Micah McCormick: Turn to Isaiah, chapter 40.
Micah McCormick: If you've got Bibles with you, that's wonderful.
Micah McCormick: If you don't have a Bible, you can take the Bible right there in the pew in front of you and turn to page 738.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah, chapter 40.
Micah McCormick: Our text this morning comes from the first 11 verses of this chapter.
Micah McCormick: So we've been taking some bigger chunks.
Micah McCormick: We're going to slow down just a little bit.
Micah McCormick: In this chapter it's got a lot, and we'll look at chapter 40, verses 1 through 11.
Micah McCormick: And I'll start by reading these words for us, this is what God's word says Comfort, comfort, comfort, my people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and announce to her that her time of hard service is over, her iniquity has been pardoned and she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
Micah McCormick: A voice of one crying out, and the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Micah McCormick: A voice was saying cry out.
Micah McCormick: Another said what should I cry out?
Micah McCormick: All humanity is grass and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.
Micah McCormick: The grass withers, the flowers fade when the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Micah McCormick: Indeed, the people are grass, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.
Micah McCormick: Zion, herald of good news.
Micah McCormick: Go upon a high mountain.
Micah McCormick: Jerusalem, herald of good news.
Micah McCormick: Raise your voice loudly, raise it, do not be afraid.
Micah McCormick: Say to the cities of Judah here is your God.
Micah McCormick: See the Lord.
Micah McCormick: God comes with strength and his power establishes his rule.
Micah McCormick: His wages are with him and his reward accompanies him.
Micah McCormick: He protects his flock like a shepherd.
Micah McCormick: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment.
Micah McCormick: He gently leads those that are nursing.
Micah McCormick: Lord, again, we're just pleading with you.
Micah McCormick: We're hungry for the word.
Micah McCormick: We're hungry to know this scripture, but not just to know the words, to know you through the words.
Micah McCormick: So help us, oh God.
Micah McCormick: We pray in Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.
Micah McCormick: God is the only one who can bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: God is the only one who will bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: Our passage today in Isaiah 40 opens with this repeated word, the word comfort.
Micah McCormick: You can see it right there Comfort, comfort.
Micah McCormick: My people says your God.
Micah McCormick: God is the only one who will bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: Now, many of you would say, yeah, I agree with that.
Micah McCormick: I know I've got to go to God first and foremost.
Micah McCormick: You don't have to convince me of that?
Micah McCormick: If that's true, then why do we so quickly and easily run to other things for comfort?
Micah McCormick: Why does it take us sometimes time and time to go to God?
Micah McCormick: When we're weary, when we're hurt, when we're feeling conviction, when we're seeking consolation, what do we do?
Micah McCormick: We binge watch our favorite TV shows.
Micah McCormick: We put in the earbuds and tune everyone else out.
Micah McCormick: Earbuds and tune everyone else out.
Micah McCormick: We garden, we cook.
Micah McCormick: Why is it called comfort food?
Micah McCormick: Sadly, sometimes people turn to vices like pornography or violence or excessive alcohol.
Micah McCormick: But whether it's a clear God-forbidden vice or it's a hobby, that in and of itself may not be wrong, we run to things for comfort and not God.
Micah McCormick: So we may be quick to confess that God is the only one who will bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: But we have to be persuaded more and more to live out that confession, to seek God and more.
Micah McCormick: To live out that confession.
Micah McCormick: To seek God, to seek his promises, to seek his comfort easily, quickly and often, and in our passage, god is so kind to assure us of good intentions.
Micah McCormick: He's not an ogre waiting to thrash us when we come to him in humility and faith, ogre waiting to thrash us when we come to him in humility and faith.
Micah McCormick: He says comfort.
Micah McCormick: It's not a suggestion, it's a promise.
Micah McCormick: Four steps for the message this morning as we think about this God as the only one who will bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: Four steps, step number one our need for comfort.
Micah McCormick: Four steps Step number one our need for comfort.
Micah McCormick: Step number two our foundation for comfort.
Micah McCormick: Step number three our encounter with comfort.
Micah McCormick: And then step number four, our testimony of comfort.
