sermonette: The God of All Comfort

Healing the Brokenhearted
David C. Grabbe
Given 19-May-12; Sermon #1102s; 19 minutes

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As we begin, please turn to II Corinthians 1, where we find a description of God which is filled with meaning:

II Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

We are going to focus on the description of the Father as, “The God of All Comfort.” This is one of His many character traits, and an integral part of who His is. A great many people consider the “God of the Old Testament” to be harsh and cruel, and yet the scriptures abound with examples of Him either giving comfort, or promising that He will at some point in the future.

This afternoon we are going to take a brief look at some of what the Bible has to say about comfort, and especially God’s comfort of His people. Once you start looking for it, you begin to see it everywhere, so there are far more examples and scriptures than we can cover in depth.

We are also going to see how important comfort is on a human level, and the effect that its absence can have as we relate to others within the Body of Christ.

Here in verse 4, Paul says that God comforts us in all our tribulation. And then he goes on to give one reason that God does this, and that reason is so that we can, in turn, comfort others. And so even though ultimately it is God who provides the comfort, we can have a part to play in comforting others, just as others may be a conduit by which we are comforted.

By way of definition, comfort is relief from pain, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. Comfort can indicate that new strength has been given. It can indicate a lessening of fear, agitation, anxiety, or grief, often because of hope, or because of truth. Comfort can include encouragement, support, consolation, and security.

God’s comfort shows up in many Psalms, but I will mention just a few.

Psalm 23 is probably the best known. In verse 4 the psalmist says that the rod and the staff of the Good Shepherd are a comfort to him. The rod and staff are symbols for protection and individual attention of the sheep. That is why King David could say, “I will fear no evil,” because God’s presence with him, and in particular His protection and attention, gave him relief from every fear.

In Psalm 71:21, the psalmist says that God will comfort him on every side as he goes through severe trials. God's comfort is complete, thorough, and consistent. This is similar to the verse we began with, which says that God is the God of all comfort, meaning “any and every” comfort. He is a God of perfect comfort, no matter what arises, the psalmist knew he could turn to God for encouragement, for security, and for relief.

Sprinkled throughout Psalm 119, the psalmist says that God’s word, judgments, and merciful kindness are all sources of comfort. These are all evidences of Who and What God is; being reminded of His nature will always bring His children hope.

In Psalm 94:19, the psalmist says that even though he has a multitude of anxieties within, the comforts of God delight his soul. Keep this in mind, because the counterbalancing of anxiety and comfort will come into play later.

Throughout the prophets, especially in Isaiah, God is continually shown comforting His people. In Jeremiah 31, God promises that He will turn Israel’s mourning to joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice rather than sorrow. This is interesting because in the context of the New Covenant being given to Israel, and so we can see that part of the way God will comfort Israel is by bringing her closer to Him through the terms of the covenant.

Now, comfort may seem like a minor thing amongst the concrete demands of life, but before deciding that all that comfort stuff is for the birds, think about what is found in Isaiah 66:13. The One speaking is the One who later became The Perfect Man. He says, “As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you…” These are not empty words or fanciful poetry. Our High Priest understands the tribulations of His people, and He promises that He will comfort and console as only the Creator can.

Even though we have just barely scratched the surface, we are going to turn here and consider the need for comfort on a human level. I want to give you a glimpse of the effects that a lack of comfort could be having on us right now—not a lack of God’s comfort, but a lack of comfort in our formative years. This could be affecting how we cleave in marriage, as well as how we relate to our brethren.

Among those who observe and research human behavior, there is an established and respected theory that our experience with comfort during our childhood sets the stage for how we love and relate to others far into adulthood. This view holds that the answer to one simple question regarding comfort could reveal more about our relationships than almost any other insight. That question is, “Can you recall being comforted as a child after a time of emotional distress?”

Our answer to this question is significant because the environment of comfort—or lack thereof—creates an imprint, or a style of love and connection, that remains with us. Remember, comfort includes support, encouragement, understanding, consolation, appropriate relief, security, and human touch. These researchers have found that even as unique as we all are, our response to an environment without comfort will typically be imprinted on us in one of only 5 basic ways.

I will briefly summarize these styles. I did not come up with them. They can be found in the book, How We Love, by Milan and Kay Yerkovich. You decide if these have merit.

First, if we came from an environment with little or no affection, where independence and self-reliance was highly valued, we probably learned to just take care of ourselves, and not expect much from anybody else. But without experiencing comfort, we tend to become closed off from others, and will prefer our space to a “risky” connection with another person. We may even respond with anger if someone asks for too much emotionally. We will naturally try to avoid anything that will bring up emotions in us or others—except anger, because blowing up may give us some relief. Or, the anger may leak out in more passive ways. But because we did not really bond with our parents early on we find it difficult to bond with others. Self-sufficiency and independence can be admirable, but it can also choke the life out of relationships, because it makes it difficult to connect on anything but a surface level.

A second style emerges from having a parent that was either overly protective or else angry and critical. Either way, the environment is filled with anxiety. If we grew up in such an environment, we may tend to throw ourselves into being a “good” child, to being pleasing in the hopes of not stirring anything up. Rather than seeking or receiving comfort for the anxiety within, we will put our energy into appeasing, and monitoring the moods of those around us. We will do our best to avoid conflict through giving in quickly, and may be inclined to be less-than-honest if it means we can continue to be pleasing to others. We may have a hard time “speaking the truth in love” because of the risk someone will be displeased with us. But as time goes on, after years of chronic anxiety and over-giving, the result is often resentment.

