Well, today I want to talk to you about something that I have wanted to talk to you now about for a couple weeks. How does God comfort His people? I think this is an important topic for a variety of reasons. I think it's a great question to ask because it's always relevant. We as people of God, we as human beings, always need comfort. We eat comfort food. Each of us has different things that comfort us, and when we eat those, we feel relaxed. It's something that we look forward to. We have comfortable furniture, we have a comfortable chair. We have comfortable clothes. Some of you this afternoon, you'll go home, and the first thing you'll do is you'll change out of what you have on there, what you have on now, because you want to get comfortable. That's typically what we talk about. We want to get comfortable, but that's, that's a minimal kind of comfort. What I'm talking about this morning. How does God comfort his people when, when we need the kind of comfort that he can really give us? So I want to talk to you a little bit about that this morning.
You know, God never promised an easy life for us. That's something that I think some people misunderstand. I think some people think a little bit anyway, that when they obey the gospel, when they become Christians, that life for them is going to change somehow, and it is going to change, but it's not going to eliminate the difficulties and the problems and the discouragement that one has in life. That's just not what happens when we obey the gospel. There are some things taken care of, for instance, the main thing that's taken care of when we obey the gospel is that God forgives us of our sins. We have remission of our sins, and that is the greatest gift that God certainly can give us. He can save us from our sins. But that doesn't, as I said, eliminate the other difficulties that come. Sometimes we lose loved ones in the course of time. We lose those who are close to us. Sometimes that happens very quickly. Sometimes that happens over a period of time. And those are difficulties at all that we all face from time to time. And we grieve the loss. Sometimes sickness and and diseases that we contract causes suffering and illness that we don't like, but that we have to deal with. And those things are difficult. Sometimes it may be a marriage that goes haywire, it goes in a different direction than it needs to. Or sometimes it may be an occupation, and because of difficulties, it goes in a different direction than it needs to. Sometimes it's financial problems. It's bills that pile up, and we for some reason, we can't pay those bills, and we have difficulty and that that creates problems for us, and those are the kind of things that trouble each of us. If I just went down the row this morning, I began to ask, I don't care how young or old you are, if I ask any of you, okay, tell me a problem that you have, tell me a trouble that you have. Every single one of us could name something, and all of, most of, us could name multiple things, and some of us would say, well, sit down. This is going to take a while. Because that's what happens. That's what happens in this life. God never, ever promised immunity from those kinds of difficulties.
So the question then is, is, what does God do about that? How can God help us? How can God comfort those who are His people? Well, see, because that is a question. I think it's important for us to not only answer it from an intellectual standpoint or an academic standpoint, because that's going to be the easy part, right? The difficulty is going to be this. How does that practically, how does this-- how does this intellectual side of the question and how it's answered there,how does that practically show itself? That's the question that we're going to have, and I'm going to ask that question a couple of times this morning as we move through this lesson. How does God do that? But we're going to do it by looking at some text in Scripture. I don't know anything better this morning to tell you, other than let's look at what the Bible says, and then we're going to talk about, again, as I said, some things that that practically means.
Here's what we know intellectually, Second Corinthians one, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation." There you have it. Paul says we are a people who have a God who comforts us in all our tribulation, because he is the God of all comfort. So let's, as I said, let's dig into how that particular thing happens. That's the academic part of it. We know that okay, most of us, or at least some of us, this morning, if I said, what's the, what's the passage in scripture that tells us that God is the God of all comfort? Many of us would say, turn to second Corinthians one, because that says exactly what I'm talking about this morning. The difficulties that all of us face, if we're children of God, is answered right here. Okay? But as I said, let's dig into that just a little bit more, because it's always time. Let's go to the passage that Henry just read for us a little bit from Psalm 34. "The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles, the Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and save such who have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them, he guards all his bones. Not one of them is broken." It may have some dual meaning, okay, it may have to do, and maybe even primarily have to do with sin and difficulty spiritually that come in our life, and the fact that Jesus can heal the bones, if you will, of somebody who is spiritually sick, and God does that. Randy alluded to some of that this morning, that in the time of our trouble, in the time of our spiritual trouble, God has come into our lives, and he has healed us. He's taken us from one place to another and healed, if you will, our spiritually broken bones.
