflecting on God’s gracious guidance and a deep-rooted trust in God’s goodness toward His people. David’s cry at the end puts the entire Psalm into perspective, “​Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.​” And as we have seen in His goodness, God provides the needed help of redemption for our weary and broken souls. Sermon Connection:​​ As David reflects on God’s goodness in teaching us to walk in His paths of righteousness, we find Paul reflecting on the experience of God-given suffering in 2 Cor. 4:7-18. The hardships and sufferings of the Christian life are not haphazard and random experiences that God merely responds to. Rather, Paul develops the idea that God brings such experiences into the lives of His people for the purpose of godliness; they are moments of teaching. Just as God led Christ down the path of suffering that led to victory, so we too are led down the path of suffering and hardship that leads to victory through Christ. In walking through hardship, we are reminded that God is God, and we are not. We are also reminded that while we might be pushed to the limit of ourselves, God is more than sufficient because we do not measure God’s goodness by the world. Rather, we measure God’s goodness by His Word, His promise, and the fact that He renews our souls day-by-day.

Lesson Plan Lesson Goal: ​To see how God intends His people to both understand and experience suffering and hardship. Lesson Points: Point 1: Our Weakness for His glory ​(vv. 7-15) Point 2: A Godly Experience of Weakness ​(vv. 16-18) 1

The Context: ​In 2 Corinthians, Paul develops the idea that Christian suffering and hardship is a gift from the Lord. Paul shows that our hardships and sufferings are ultimately redemptive and are meant for our good and for the good of others. Specifically in chapter 4, Paul develops 2 themes: 1) Mankind is frail and weak and prone to hardship, and 2) Not only is God in control of such hardships, He is using them for the sake of the gospel in our own lives and in the lives of others. Opening Question: ​Think about a time when you faced a hardship or struggle. What gave you greater hope in those moments? Hope that it “might” be okay or hope that God was in control? Transition Statement:​​ For Christians, God calls us to have an enduring trust in Him as we explain various struggles and hardships in this life... Point 1 - Our Weakness for His Glory​​ (vv. 7-15) In using the phrase, “​jars of clay,”​ what does Paul intend for us to understand about ourselves? Another translation is “​earthenware pots​.” How is this instructive? Paul’s point with using “jars of clay” is to draw attention to our own humanity. We will not last forever; our bodies will give out; we will die. The power and beauty of the gospel is not attached to value of humanity. If we understand the language in context, Paul is really pointing out the relative worthlessness of the container, the jar (that is, mankind). Paul is not devaluing our humanity, for we are made in the image of God. Rather, he is simply drawing attention to the power and beauty of the gospel. A clay jar is basic, plain and rather ordinary. But, that same clay jar gains tremendous value when something of extraordinary worth is placed inside. Here is Paul’s point: The gospel is all that is good in us, all that is powerful in us. As Paul later notes, in our weakness, God’s power is on full display (2 Cor. 12:9). What do vv. 8-9 teach us about our experiences of suffering? How is this connected to 2 Cor. 1:3-5? We can often find ourselves in hard times, dealing with sufferings of various kinds. And in these times, we may feel hard-pressed, even more than we can handle. Many will often repeat the saying, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” This simply is not the case. We often face more than we, in our own strength, can handle. The more biblical response, one which we can take from this text, is this, “God will never give us more than He can handle.” We note Paul’s struggle for he uses the words “afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down.” These are real hardships and real experiences from his life. But also note that he says, “not crushed, not driven to despair, not forsaken, and not destroyed.” Paul understands, as he noted in 1:3-5, that all of his hardship is redemptive; that God is using these things in his life for the purposes of the gospel, both in his own life and in the lives of others. We may be fully confident, that as we walk through hard times, God is with us, He is comforting us, and He is sustaining us. 2

