I want to begin reading in verse
3. 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 tribulations, that
we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. By
the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as
the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also
aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted,
it is for your consolation and salvation. which is effectual
in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Whether
we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And
our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers
of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation."
Here in verse 3 it seemed like the Apostle Paul, as sometimes
happened to him, He seemed like his heart is just filled and
overflowing with praises and blessings to God. He says here,
Blessed be God. All praise God is what he's saying. Thanksgiving, adoration, glory
and honor be to God. Blessed be God. Sometimes the reason you and
I love the book of Psalms is because it's filled with praises
and adoration to God, isn't it? Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me, bless His holy name. Sometimes I thank
those men of old, and I hope us too, that our hearts are filled
with so much praise, they're filled with so much adoration,
we can't describe it. So we just have to make statements
like this. All that is within me, bless
His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all His benefits. He heals all your diseases, and
He forgives all your iniquities. Praise Him for who He is. Praise
Him for what He's done. Bless the Lord. O blessed be
God. Let everything that hath breath
Praise the Lord. And here, the Apostle Paul is
going to represent God to us under three titles. Here in verse 3, Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's a title that should
be so appealing to every one of us. Who is God? He's the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a mystery because He's
the eternal Father of the eternal Son. If you have a Father, then
you must have a Son. If you're a Son, you must have
a Father. But how can that be when both
are eternal? These are words that our dear
forefathers tried tried to describe the Son of God who is equal and
eternal as His Father. Eternal, eternally begotten. Oh, we can't enter into that,
can we? And yet the Lord Jesus said in His high priestly prayer
in John 17, He said, God has always had a Son, Jesus
Christ. But He not only is the Father
of the divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, but God is the
Father of the human nature of Jesus Christ. And He's that by
miraculous conception. You want to read that again?
Turn over here in Luke chapter 1 and read this amazing account
of the angel as he appeared to Mary and told her that she is
going to bear a son in her womb. And look what he says in Luke
chapter 1 and look in verse 26. Luke chapter 1 and verse 26.
This is absolutely amazing. In the sixth month, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth
to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, a virgin. He was of the house of David,
and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came unto her and
said, Hail, thou who art highly favored. The Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women.
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast
in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel
said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for you have found favour with
God. For behold, you shall conceive
in your womb, and bring forth a son, your son. And you shall
call his name Jesus, and he shall be great, and shall be called
the Son of the Highest. He's your son, but he's going
to be the son of the highest. And the Lord shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall
be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel,
How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered
and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, And the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God." Now that's astounding. That's astounding because if
we're born of a woman, we have to have a father. Everybody here
tonight has a father. Jesus Christ has a Father in
His humanity, His human nature. But He's no man. He's no mere
man. But He is the Eternal God. He is His Father. That's amazing,
isn't it? That's amazing. And it's through
Him, this Only Begotten of the Father, that you and I are made
sons of God. And it's through Him that we're
adopted as God's children. And it's His Spirit, the Spirit
of God's Son, that comes to our hearts crying, Father, Father. But there is a man who lived
in this world for thirty-three and a half years, and the eternal
God is His Father. And you know someday, someday,
not now, but someday there is coming a living reality that
in our glorified humanity, God will be our father. He's our
father now by the spirit of adoption, by the new birth. But Luther
Crabtree is the father of my humanity. But there's coming
a day when Luther Crabtree will no longer be the father of my
humanity. God will be the father of my
glorified humanity. This corruptible must put on
incorruption. And this mortal must put on immortality. And then, in our very human natures,
glorified human natures, we shall be sons of God. Ain't that amazing? Oh, we wait,
Paul said. We wait for the adoption. I thought we already were adopted.
We have been. But there's another adoption.
the redemption of these bodies, when God can look at those bodies
and say, I'm the Father of them. I'm your Father. Oh, the Lord
Jesus said, I send to my Father and your Father. To my God and
your God. We needed a great Savior, didn't
we? God knew we needed a mighty Savior.