Micah McCormick: So we'll start with that first step, our need for comfort.
Micah McCormick: Most of us would acknowledge there have been times in our life in the past.
Micah McCormick: There have been times in our life, probably in the present or certainly in the future, where we will need comfort.
Micah McCormick: Few people would say no, I never need any comfort.
Micah McCormick: And just to be clear, when we're talking about comfort from this passage, we're talking about God's consolation, his response to things in our lives.
Micah McCormick: So I'm not talking about the kind of comfort that's like you know, I'd like to live a comfortable life, you know, just a nice couch, a drink in one hand, a remote in the other.
Micah McCormick: That's not what God's promise is here.
Micah McCormick: Kevin's not wearing his favorite shirt today, but comfort wants you dead.
Micah McCormick: That kind of comfort I thought about texting this morning and saying do you have it, wear it, but I don't want to confuse people, right?
Micah McCormick: That's something different this morning and said do you have it?
Micah McCormick: Wear it, but I don't want to confuse people, right?
Micah McCormick: That's something different.
Micah McCormick: I think we realize here what God's speaking about is consolation, and that's a comfort we need, and we need it specifically in two broad areas areas of suffering and areas of sin.
Micah McCormick: And you can see both of those areas in verse number two.
Micah McCormick: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and announce to her that her time of hard service is over.
Micah McCormick: There's suffering.
Micah McCormick: And then it continues on.
Micah McCormick: Her iniquity has been pardoned.
Micah McCormick: She's received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins.
Micah McCormick: So these two categories of suffering and sin.
Micah McCormick: And God steps into people and says there's comfort for you.
Micah McCormick: Oh, there's comfort for you.
Micah McCormick: Thinking about suffering, isaiah's writing to the nation of Israel.
Micah McCormick: They'd suffered so much and they would suffer more.
Micah McCormick: Verse two speaks of hard service.
Micah McCormick: Some of your translations might use the word warfare there in verse number 2.
Micah McCormick: They've been enslaved to Egypt, even coming out of Egypt.
Micah McCormick: This is many years before Isaiah writes.
Micah McCormick: They were attacked by other nations In Isaiah's own day.
Micah McCormick: Assyria is ready to pounce on them, as our brother Ted brought out from Isaiah the last few weeks.
Micah McCormick: Babylon is on the horizon.
Micah McCormick: There's much suffering.
Micah McCormick: If you look throughout the whole first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah, you'll see that Israel suffers a lot, but comfort's coming.
Micah McCormick: Comfort Comfort, the Lord says.
Micah McCormick: Most of us don't wake up with the fear that another nation is going to come in suddenly and enslave us all tomorrow.
Micah McCormick: We don't face that kind of fear of suffering and warfare.
Micah McCormick: But there's suffering in our lives.
Micah McCormick: Difficult, long-loved spouses pass away, children wander from the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Aches and pains in our body tend not to get better with age but worse with age, Whether it's great or small.
Micah McCormick: We suffer and the Lord says I've got comfort for you.
Micah McCormick: We need that comfort.
Micah McCormick: Coworkers might slander us, those that we care about turn their backs on us.
Micah McCormick: And the Lord says you suffer, you suffer, but don't worry.
Micah McCormick: Comfort's coming.
Micah McCormick: The second area that cries out for comfort is this area of sin, and this is the more important area, because, if you notice, in verse 2, isaiah says once hard service is over, but he then mentions sin two times, not once.
Micah McCormick: Her iniquity has been pardoned there, it is the first time and she's received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins.
Micah McCormick: So not only is this category of sin mentioned more prominently than suffering.
Micah McCormick: There's a connection between the two here.
Micah McCormick: For Isaiah, for the people of Israel, their suffering was the direct result of their sin.
Micah McCormick: They were not isolated and disconnected things.
Micah McCormick: And again, you can see this all throughout the first 39 chapters.
Micah McCormick: They're suffering because they've sinned against God.
Micah McCormick: And that's what sin is.
Micah McCormick: It's rebellion against God.
Micah McCormick: It's not a mistake, it's not an oversight, it's not just weakness, it's us saying no to God's way and choosing our own way.
