The Father of Compassion, the God of all Comfort (2 Cor 1:2-4)

  • Understanding God’s compassion is vital for living an authentic Christian life.
  • It shines most brightly in the N.T. in Jesus, but there are some remarkable stories in the Old, demonstrating that God does not change.
  • Many of us have trouble receiving this compassion and grace, which makes it hard for us to show it to others, and to experience joy ourselves.

 

Play Audio:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. (2 Cor 1:2–4)

  • Paul has just experienced an amazing deliverance when he had totally given up hope and was in despair

Goal

To hear and take in stories of God’s compassion & comfort
and be able to apply them to ourselves and others.

The Father of Compassion, the God of all Comfort (2 Cor 1:2–4)

  1. Stories of Compassion & Comfort, especially to those who cry for help
  2. Grace & forgiveness to everyone who asks for it
  3. Being a person of compassion & comfort

1. Stories of Compassion & Comfort, especially to those who cry for help

  • Jesus tells us that to know what the Father is like, all we need to do is to look at him!

John 14

  1. Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.”
  2. Jesus replied, “I’ve been with you so long and you still don’t know me Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father!…
  3. I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?
  • Jesus exemplified this compassion:

Jesus’ compassion

  • When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matt 9:36
    • There seems to be a connection between Jesus healing people and having compassion because very often the text mentions this,
  • When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Matt 14:14
  • Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” Matt 15:32
  • Compassion not for people who were committed to him but to people in general.

Matthew 20

  1. And there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!”
  2. The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!”
  3. And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”
  4. They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.”
  5. And Jesus in compassion touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.
  • One of Jesus’s main roles was to reveal to us the full revelation of the character of God
    His compassion is a true and balanced expression of the Father’s heart for humanity

Luke 7

  1. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
  2. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
  3. Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
  4. And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
  • In the N.T. we have very clear parables like the Good Samaritan, teaching us that we should also have compassion on those not in our social group
    but the same ideas are there in seed form in the old

Immigration

Immigration

Image source: link

Leviticus 19

  1. When a foreigner resides with you in your land,
    you must not oppress them.
  2. The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you;
    so you must love them as yourself,
    because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
    I am the LORD your God.
    • i.e. You must do this because you much show my character

Stages in God’s compassion and grace

  1. Gives it to those who ask for it
  2. Brings them into his family
  3. Continuing relationship of compassion, comfort & grace
  • All three of them are seen in the O.T. but brought into much clearer focus in the New

How should we respond to this?

  • We should be like God in this way
    • James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
  • Why is it hard for us to think of God as tender & compassionate?
    • It can almost seem like a weakness to be soft-hearted!

2. Grace & forgiveness to everyone who asks for it

  • The next thing I want to consider, is showing compassion to someone who has treated you badly.
    • It is much easier to be kind to someone who is innocent and does not hate you...
  • But isn’t God sometimes very angry?
    • Sometimes he destroys people in a frightening way. Where is the compassion & comfort?
  • There is not a single recorded instance in Old or New Testament of someone who comes humbly to God and is turned away.
  • This is the story of Manasseh, the son of the good King Hezekiah,
    but Manasseh was probably the most evil king of all of them

2 Chronicles 33 —Manasseh

  1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
  2. He did evil in the sight of the LORD and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations whom the LORD drove out ahead of the Israelites.
  3. He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them.
  4. He built altars in the LORD’s temple, about which the LORD had said, “Jerusalem will be my permanent home.”
  5. In the two courtyards of the LORD’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky.
  6. He sacrificed his sons in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and practiced divination, omen reading, and sorcery. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the LORD and angered him.
  7. He put an idolatrous image he had made in God’s temple…
  8. But Manasseh misled the people of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem so that they sinned more than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.
  9. The LORD confronted Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.
  10. So the LORD brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria. They seized Manasseh, put hooks in his nose, bound him with bronze chains, and carried him away to Babylon.

2 Chron 33 cont’d

  1. In his pain Manasseh asked the LORD his God for mercy and truly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors.
  2. When he prayed to the LORD, the LORD was moved by his entreaty and listened to his cry for mercy. The LORD brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh realized that the LORD is the true God.
  3. He removed the foreign gods and images from the LORD’s temple and all the altars he had built on the hill of the LORD’s temple and in Jerusalem; he threw them outside the city.
  4. He erected the altar of the LORD and offered on it peace offerings and thank offerings. He told the people of Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel.
  • But once again, Jesus is the full revelation of God’s compassionate love

Jesus in John 3

  1. “For God so loved the world,
    that he gave his only Son,
    that whoever believes in him should not perish
    but have eternal life.”

As the Kingdom grows, there’s an evil man who Satan is using to attack and kill God’s people.

  • One day when this wicked man is travelling to kill even more Christians, God strikes him down dead?
  • No, he shows his love and grace to this man, Paul, who ends up being one of the greatest apostles.