A third style develops in an environment of unpredictability, when there is not consistent parental affection—sometimes it is there, sometimes it is not. If this is our experience, we may be prone to feelings of abandonment, and have fine-tuned sensors for when someone is pulling away from us. We vacillate between desiring connection, and being angry when it does not happen in exactly the way we want. We subconsciously set out on a quest to find the consistent love that we did not receive as child, and tend to idealize new connections and relationships, only to toss them off once they fall short of our high expectations. We tend to evaluate everything as either proof of love, or else evidence of rejection, and there is typically anger just below the surface. We have a hard time sharing relationships with other people, and if we cannot have an exclusive relationship, we may feel unwanted. We also have a hard time seeing the way we contribute to relationship problems, because we are so acutely focused on what others are doing, or not doing, in relation to us. We may be quick to write people off once they fall short of our ideal, and have a hard time letting them back into our good graces. And, if this is our style, we are also sure that our perceptions are never wrong.

The last two styles come from environments of great chaos, turbulence, and even abuse. If this is how we grew up, we may respond to the chaos, and the anxieties within, in one of two ways.

The first is by becoming aggressive and controlling, because we believe that if we are not in control, then someone is going to control us, and that is terrifying to us. We fear being exposed and being vulnerable, and so we ensure we will not be taken advantage of by being in charge, or by being aggressive. If everything is not done exactly to our liking, we tend to respond to this lack of order with anger. We may have a hard time being empathetic, because we tend to be focused on whether people around us are stepping out of line, or behaving unpredictably.

On the other hand, in the presence of chaos, unpredictability, and abuse, we may respond by trying to stay under the radar, taking the path of least resistance, and tolerating the abuse. We tend to always be a victim, and become accustomed to tolerating the intolerable, believing it is probably all our fault. We avoid having our own voice, our own opinions, and may passively participate in sin rather than standing up for what is right.

Now, maybe you had an ideal childhood, and you could not relate to anything I have just mentioned. If that is the case, you are blessed. But perhaps something in these five styles struck a chord, or maybe it even struck a nerve. Maybe you could see parts of yourself in one or more of these styles, and maybe you saw me as well, for I am in there, too. Ironically, maybe my just talking about the significance of comfort has evoked a feeling of discomfort.

Yet it is important to examine where we have come from, not for the purpose of pointing fingers, or assigning blame; there is only One Perfect Parent, and the rest do the best they can. But, this helps us to be aware of why we tend to relate to others in the way that we do. All of these styles can hinder our ability to truly cleave to our spouse, and they can also interfere with developing secure, stable, and beneficial relationships within the Body of Christ.

We went through this to see the importance of comfort on a human level, but even with the most broken of backgrounds, God can and will comfort His children, if we seek Him. Please turn with me to Isaiah 61, where we will find the passage that Jesus Christ quotes in Luke 4:

Isaiah 61:1-2 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn,…

Regardless of what our childhood was like, we now have the “God of All Comfort” as our Father. In addition, the ongoing work of our Elder Brother includes healing the brokenhearted and comforting all who mourn. And as we are comforted by Them, They can then use us to comfort other members of the Family of God. Because Their love has been poured out in our hearts, we can be conduits of that love—which will include comfort—to others.

The divine healing and comforting do not happen all at once, though. They take place throughout our lives. Through God’s work in us, we grow in our understanding of what will make for good relationships with God and with each other. But it is our relationship with God, and what He does with us that gives us the example of how to live. We learn to love God and neighbor because God first loved us. And we learn to comfort others because God comforts us.

As we take on God’s image, we learn to relate to others the way the Father and the Son relate to each other. As the Father and the Son become more real to us, and as we invite Them further into our lives, and see what They are like and what They do, They heal us, and They supply whatever is needed for us to spend eternity with Them. Just as God says He is a father to the fatherless, so also He will provide whatever comfort we may have lacked, but which might be interfering with our connection to the Body.

Thinking back to the styles we may have developed, our experiences with God teach us that there is no shame in being open and vulnerable, because that is how we are when we stand before Him. We do not have to fear the emotions that God gave us, and which He also has—because God shows us how to express them appropriately. Through drawing closer to God, we can overcome being closed off to His Body so we are no longer an independent Christian in the midst of a congregation. Through God’s indwelling, we are connected to the Most High God, and our trust in Him allows us to conquer the fears and anxieties that may have plagued us from early on. Through the strength God provides, we can overcome the tendency to appease, to compromise, or to skirt the truth for the sake of keeping people happy. Through God’s constant and unchanging nature, we can find security rather than being anxious about whether someone loves us or is going to abandon us.

As we experience God’s forbearance, we learn to forbear with others, and not write them off when they fail to live up to our expectations. And as we begin to see God more clearly, we can allow that our opinions and perceptions are not always correct.

Through the faith that God gives, we can let go of the need to control, and trust Him with the management of the world, and of His church, and our lives.

We will close with II Thessalonians 2:16-17:

II Thessalonians 2:16-17 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

God is offering to be our support, our encouragement, our relief, our security, our example, and so much more. He is the only Perfect Parent. But until we allow ourselves to receive what He is offering, we will not know the experience of being comforted—and, remember, frequently He uses other people as conduits for what He does. Yet once we experience comfort, giving to others becomes easier because we understand the relief that we are offering. But this cannot be done without the God of all comfort.