Micah McCormick: And if you really see yourself, you're going to see.
Micah McCormick: That's so pervasive in my life.
Micah McCormick: Apart from the Lord, the comfort I need, I have to have divine aid.
Micah McCormick: I have to have divine aid.
Micah McCormick: I mean you can find a new job, you might be able to bear up under chronic pain, you can weather grief that comes from a loss, but where do guilty consciences go for comfort?
Micah McCormick: Now I want to be clear.
Micah McCormick: I'm not saying that every single experience of suffering in our lives is directly connected to some specific sin that we committed.
Micah McCormick: Look at Job as an example of that.
Micah McCormick: But what Isaiah is telling us here, through the nation of Israel, there's a pattern here for us, ultimately, the reason why suffering is in the world at all is because sin is in the world and we have all contributed to that sin that's in the world.
Micah McCormick: We've contributed our jealousy, our covetousness, our greed, our lack of reliance on God, our ignoring him, our not thanking him.
Micah McCormick: The list can go on and on and on.
Micah McCormick: So don't seek to shut out that guilty conscience by turning on the TV, turning on the oven, spending more time at work.
Micah McCormick: Get down on your knees and say God, please give me comfort.
Micah McCormick: My guilty conscience seeks no sacrifice besides the one that you can give.
Micah McCormick: We have great need of comfort.
Micah McCormick: But that brings us to the second step.
Micah McCormick: We have a foundation for comfort that God gives us here, and it begins with his voice.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse one Comfort comfort.
Micah McCormick: My people says your God, isaiah, is not ultimately the one bringing comfort to the nation, he's only a mouthpiece for God.
Micah McCormick: God is the one speaking through Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: God says through Isaiah, god says I've got comfort for you.
Micah McCormick: The end of verse five reiterates the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Micah McCormick: This is the voice of God that shakes the forest and strips the oaks bare.
Micah McCormick: This is the voice of God that rides on the wind and the waves and in the storm.
Micah McCormick: It's a voice that sometimes, like Elijah, had to learn.
Micah McCormick: It can be a still small voice, but it's still God's voice nevertheless.
Micah McCormick: In the hour of our need, amidst the whole sojourn of our weary lives, should we not continuously seek God's voice for comfort?
Micah McCormick: And how do we do that?
Micah McCormick: I don't want this to go assumed or unstated.
Micah McCormick: We seek God's voice for comfort, and how do we do that?
Micah McCormick: I don't want this to go assumed or unstated.
Micah McCormick: We seek God's voice through his word.
Micah McCormick: The whole book of Isaiah that we've been studying exists because God spoke.
Micah McCormick: He inspired the prophet to write down these words that we might have his voice forever until he returns.
Micah McCormick: Verse 8 reminds us the word of our God remains forever.
Micah McCormick: God's creation can bring a measure of comfort, a nice walk on the beach.
Micah McCormick: I recently took a little backpacking trip up in New Hampshire.
Micah McCormick: There's beauty there.
Micah McCormick: Just this morning I stepped outside short walk over here.
Micah McCormick: These two red birds maybe cardinals, I guess just flying.
Micah McCormick: There's something soothing about that.
Micah McCormick: But creation doesn't give us words.
Micah McCormick: The comfort it brings can only do so much for our souls.
Micah McCormick: God's given us a whole book of his words, thousands of words, and we have to come here for comfort.
Micah McCormick: Charles Spurgeon said why do we look anywhere else for consolation but to God's word?
Micah McCormick: Oh, brothers and sisters, I'm ashamed to have to say it, but we go to our neighbors or relatives and we cry have pity upon me, have pity upon me, oh, my friends, and it ends with our crying.
Micah McCormick: Miserable comforters are you all.
Micah McCormick: When you do go to people and it's okay to go to people with recognition you might not get what you're looking for.
Micah McCormick: When you go to others, go to those that are gonna give you God's word.
Micah McCormick: That's the best way to be comforted.
Micah McCormick: Don't just go to someone who's going to pat you on the back and tell you how wonderful you are.
Micah McCormick: That'll help for a little while.
Micah McCormick: That's meager compared to what they can give you in this divine voice of God speaking through his scripture.