So who did He send to us? He sent us His Son. He's the
Father. Oh, what hope, what comfort that is. Jesus Christ is the
Son of the living God. God is His Father. Look back
over here in our text again. Here in the second thing, He
identifies Himself. He represents Himself under this
title. Look at this. In verse 3, He's the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And here's something that's very
appealing to us. He's the Father of mercies. The Father of mercies. That's
a wonderful act. The Father of mercies. Dear old
Spurgeon, I think it was said, if God's mercies ever begin to
diminish, He'd just be getting lower. Because He's the Father
of mercies. What a comforter. You know what
mercies are for? You know who mercies are for?
Those who would be miserable without them. We were miserable,
weren't we, until we obtained mercy? And now God's heart is
so full of mercy, it's just like every morning, the Scripture
says, there are new, morning by morning, new mercies I see. That's why we're told to come
boldly to the throne of grace, that we're to obtain mercy. If
He's the Father of mercy, I don't think He'll ever diminish in
His mercy to you. I don't think he will. Brothers
and sisters, how does this Lord encourage us? Every morning,
every morning before we leave our houses, we ought to come
to the throne of grace and seek mercies to protect us and uphold
us during the day. Every night before we lay our
heads upon our pillows, we should commit ourselves to these mercies
of the Father to keep us safe as we sleep. Morning by morning,
new mercies. He's the father of mercies. What an appealing scripture that
is to our poor, poor hearts. Look at the last thing he's identified
to us this way. He's the father of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the father of mercies. And
it says here he is the God of all comfort. This is a miserable
world. Have you found it to be so? What
an oppressing world this would be indeed, full of devils and
sin, if God wasn't the God of all comfort. Could you live without
Him? Could you exist without His comforts? And He's the God of all comforts. There's no comfort in nature. There's no comfort in the Kingdom
of God apart from the God of all comfort. I've been watching
God's little creatures. I feed them during the wintertime.
I set up a little box and the birds, they just fly in. And
you can tell they're hungry. And oh, they'll set in that food
and they'll just eat until their little stomachs fill. And now
it's springtime. Saw an old robin. You could tell
he was an old robin. He was grayish looking. He was
flying around and stumbling around and he found a big worm. And
he pulled it up out of the ground. Oh, comfort. Comfort. Do you believe God comforts His
creatures? The God of all comfort. It's coming springtime now and
the farmers are out putting their plows in the fields and they're
sowing with the hope of having a harvest. Comfort. Comfort. Oh, there's a dear mother
and her son hasn't come home and it's late and she's troubled
in her heart and her mind and she hears him come through the
door and she's comforted. Here's a poor lost soul and he's
miserable and he's been seeking the Lord and praying and calling
upon Him and finally the Lord answers and he's merciful and
he's comforted. Here's a poor conscience and
it's bowed down with the knowledge of its sin. And we pray and we
confess and we see our sin washed in the Savior's blood. And what
happens? We're comforted. Oh, He's the
God of all comfort. He's the God of all natural comfort. He's the God of all spiritual
comfort. He's the God of all temporal
comfort. He's the God of all eternal comfort. He's the God of all Oh, what a great and gracious
Father He is, the God of all comfort. Verse 4, look at this. Who comforteth us in all our
tribulation. He comforts us in all our tribulation. You know, one of the mistakes
that you and I are apt to make is we think the only comfort
is the removal of the tribulation. And we look for the tribulation
to be removed, and when it's not removed, we can't detect
any comfort. But he doesn't say he comforts
us by removing the tribulation, did he? He says he comforts us
in our tribulation. So here's two things you and
I ought to look to, and we can discover the comfort of the Lord
in the midst of our tribulation. Number one is this. You already
have a measure of comfort in your tribulation, or you'd be
overwhelmed by it. You say, oh, I prayed. I prayed
about this trial, and I can't find any comfort. But haven't
you already obtained a measure of comfort? If you had enough,
then how are you still standing? Why are you not yet swallowed
up? Oh, this world, brothers and
sisters, is just full of trials. It's full of sorrows. And we'd
be swallowed up by them if the Lord did not, though He does
it secretly, give to us a measure of comfort. If you'll look, you'll
notice in your trials, when you're begging for comfort, He has already
comforted you to a measure. The second way that we can discern
His comfort in these tribulations is like this. He gives us grace in the midst
of those tribulations. Look over here with me in the
same book and look in chapter 12. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Look in verse 7. Here's a lesson
the Apostle Paul learned. That comfort is not given. It's
not given by taking away the tribulation. But it's given in
the midst of the tribulation. Look what he said in verse 7.