How do Paul’s reflections on his experiences of sufferings in vv. 8-9 compare with David’s in Psalm 25? Paul’s sufferings and hardships were many. He was persecuted, beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and ultimately martyred. But, Paul’s confidence in the Lord was never shaken because he did not judge God’s goodness on how easy his life was. He judged God’s goodness by means of God’s Word and the gospel; Paul’s trust was in the promises of God. This is the same attitude and confidence we find in David in Psalm 25. While David reflects on a number of different experiences (grief, guilt, enemies), his confidence is unshaken because God is faithful. Do the sufferings and hardships of Christians glorify God? See also Ps. 25; Phil. 1:29. The answer to this question is “yes.” God does not enjoy when His people suffer; the sin that causes suffering is grief to Him. But, what we learn from texts such as 2 Cor. 4, Ps. 25 and Phil. 1:29, is that God is glorified in the sufferings of His people because through their sufferings, the people of God learn to love Him more and depend on Him more. God grants us the privilege of suffering for the gospel (Phil. 1:29) because through our sufferings, through our weaknesses, we come to know Him more. Verses 10-12 develop the idea that Christ is the central focus of the Christian life. What does Paul say is the main purpose of this for the Christian? The Christian life is one of hardship and suffering, but it is also a life of immense joy and deep satisfaction. All these things flow from the cross of Christ. We see in the death of Jesus tremendous suffering accompanied by deep satisfaction that the Father’s will was being accomplished. Thus, Paul notes that one of the great benefits of the Christian life is that while we experience the sufferings and hardships of this life, we do so with Jesus for the sake of others. As we recognize our pains and sorrows, we recognize that God is at work in our pains and sorrows, sustaining and keeping us, and therefore, we can press on. Paul and Timothy have suffered much for the sake of the Corinthians (2 Cor. 1:5-10). In vv. 13-15, how is Paul understanding the purpose of his suffering? Quite simply, Christian suffering is for the sake of the gospel. Quoting Psalm 116:10, Paul reflects on how he cannot help but to preach the gospel because he is fully confident in the God Who raised Jesus from the dead! If God can raise Jesus, then God can raise Paul. Therefore, Paul’s life is freely given for the sake of the gospel in others, just as Jesus’ life was also given for the sake of the gospel in others. How does this instruct us in our understanding of our own suffering and hardship?1 This view of hardship teaches us how to both understand the hard things of this life and how to think about them. God is not punishing His people by leading them into hardship. He is 1

John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Cancer, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dont-waste-your-cancer.

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actually inviting them to know Him more and to depend on Him more. We must also recognize that as we face hardship, we are presented with a tremendous opportunity to let the gospel shine forth from us as we cling to God and share the gospel. Transition Statement: ​Seeing what Paul has said about suffering and hardship, let's now consider what Paul says about ​how​ we are to experience such times... Point 2 - A Godly Experience of Weakness​​ (vv. 16-18) Having reflected on the reasons for suffering and hardship, Paul now turns to the experience of suffering for the godly. What promise(s) lies in v. 16 for the Christian? “​So we do not lose heart​.” This is a hope-filled cry of glory from Paul. We must hear these words in the context of vv. 14-15 where Paul gave us his reasons for not losing heart: He, and all those who follow Jesus, will share in Christ’s triumphant resurrection from the dead, and all things are for the glory of God! So, in a very real sense, as our physical bodies age and decay—often hastened by hardship and suffering—Jesus is daily renewing our inner strength through the Holy Spirit. One commentator notes, “This constant rejuvenation of the ‘inward person’ is part of the progressive transformation of the believer into the image of Christ…”2 The greatest promise for the Christian is that God is always with us, and that He is eer renewing us. What must be true of us for v. 17 to be a true comfort? Is this something we grow in? Simply put, we must be in Christ for this promise to be true and to be of any real value for us during hardship. The idea here is of a scale. On one side is the substantial weight of worldly suffering and hardship. But on the other, far outweighing the sufferings of this present life, is the promise of eternal glory with God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. How do we have a godly experience of suffering and hardship? See v. 18. See also Ps. 25:8-15. There is a tension in Paul’s writing; a sense of the “already, not-yet.” The promises of the gospel are for us here and now. They are ours to hold fast to. But, the fulfillment of the promises is yet to come...in other words, we do not yet have that eternal weight of glory. Paul’s point is that the “here and now” promise of the gospel is that it ​teaches​ us to look and long for something greater than the world. The gospel teaches us to look and long for heaven, where Jesus is. The world is already passing away, and so Paul says it is foolish to look to the things we can see. We find this same idea in Ps. 25:8-15 where David is proclaiming the glory of God and how God instructs/teaches us to walk in His ways. Worldly teaching leads to worldly living; the world teaches us to hope in the world. Godliness, on the other hand, teaches us to hope in God alone, to look to the eternal, yet unseen things of God. 2

Murray J. Harris, ​2 Corinthians, The Expositor's Bible Commentary,​ 471.

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The Big Picture The Bible is not silent on the issues of hardship and suffering. In fact, as we have seen, the Bible speaks to the reality of hardship in the lives of Christians, and also to how Christians are to experience such hardships. Psalm 25 is a Psalm of teaching. In the midst of many hardships, David pleads with the Lord, on the grounds of God’s covenantal promises, to sustain and guide him. He is asking God to teach him how to be faithful in the midst of hardship. We find the same thing happening with Paul in 2 Cor. 4. Paul reminds us that we ourselves are not glorious, but rather it is the gospel of God within us that makes us glorious. And as we face hardship and suffering, we are reminded of God’s faithfulness, His sustaining mercies, and our mission to go with the gospel even while enduring hardship. In the end, our confidence is in God because even though our earthly life may be fading away, our inner selves, our souls, are being sustained and nourished by the eternal God. And so we ask... Application Questions ● In what ways am I asking God to teach me in the midst of hardship and struggle? ● Am I struggling right now? How so? How am I seeking God? ● How am I seeking the discipleship of my growth group as I struggle? ● How can we as a growth group embrace Paul’s words in 2 Cor. 4:13-15? ● How are we teaching ourselves and others these deep promises of the gospel?

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