Micah McCormick: When you find yourself looking for a church, go to a church that gives a lot of God's word.
Micah McCormick: And when we look in God's word we find so much comfort, and particularly we find comfort in the message of good news of the gospel.
Micah McCormick: You can see the phrase good news in verse number nine.
Micah McCormick: That's what the word gospel means.
Micah McCormick: It just means good news.
Micah McCormick: Are you suffering?
Micah McCormick: God has good news for you.
Micah McCormick: Are you sinful, that's all of us.
Micah McCormick: God has good news for you and you sinful, that's all of us.
Micah McCormick: God has good news for you, and the good news is pronounced already back up in verse number two Pardon for iniquity.
Micah McCormick: That's the best news we could ever receive.
Micah McCormick: That's the best comfort we could ever experience.
Micah McCormick: Your sins, though they're as scarlet, can be as white as wool.
Micah McCormick: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Micah McCormick: No one can forgive like God forgives.
Micah McCormick: So this morning, if you feel like you're beyond God's forgiveness, you've sinned too much, you've sinned too often.
Micah McCormick: You don't understand the heart of God.
Micah McCormick: He pardons iniquity.
Micah McCormick: He showers his people with comfort.
Micah McCormick: He brings the weary ones to himself like a nursing hen gathers her chicks.
Micah McCormick: This is the heart of our God.
Micah McCormick: Don't doubt his promise, but receive and believe it.
Micah McCormick: In the book Pilgrim's Progress, at one point the main character, pilgrim, finds himself in the castle of the giant despair.
Micah McCormick: It's a doubting castle and he's locked up in this dungeon in the bottom and he realizes wait a minute.
Micah McCormick: I've been sitting here chained up in my doubts all this time, but I have a key in my pocket.
Micah McCormick: But I have a key in my pocket I have a key that unlocks every single door in Doubting Castle, and that key is promise.
Micah McCormick: You may doubt yourself, but don't doubt God's word.
Micah McCormick: There are promises, rich and full, and the promise here in Isaiah 40 is the promise of comfort through forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: It can all be wiped away your jealousy, your envy, your greed, your pride, your sins from the past, the sins you'll commit today or tomorrow.
Micah McCormick: It can all be wiped away by the Lord.
Micah McCormick: If that's not comforting, I don't know what is.
Micah McCormick: This message of good news tells us more.
Micah McCormick: It tells us that God has a heart of forgiveness and comfort.
Micah McCormick: It tells us how God has brought about reconciliation through Christ, because the God that Isaiah saw, who is holy, holy, holy, is the very same God who brings comfort.
Micah McCormick: Comfort because he sent his son to live and die in the place of sinners, to bear our sins.
Micah McCormick: Son to live and die in the place of sinners, to bear our sins, not just to acknowledge or empathize with our sin, but to take our sin on himself, to suffer and die.
Micah McCormick: And he's risen.
Micah McCormick: There's no more payment left for us, because Christ has already risen.
Micah McCormick: He's already paid those wages.
Micah McCormick: His perfect righteousness is given as a gift to us and the tomb is empty.
Micah McCormick: So God sweeps us up and says you're forgiven, you're mine, I love you.
Micah McCormick: And that brings us to the third step.
Micah McCormick: God is the only one who can bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: He's the only one who will bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: We've got a need, given suffering, given sin.
Micah McCormick: We've got a foundation for comfort in the voice of God, through his word and the message of the gospel.
Micah McCormick: What about our own encounter with comfort?
Micah McCormick: To actually receive it, the Lord is so gracious.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't give us two comfort pills and say call me in the morning.
Micah McCormick: He gives himself to us, verses three to five, a voice of one crying out prepare the way of the lord in the wilderness, make a straight highway for our god in the desert.
Micah McCormick: Every valley will be lifted up, every mountain and hill will be leveled, the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will appear and all humanity together will see it.
Micah McCormick: For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Micah McCormick: The Lord's coming.
Micah McCormick: He's going to show up with personal comfort.
Micah McCormick: And if you look at verses three and five, you'll see the word Lord.
Micah McCormick: There is in all capital letters.