But I want to talk to you this morning about the fact that he is near to those who are broken by trouble or by affliction as well. He is near. He is in close proximity. If I said, this morning, I am near Henry Little, all of you would understand if you say, if you if you recognize the back of Henry's head, and you probably will with that full head of hair, Henry's right here. I am near Henry. I am in close proximity. And he is to me. He is near. But when we say, God is near there, there's a difference there, because God, we think, is God right here, or is he right here? And the fact of the matter is, there's a sense in which he's everywhere. And even saying that we're going, how in the world, does that work? What does that even mean? I don't know, but that's the language. The language is that God is near to those who are broken. But the idea of near doesn't it leave us with some unanswered questions. Why is that? Because I can't see him. If you're having difficulty, and I come to you and I say, God's near, God's going to help you. I've said that to Danny here recently. What does that mean? What's Danny, what's Danny thinking when he know, he knows God is near? But what does that mean? Because neither Danny nor I, as I say that, or as others say that, none of us can see him. We don't hear him audibly speak. What does it mean that he is near? We understand what nearness is to someone who can help us because we see him or her. Just couple of weeks ago, I was over in Athens with my grandkids. And my grandson was playing in the back of my truck, and the seats were up, and he was back there doing what he does, flipping flipping handles and doing this and doing that, and he got his foot caught. He flipped the seat down, and it landed on his little toe. Actually, it was his big toe. And he looked at me, and he said, Coach. And he started crying. And when I actually got in there and flipped that seat back up, as soon as I flipped that seat and unhinged him, he came, he came as fast as he could run into me. You know, I hate that every time he does that. Actually, I love it. I hated that he was hurt. But I love the fact that when he got hurt, he knew exactly who to come to. Of course, I was the only one there, so he didn't have much choice. But as he got in my arms, and as he cried, and as I patted him on the back, and as I could tell over a period of a few minutes, as that pain diminished, and the quicker it diminished, the harder he hugged me, because I could sense in him, you've helped me. Well, did I? I didn't do anything to eliminate the pain other than hug him and be there because he could see me. I was his only option, because his grandmother, his Bibi, was in the house, and I'll guarantee you that if he could have gotten to her before me, that's who he would have gone to, which is fine, but he came to me because he saw me and because he heard me. That doesn't happen with God. We don't see him and we don't hear him like that, but the text says that he is near to us. So when I tell you, and when I say to you that God is near, and you say, well, Kenny, how does that happen? I'm going to tell you this. You ready for this? You ought to write this down. Get your, if you don't have your pen out, write this down. I don't know. Aren't you glad you came? I don't know when he says he is near. I believe Him with all of my heart, but I can't practically explain how he is near, but he sees everything that is going on with us. He gets everything that is going on with us. He understands better when we hurt. He understands our hurt better than we understand our hurt, and that's a good thing to know, because when we hurt, we understand that he is not too busy, that he's not too distracted. He doesn't get it. It's none of that's going on. He understands completely. And I can always trust him, because the Bible says I can. And this morning, as you think about just this one aspect of how does God comfort his people, the biggest factor is you can take great comfort in the fact that he tells you he's going to comfort you, and I believe that, as I'm sure you do with all of your heart. Now, part of him being near is the fact that he is a helper. Psalm, 34:15 Well, let me just go back to this. Psalm 34:15 "the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry." That goes back to these, these last few minutes, what I've been talking about. So remember that. He sees you and he hears you. Okay?
Hebrews 13, six. "So we may boldly say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear What can man do to me?" The idea of that is from Psalm 27 but again, how does that happen? How does-- how is the Lord my helper? That's the answer. And again, I would tell you that I don't really know. Well, one of the things that stands out to me from scripture, and I've said this in other lessons, I've said it in classes and I've said it in lessons, is that I know God cares. I know that he helps, and I don't always know how. As a matter of fact, seldom do I know how. I can speculate. And I do speculate sometimes, and I think it's not just speculation, but because of faith, I can see, and I think I can say this with certainty, I can see God acting on my behalf. I can see different things happening in my life that say God is acting on my behalf. But the fact of the matter is, there's not much about that that we can know for sure. In the Bible, there were things that happened that were miraculous. There were ears cut off that were put back on immediately. Were people who couldn't see, who immediately could see. There were people who couldn't hear, and immediately could hear. There were people who were dead and with simply a voice of deity, they were made alive. That's a miracle. Those kinds of things that I just referred to, do not happen today. Now somebody might take issue with that. Somebody say, well, Kenny, those kinds of things do happen. They don't happen the way I just described. There's healings that take place. There are difficulties that are overcome, but not in a biblically miraculous kind of way. I've seen zero evidence of that in my lifetime. And I know people speculate about that. People use those kind of terms, but the fact of the matter is, we don't know, and those kind of miracles simply do not happen. And I don't have any reservation of saying that to you this morning. If I see evidence that a biblical miracle happens, then I believe that, but it's got to be strong evidence that does, that is, what happens. And I don't see that anymore, but what I see is passages like this that say God is my helper. The Lord is going to help me. He's going to help me through these difficulties that I face.