How should we respond to this?

  • A Christian is someone who has received God’s compassion and grace
  • You can receive this so easily!
  1. Admit that you need his forgiveness, you need his help, you can’t do it yourself
  2. Trust yourself to his leadership for your life. Surrender control to him, trusting that he will give you life

3. Being a person of compassion & comfort

How should we respond to this?

  • It’s very important that we relate to God as someone who is ready to forgive us

Our Response

  • Many Christians live under a “harsh” God
  • Our experience of human authority is that it is not kind and gentle
  • Most of us need a huge change in our view of God
    • need to read the stories, esp of Jesus, and say “This is God”
  • He is like the father in the parable of the “lost son”
  • I want to strongly encourage you to work on the image of God in your mind
    • Especially that he is forgiving! (back to the O.T. again…)

Nehemiah 9

  1. They refused to obey and did not recall your miracles that you had performed among them. Instead, they rebelled…. But you are a God of forgiveness, merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and unfailing in your loyal love (chesed). You did not abandon them,

Nehemiah 9 cont’d

  1. even when they made a cast image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up from Egypt,’ or when they committed atrocious blasphemies.
  2. “Due to your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. The pillar of cloud did not stop guiding them in the path by day, nor did the pillar of fire stop illuminating for them by night the path on which they should travel.
  • God’s very nature is to have compassion—be like that!
    • gentleness and tenderness
    • If someone were to describe you, would they use those words:
    • compassionate, merciful, gentle, tender, kind
  • If God is like that in the core of his being, and we are to be like God,
    • Then that should describe us!
  • There are consequences to sin, but God is ready to hear you any time
    • We feel he is angry with us, but we need to remember these stories of his compassion

The voice in your head that criticizes you

  • Three personal stories
  • Do you ever do it? Would people be shocked if there were a “microphone”?

Psalm 103

by David
  Call to Praise - Let’s sing blessings with all that is in us!
  1. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
  2. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and do not forget all his kindnesses.
1. SAFE — For health and physical blessings
  1. who forgives all your sins,
    who heals all your diseases,
  2. who delivers your life from the Pit,
    who crowns you with faithful love [chesed] and compassion,
  3. who satisfies you with good
    so your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.
2. SECURE — The way God rules: just, kind, compassional, fair & forgiving
  1. The Lord does what is fair,
    and executes justice for all who are oppressed.
  2. He revealed his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel.
  3. Merciful and compassionate is the Lord
    slow to anger and abounding in faithful love [chesed].
  4. He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
  5. He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
3. LOVED — The grace he shows when we constantly fail him
  1. For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his faithful love [chesed] toward those committed to him;
  2. As far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
  3. As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those committed to him.
  4. For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.
4. ETERNAL VALUE — He gives us immortality, and our lives will count in his kingdom forever
  1. A person’s life is like grass.
    Like a flower in the field it flourishes,
  2. but when hot wind blows, it’s gone,
    and no one even remembers its location
  3. But the faithful love [chesed] of the Lord is from eternity to eternity for his faithful followers,
    and his faithfulness to their descendants,
  4. to those who follow his covenant,
    who remember his commands.
  5. The Lord has established his throne in heaven;
    his kingdom extends over everything.
  Call for the whole universe to praise and bless the Lord
  1. Bless the Lord, you his angels of great strength,
    who do his word, obedient to his command.
  2. Bless the Lord, all you his heavenly warriors,
    you servants of his who carry out his desires.
  3. Bless the Lord, all that he has made
    in all the places of his kingdom.
    Bless the Lord, O my soul!
  • The distinction between failing because of sin
  • And failing because of human weakness
  • Satan wants to falsely accuse you!
  • He loves it when you attack yourself
    • Even when you have done wrong, we must not allow the voice of the accuser!

Three reasons for receiving God’s compassion

  1. Our self-talk is out of alignment with what God is saying about us.
  2. People who don’t receive God’s compassion, rarely know how to give it to others
  3. We reduce our effectiveness as Christians who are to reflect God to this world.
  1. We are out of alignment with what God is saying about us.
    • This is actually very serious because we tend to mix up this inner critical voice with God’s voice
    • If we allow ourselves to do these self-attacks, we’ll damage our relationship with God
  2. People who don’t receive God’s compassion, rarely know how to give it to others
    • Self-critical people are critical of others. (e.g. other drivers)
    • My grandfather was a very angry man
  3. We reduce our effectiveness as Christians who are to reflect God to this world.

Conclusion

  1. Be compassionate and grace-filled to others
    • stepping out in dependence on God’s strength
  2. Enjoy God’s gentleness and kindness to you
    • especially in the way you talk to yourself
  • Catch yourself when you say these things to yourself
    “No, that’s not what God says about me”
  • I need this message as much as you do!

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. (2 Cor 1:2–4)

Search

Categories

Tags