Micah McCormick: That's Yahweh, the personal name of God, the name God revealed to Moses back in the wilderness.
Micah McCormick: So God's not offering from a distance, he's coming.
Micah McCormick: And these words from Isaiah are fulfilled in the New Testament.
Micah McCormick: Read about those in the scripture reading today.
Micah McCormick: John the Baptist will be this voice crying out in the wilderness, and John the Baptist is crying out about the coming of the Lord, jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: So what that means is that Jesus Christ is identified with the Lord, he's identified with Yahweh.
Micah McCormick: He's no mere man, he's fully divine, and that's utterly necessary, because no mere man can bring lasting comfort, but the Lord himself can.
Micah McCormick: So we have the divine son, who's distinct from the father, yet identified as Yahweh, as the divine one.
Micah McCormick: There's a scene from Shakespeare's Henry V where, the night before a battle, henry the king disguises himself as a common soldier and goes out among the tents and speaks with the men to encourage them, in part, in a far, far, far greater way, the word became flesh, and Amidst Job's suffering, no one's able to give him comfort, and then the Lord shows up and shows him his character.
Micah McCormick: That's what we're going to be seeing all throughout this chapter, isaiah 40, the breathtaking character of God.
Micah McCormick: Amidst Isaiah's sinfulness, all he can do is cry out woe is me, for I'm undone, but the Lord visits him with cleansing and atonement.
Micah McCormick: True comfort, lasting comfort, is all about encountering God himself in his majesty, in his power, in his condescension and saving grace.
Micah McCormick: This passage in Isaiah it doesn't comfort us with don't worry, you're not that bad.
Micah McCormick: It comforts us with don't worry, god is greater than you could possibly imagine.
Micah McCormick: And our passage is a wonderful example of how these different attributes of God that seem so opposite come together so harmoniously and beautifully.
Micah McCormick: So God is the one whose word remains forever verse 7.
Micah McCormick: Well, that's because he's the one who remains forever.
Micah McCormick: He's eternal, unlike the rest of us who were just grass here today and gone tomorrow.
Micah McCormick: So this God, who is not limited by time, is outside of time, yet in Christ, through his humanity, stepped into time and was born and lived and died.
Micah McCormick: It's amazing to try to comprehend.
Micah McCormick: In verse number 10, we see God as the one who rules with absolute strength and power.
Micah McCormick: As the one who rules with absolute strength and power, and yet in verse 2, he speaks tenderly.
Micah McCormick: In verse 11, he's gentle as a shepherd.
Micah McCormick: Power and gentleness coming together and think about how these attributes of God help us better seek and trust God's promise of comfort.
Micah McCormick: If God's not eternal, how could we know this comfort's going to be lasting?
Micah McCormick: But if he knows the end from the beginning, any promise of comfort is never going to stop.
Micah McCormick: What about the ability to actually change what's going on in our heart, our lives, our situation?
Micah McCormick: He has the power to do that.
Micah McCormick: If all you can do is empathize, that's a certain form of comfort, but that can only go so far.
Micah McCormick: You children that might be here today you fall down and get a boo-boo and then your mother kisses the boo-boo to make the pain go away.
Micah McCormick: I don't want to startle anyone this morning.
Micah McCormick: It's a trick.
Micah McCormick: Just your mother doesn't have any secret power in her lips, she just knows it's probably going to stop hurting after a while.
Micah McCormick: So she pretends like she's got the power to heal the boo-boo.
Micah McCormick: The Lord can actually step in and make things right.
Micah McCormick: Time doesn't heal all wounds, but the Lord can.
Micah McCormick: And we might have scars, but those will all be washed away in glory.
Micah McCormick: And even in this life he says there's hope for you, there's care and tenderness, and that's why his gentleness is so critical.
Micah McCormick: If he's eternal and able to bring lasting comfort, if he has the power to do that, but will he actually do it.
Micah McCormick: Of course he will.
Micah McCormick: He's more gentle and tender than any mother could be.
Micah McCormick: Look again at verse 11.
Micah McCormick: He protects his flock like a shepherd.
Micah McCormick: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment.
Micah McCormick: He gently leads those that are nursing.