Are there other ways that he helps us? I'm going to put up a verse that you're familiar with, and I'm really going to go by this fast, because we don't have time to talk about this in any kind of great detail at all. This is one of these verses that needs a whole quarter to talk about, and maybe before long we need to do this. Here's the verse from Hebrews one. "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation." Ministering spirits, angels. The reality is that angels exist. The Bible clearly talks about that. I believe the Bible clearly states that angels exist now, and I believe myself that this passage says that there are ministering spirits for Christians today. I believe that's part of what God provides. I do. This is not the time to elaborate on that. I'm not sure how much, over a short, even a short period of time, I could elaborate on that, that would need some further talk. But I believe God helps. I believe he helps. How? I don't know, but I believe it's hard to get away from a passage like this that helps us understand that God, in that way, can help us. What does happen? God helps.
This passage in second, Timothy three, where Paul is telling Timothy about what he wants him to do, "but you have carefully followed my doctrine," he tells Timothy, "manner of life, purpose, faith, long, suffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions which happened to me at Antioch, Iconium and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured. And out of them, all the Lord delivered me." That's what Paul said to Timothy. He said, out of all these afflictions, out of all these persecutions in these three different places, he says, here in Second Timothy, he said, The Lord delivered me out of all of those. Acts 14, is what happened in Iconium. This is Paul in Iconium, one of those places he just referred to in Second Timothy three, "and when a violent attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers to abuse and stone them, referring to Paul and the entourage that was with him to preach, they became aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derby, cities of Laconia and to the surrounding region." You see what Luke says? Luke says when Paul and those with him were about to be, when attempts were made, when violent attempts were made by the Gentiles and the Jews. He said, They were made aware of it. How do you think that happened? They were made aware of it, and what happened? They became aware of it and they fled. They fled to those surrounding cities, Lystra and Derby, which was close to Iconium, that they fled from those areas. Why did they do because they became aware of it. How did that happen? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if an angel came to Paul and said, Look, you gotta get out of here. I don't know if there were some authorities. I don't know if there were some friends in town who came and said, Listen, your life is being threatened. You need to go. I don't know if just some small voice came in Paul's ear or came in somebody else said, You gotta get out. I don't know. But the fact is, they were told about it. God was helping them. I don't know how again, but God was helping them. Did Paul know how the providential pieces came together? I don't know. I don't know, but He was working. I don't know how. I don't know how he works for me, but I know he's working.
Let's go to this passage that we're familiar with in Ephesians three as as Paul sums up this first section of Ephesians, as he's concluding that he says this about God, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us." This is one of those verses in scripture that I'm really glad's in here. I'm really glad that God and the Holy Spirit and Paul, I'm really glad that this was included because what this does it just summarizes who God really is and how powerful God really is. He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, which is another way I think Paul said, I have no idea how to say this, but I'm just going to say it the best I can. I'm just going to let the Spirit tell me how to say this, exceedingly abundantly above all. I mean, it doesn't-- those are superlatives of superlatives, aren't they? And he said that all that is how he helps you, above all that you can think about it and all that you can orally say about it. You can utter it, and you can think it and God's above it. How powerful is that? If somebody says, well, just how powerful is this power that Paul says, works in us, I'll tell you how powerful it is. It's so powerful that it created the heavens and the earth. If God can create the heavens and the earth, he can think higher than you, and he can see higher than you, and he knows more than you and me, and that's the God we serve. That's the God who can comfort us. That's the God, the God who does comfort us. When I am not able, he is able. I'll tell you, you've heard me say it before. I'm going to say it again. There have been times in my life when I just when I ultimately got to the point where I said I can't do it, I'm not able. You may be there today. You may be at a point, whether you're in this auditorium or whether you're listening to this broadcast, or this live stream broadcast, you may be at a point where you say, that's where I'm at. Okay, God is able. You're not able, but God is able, and he's able to do it even in a fuller, deeper, better, complete way than you've ever even thought, or that you've ever even asked him to and because he can do it, it's easy for him.
