Recap
Title: Discovering the God of all comfort
Key Text: 2 Corinthians 1:3
Hello everyone and special welcome to all of you. My theme today is: Discovering the God of all comfort.
All over the world millions continue to mourn the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth the Second. Around Britain the deep sadness of great numbers of people has been on open display as they have lined up for many hours to pay their respects to our longest reigning monarch.
And nowhere has that grief been more evident than among members of the Royal family as they struggle to cope with the pain of their great personal loss.
The apostle Paul, who himself had experienced many troubles and trials. He wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3-Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
God is the God of all comfort
God can comfort us
God can use us to comfort others
Apply
God is the God of all comfort
Comfort is mentioned here no less than eight times in these opening verses from 3-7. The apostle Paul was writing to the large church in the great roman city of Corinth as they experienced many difficulties.
And what he was saying to them was that if they wanted and needed comfort, then the best thing they could do was to turn to God and rely on Him. For He was and is, to use Paul’s words, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.
Now although some may be surprised to hear that God can comfort us, He is in fact the greatest source of comfort that we could ever know. Indeed, in the New Testament the Holy Spirit is known as the Comforter or helper.
The Bible not only declares the reality of the existence of God but also repeatedly emphasises that the very essence and character of God is love. He is not a cosmic monster who is against you but the great and holy God who is for you and wants to help you.
His grace towards you and me is utterly amazing and His mercy is unending.
Jesus Christ, God’s only son come to earth, is the great example of God’s love. In his life he had compassion for all kinds of people, and He reached out to the hurting, harassed and hungry to meet their needs.
He himself knew all about intense suffering. Jesus wept. On the cross, the bible says that not only did He die to save us from our sins but that also he ‘bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.’
For sure then, the apostle Paul has every reason to state here that God is the God of all comfort but he goes on to say something equally important as we see secondly that…
God can comfort us
who comforts us in all our troubles…
This is a very personal and comprehensive statement. It means that we cannot merely hear about the God of all comfort but that we can actually experience that comfort. And not only can that happen in some of our troubles but in ALL our troubles.
Psalm 34:18 says: The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 147:3 says: He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds
Psalm 23 famously pictures the Lord as the good shepherd walking with us in all the circumstances of life. Psalm 23:4 is emphatic, ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.’
Sometimes we find that the Good Shepherds walks with us and sometimes He carries us.
The famous footprints poem has a Biblical basis. Is 40:11: ‘He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gather the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart.’
Jesus came to bring comfort to us. He fulfilled the words of Isaiah 61:1 which says:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
The teaching of the Bible is that we can know the comforting presence of God at all times and in all circumstances. Jesus said in Matthew 28:20: ‘Surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.’
He said in John 14:18: ‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.’
The Jesus of the Bible is Emmanuel, God with us. And we can know He is with you and with me at all times. We can discover that…
He is with us in the brightness of the day. He is with us in the darkest night. He is with us when we are in a crowd. He is with us when we are alone. He is with us in our triumphs. He is with us in our tears.
He is with us when we are young. He is with us when we are old. He is with us in life and with us in death. For not even death can break fellowship with the Lord.
At the very time when you are in so such inner pain and turmoil that you don’t know how to handle it, you can discover that God Himself is there to comfort you.
I have experienced this myself on different occasions, including when my own beloved father died suddenly of a heart attack and not least when my first wife died in 2002 after a long battle with cancer.
At different times as I grieved, feeling so raw and vulnerable, I felt God’s comforting presence as I asked the Holy Spirit to make Jesus real to me. I firmly believe that even when we lose loved ones or when everything seems to be shaking around us, that Jesus is the greatest friend we could ever have.
I am still moved by the words of an old hymn:
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer
It’s when we lay down our unanswerable questions and decide to trust God with a childlike faith, that we begin to discover just what a never-failing friend He is. And when that happens we also see finally from this verse that….
God can use us to comfort others
This verse says…so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God”.
The New Testament teaches us that just as we have freely received so we must freely give out to all who are in need.
Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-40 that we must feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, befriend the stranger, clothe those who have none, care for the sick and visit the prisoner. ‘For whatever you did for one of the least of these you did for me.’
The business of Christians is to help people both inside and outside of the church.
We must share the comfort we ourselves have received, with our kind words, calls, care, prayers and hugs. Even as we face our own challenges we are to reach out to others.
Two elderly Christian Dutch ladies found themselves in Ravensbruck concentration camp in World War 2. Although they faced great hardship themselves, and one of them died there, they believed that God had put them in that hell hole to bring a glimpse of heavenly love to their distressed fellow inmates.
And it was there that the surviving sister, Corrie Ten Boom discovered that there is no circumstance that need separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ. As she put it: ‘there is no pit so deep that His love is not deeper still’.
Conclusion: Her Majesty the Queen knew the love and comfort of Jesus, through long and sometimes difficult years. And she did her very best, through the great example of her own life and in her Christmas broadcasts, to point all of us to the God of all comfort. We owe her so much and it is my prayer today that everyone who mourns, can also discover the comfort of God and the God of all comfort. Let’s pray.