Micah McCormick: You've had people that have been harsh with you, not the Lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord won't be harsh, but those who repent and come have been harsh with you, not the Lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord won't be harsh, but those who repent and come.
Micah McCormick: He'll welcome you.
Micah McCormick: We sing a song sometimes Come ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore.
Micah McCormick: Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, joined with power.
Micah McCormick: He is able, he is able, he is willing.
Micah McCormick: Doubt no more.
Micah McCormick: Draw near to God and he'll draw near to you.
Micah McCormick: And that brings us to the last step for this morning Our testimony of comfort.
Micah McCormick: In verse number three we have this prophecy that's fulfilled in John the Baptist, who would be the voice crying out in the wilderness.
Micah McCormick: What an amazing privilege that John gets to be the one to introduce Jesus to the stage of human history, to say behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Micah McCormick: That's a privilege that we don't have.
Micah McCormick: But Jesus says everyone who's least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist, because we've actually seen more of Christ's redemptive work than John the Baptist got to see.
Micah McCormick: He had his head taken off before he saw the end of all things.
Micah McCormick: We've got more of the ministry of Christ, more of scripture, the coming of Pentecost and the pouring out of the spirit.
Micah McCormick: We've got even more to testify about, and God does call us to testify of the gospel comfort that we've received.
Micah McCormick: And there's a significant clue right here in Isaiah 40.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse 9.
Micah McCormick: Zion, herald of good news, go up on a hill in South Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: Now it's kind of obvious a mountain's not going to actually talk.
Micah McCormick: But Zion is often used in the Bible figuratively to refer to the people of God, the community.
Micah McCormick: And you can listen to how that's carried through in the New Testament.
Micah McCormick: In the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, god says that new covenant believers have come to Mount Zion, which is the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: So it's yes, we come as the people of God to this heavenly Jerusalem, especially every Lord's day, to celebrate the resurrection, to worship.
Micah McCormick: But then we're called to go out from here and proclaim this message, the message of the Lord's coming, of his life and birth and death, of the forgiveness of sins, of the hope of a future to come with no more suffering, no more crying when the former things.
Micah McCormick: A future to come With no more suffering, no more crying when the former things have passed away.
Micah McCormick: That now, in Christ, you can be a new creation.
Micah McCormick: Simply turn to him and receive all of his finished work.
Micah McCormick: We're called to be proclaimers.
Micah McCormick: Who are you proclaiming that to Now?
Micah McCormick: Yes, we are eager to send out people like the Driscolls and the Coonies, who are going to farther mountains than Bear Mountain and farther hills and valleys than Valley Stream and other places here locally.
Micah McCormick: So we're eager to send out those to the ends of the earth because, just as Jesus Christ has come down from the glories of heaven to live and walk on this earth that all flesh might see and hear, we can go from our local place to distant places.
Micah McCormick: But though we won't all go to the very farthest mountains or valleys, we are all called to testify, to share, to speak of our God the song we sing.
Micah McCormick: Behold Our God.
Micah McCormick: That's an invitation, that's an exhortation to all of us as we're singing about the Savior and his glory, the Lord reigns.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah has that message here.
Micah McCormick: But there's comfort comfort for you and how, how we live in a world that needs comfort.
Micah McCormick: We have good tidings to bring.
Micah McCormick: Thought about that.
Micah McCormick: Why would you withhold good tidings from your neighbors, from your friends, from your family?
Micah McCormick: And the good tidings we bring to you and your kin are tidings of the real meaning of the birth of Christ.
Micah McCormick: It's not about figgy pudding I don't even know what that is.
Micah McCormick: It's about the gospel message.
Micah McCormick: He's called Jesus because he'll save us from our sins.
Micah McCormick: He is Emmanuel, god with us, and our testimony of comfort extends not just to the watching world.
Micah McCormick: It should be quickly given to others, right here in our own body.
Micah McCormick: Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1.
Micah McCormick: Listen to how often he uses the word comfort.
Micah McCormick: Maybe he even had Isaiah in his mind here.
Micah McCormick: Blessed be God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
Micah McCormick: He comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction.
