THE GOD OF COMFORT

Transcript

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Hello everyone, this is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope. The God of all comfort. Second Corinthians chapter one verses three and four. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. The word comfort appears in one form or another ten times in the first seven verses of Second Corinthians. Paul cannot help repeating it. He has just come through what he calls such death. Verse 10, pressed beyond his strength, despairing even of life. And what he wants the Corinthians to know first, before any rebuke, any teaching, any plan, is that God meets his suffering people with comfort. The Greek word is paraclesis. The verb form is paracaleo. Para alongside plus kaleo to call. To comfort in the New Testament is to be summoned to walk alongside. It is the very word Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, the one called alongside. John 14, verse 16. When God comforts you, he does not deliver an inspirational message from a distance, he comes alongside. Notice the cascade of titles Paul piles up. Father of mercies, God of all comfort. The plural Rachamim, mercies, compassion, returns from the Old Testament. The universal pasa, paraclesis, all comfort, reaches forward. There is no kind of grief outside his range, no wound outside his kill, no night so dark that he has not already compounded the right comfort for it. But Paul will not let comfort end where they comfort it. Verse 4 contains one of the most quietly revolutionary purposes in all of Scripture. God comforts us that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. Comfort received becomes comfort given. The pain you survive becomes the empathy you share. Henry Nowen wrote that those who have walked through their own dark valleys make the safest companions for others walking through theirs. Charles Spurgeon, who battled depression all his life, said, I venture to say that the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness. For sickness has frequently been to me of more use than health. End of quote. He meant this. God did not waste his pain, he turned it into pastoral skill. So whatever you're walking through today, you are not only being comforted, you are being trained. There are people who in months or years to come will need precisely the comfort you are receiving now. So do not despise it. Receive it, and one day pass it on. Oh Father of mercies, please comfort us in our tribulation. And one day, in your kindness, help us to become a comforter for others. Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.