Heard somebody say one time, it's easy, it's as easy as a cake walk. You ever heard that phrase? Use cake walk? I have a question. How many -- raise your hand? How many of you have ever been to a cake walk? Oh, my goodness, everybody over 50. Maybe they have them now. Used to have them at, well, when I was in school, they had them at the Fall Festival. You get this, you know, you get on the asphalt this would in the playground, and they had these squares. And everybody, everybody, you'd pay to get a number. Can you start walking around? And when I think the music stopped, you just land. It wasn't musical chairs. You weren't fighting to get a seat. You just stood on your number. And if they drew the number out you, if, like, if it was 22 and they said 22 and I had it, they say, like Kenny, you go, go, pick you out a cake. That's all you had to do to get a cake. Just walk. And if they called your number, go get your cake. I mean, how easy is it was a cake walk, right? I just want to share that with you this morning. Just it, just, it was a good memory. When I thought about the word, I thought, you know, that's, I want to mention that to them. I don't see how many actually been to cake walk. But the point to that is that's easy. It's a cake walk for God. When you -- when you're all powerful, nothing's too hard. Nothing, but I, we, all of us, have been in our lives, and some of us may be there right now, saying to ourselves, it's too hard for me, it is not for him. Don't forget that. I have been down before. And the thing, the single, solitary thing that kept me going the most, I had other things helping me, but the thing that kept going through my mind the most was God is going to get me through it. There will be a good end to this, because God will get me through it. So there you have it.
Let me make one final statement, if I may. This is from Second Corinthians one. I stopped earlier in the first time I referred to this because I wanted to get to this part, this last part of verse four, "who comforts us in all our tribulation." And then he says, "that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with a comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." Let me just talk just a second about this. God is always there. He is my comforter. He is the God of all comfort. But sometimes he uses you to comfort me. Sometimes he uses me to comfort you. Sometimes he uses others to comfort his people. That's exactly what this passage is, and what it says is that there are those who go through the difficulties. There are those who are able to comfort those who are in trouble with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God. Sometimes there are people who help us because they understand and because they want to and because they can be. That's how God uses his people. I can talk about this a long time, as all of you could, but all of us, every single one of us, at some point in time in our lives, have been the beneficiaries of people who have comforted us. Most of those, for many of us, are in this room right now. You have come to my aid, or I have come to your aid because we are a close knit family. We're not only a close knit family, but we're a close knit family about the most important things to be close knit about. Our comfort comes from the same person. It comes from God Himself. Our comfort comes from the same people. It comes from his people. And that's that's how God comforts us. He uses us. And so may I just say to you this morning, allow God's people to help you. I don't say that because it doesn't happen. I say that because it does happen, and I want to remind every single one of us how important we are to each other. You don't think that's the case? Go back and read what Danny said in the family report, what he wrote to say, I want to, I want to send this thank you to my church family at College View on behalf of me and on the fact, on behalf of Mali, and on the fact, on Romans behalf as well. Go back and read that. Go back and think about what people have said to you when you when you've been there, when they've helped you, go back and take advantage of the fact that God's people are here to help you. It is a it is a wonderful blessing. And I am so thankful. And I hope that we'll value that even more.
So how would I sum up this morning? God's my helper. I don't always know how, but he's promised to help me. He's given me his people to help me. He's given me others that can help me, but my primary comfort become comes from those who understand him and understand how he's willing to help me. And then I would finally say, and I'm not going to take the time to elaborate on this, but he would just, he helps us by the fact that he writes his words to us. Words of comfort that many of that we've read this morning. That's how he comforts us. So always know he's there, always know he helps. Always know you're going to get through it, and always allow His people to help you. May God help us to see it, to acknowledge it, and to, by faith, accept it.
Thank you for listening this morning. If you're here in this audience this morning, you've never obeyed the gospel. I would love for you to come to the front this morning to give your life to Jesus Christ, to follow what he said. Believe that Jesus is the Son of God, repent of your sins, confess to the world that He is the Lord of your life, and that you're going to live for him. That'll put you on the track to living with him eternally, forever. I hope that that's something that some of you would do this morning. If that's something that you would do, let us help you by coming forth while we stand, while we sing.