Micah McCormick: So this is more on the suffering side, still important Through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
Micah McCormick: For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also, through Christ, our comfort overflows.
Micah McCormick: If we are afflicted, it's for your comfort and salvation.
Micah McCormick: If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.
Micah McCormick: And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort.
Micah McCormick: God's comfort isn't just for you, it's for someone else through you, it's for someone else to look at you being comforted and to bring balm to their souls.
Micah McCormick: So look around you.
Micah McCormick: Who looks like they're suffering, who looks like they're burdened with the weight of sin.
Micah McCormick: How could you bring comfort into their life this day or this week?
Micah McCormick: Well, if they're hurting, it's probably messy, and I don't really want to get involved in the mess.
Micah McCormick: Well, that wasn't the attitude of Jesus.
Micah McCormick: It's God's grace, it's God's promises, it's God's very presence that brings comfort.
Micah McCormick: And we are the body of Christ.
Micah McCormick: We are a reflection, albeit imperfectly, of the real presence of Christ with one another, bringing the very divine grace of God's almighty comfort.
Micah McCormick: God is the only one who will bring lasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: And you look around.
Micah McCormick: Our world needs it.
Micah McCormick: We have more material comfort than almost any generation.
Micah McCormick: And yet what do we see?
Micah McCormick: Anxiety is up, medication is up, loneliness is up.
Micah McCormick: Guilt is maybe not up because we have so many shiny distractions.
Micah McCormick: But isn't God kind to keep us restless that we might seek him, and seek the comfort that can only come from him.
Micah McCormick: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Micah McCormick: One person said the waters of comfort cannot run up the hills of pride.
Micah McCormick: They fall down into the valleys of humility.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah 51, 12, I, I am the one who comforts you, says the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Psalm 119, 50, it's his word, it's his gospel.
Micah McCormick: This is my comfort and my affliction.
Micah McCormick: Your promise has given me life.
Micah McCormick: All of God's promises, all of them are yes and amen in Christ.
Micah McCormick: Don't seek comfort apart from Christ.
Micah McCormick: Seek comfort through him.
Micah McCormick: What gift of grace is Jesus, my redeemer?
Micah McCormick: There is no more for heaven now to give.
Micah McCormick: He is the lasting comfort of God.
Micah McCormick: God wants to step into your life with his own character, with his own loving presence.
Micah McCormick: Receive that comfort today, friends, let's pray Lord, humble us to believe you.
Micah McCormick: Forgive us for our small thoughts of you.
Micah McCormick: Forgive us for our unrighteous thoughts of you that don't want to picture you as a God of comfort.
Micah McCormick: You've given us every promise, every evidence of grace.
Micah McCormick: How many times we've turned and not followed you as we could have or should have.
Micah McCormick: And you receive.
Micah McCormick: You receive, just like the prodigal son's father.
Micah McCormick: You run to your people with arms of open and willing forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: You run to the aid of those who are hurting.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we pray for those who are suffering today, for those who might be suffering nearness of death, those who might be suffering difficult medical medical choices and future fears.
Micah McCormick: Pray for those who just hurt that they would have this comfort from you.
Micah McCormick: And, lord, we pray especially for those who feel the burden of a conscience that is not cleansed from sin.
Micah McCormick: Oh, let this be the day of everlasting comfort.
Micah McCormick: Let this be the day when they fall down and say Lord Jesus, I receive you, receive me, lord, that we would walk this week not as discouraged people, but as people that are comforted.
Micah McCormick: Our labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Our hope remains certain and steadfast, because the Lord lives.
Micah McCormick: We too will live Death.
Micah McCormick: Your sting is gone forever and the trials of this life are momentary.
Micah McCormick: The afflictions are light compared to the far exceeding weight of eternal glory.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we pray that you would so kindly even bring us out of ourselves to how we can comfort someone else this day and this week, that we might give them a hug, give them a scripture verse, give them the encouragement to say the Lord reigns, he rules with powers, roars with him, and he's gentle as a shepherd, and our Savior could even say that we come to him and we find rest for our souls, because his burden is easy, his yoke is light.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for the gentle Savior.
Micah McCormick: We come to you in his name, amen.