Chapter 12, verse 7. Lest I should be exalted above
measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet
me, lest I should be exalted above measure. It keeps me down.
It keeps me beat down. And for this thing I have assaulted
the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. But it hasn't departed, he said.
And here's the answer of the Lord to him in verse 9. My grace
is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I glory in my infirmities, in my weaknesses, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong." You're in a great trial? You're in a tribulation? Go ahead
and ask the Lord to get you out of it. Go ahead and ask the Lord
to remove it, but He may not. You may have to carry it all
the rest of your life. And sometimes you may think,
Lord, it's going to get me down. I can't pack it any longer. I'm
so weak I can't put one step in front of another. But you
will pack it. He will not remove it. But I'll
tell you what He does. He comforts you in it. And how
does He comfort you? By giving you His grace. By giving
you His strength to endure it. And that's comfort. That's comfort. And here back in our text, look
what He does. He tells us one of the reasons
why He comforts His people. who comforteth us in all our
tribulations, that we might be able to comfort them which are
in any trouble. By the comfort we are with, we
ourselves are comforted of God." Did you notice how he did this?
He first says, our tribulations. And then he describes tribulations,
secondly, as our troubles. Tribulation is trouble. I heard
a man singing a song the other day. Trouble, trouble, trouble,
trouble, trouble. That's all the song was about.
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. Why does he comfort
you, Clarence? One of the reasons is this. You
may comfort your wife. You may find somebody else in
trouble down the road somewhere, and you tell them, Brother, dear
sister, this is the way the Lord comforted me. I was under this
great load and this Scripture came to me. And let me read it
to you. If the Lord has comforted you,
keep your eyes open. He's going to put somebody in
your way that you can comfort them down the road. I made mention
a while ago, this is why we look in our Psalms and our Bibles
are almost wore out when we're reading the Psalms. And the reason
for that is we have a poor man over here that he's in trouble. And he's crying to the Lord,
and the Lord delivers him, and we find comfort in it. So we
just keep going over there and reading about it. And the more trouble you're in,
the more grace the Lord gives you, the more He's going to use
you to help other people. Paul said, I glory in infirmity.
I glory in it. I tell you what, when the Lord
uses these tribulations and these troubles, it is so much profit. There have been preachers. I
know one preacher, and he wasn't sympathetic to people who had
emotional problems at all. If you had a mental problem and
you tried to talk to him, you know what he'd tell you? Get
over it. If you had nerve problems, get over it. Get on with it.
Until he got in trouble himself. And boy, now he'll sympathize
with you. Troubles are good, aren't they? I tell you, if it
draws grace out of the Master's heart, if it draws strength from
His being, that's a good thing. If He'll help me to help others,
that's a good thing. He comforted us that we may be
able to comfort them that are in trouble. And notice here in
verse 5, For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, here's
something else He did. In verse 4, what He calls tribulation,
in the first place, he calls trouble in the second place.
And now what he calls trouble in the second place, in the third
place, he calls the sufferings of Christ. So the tribulations
and the troubles you're going through, what are they really?
They're the sufferings of Christ in you. When you and I think
about the sufferings of Christ, first of all, we have to think
about His suffering for us. There is a sense that when Jesus
Christ suffered for us, that He could never suffer innocently.
His sufferings are vicarious. They are atoned for sins. And
those He suffered alone. Nobody was with Him when He hung
upon the cross. Nobody was with Him when He was
burying the load of our guilt and our shame. Nobody was with
him when he was being smitten of God and afflicted. I looked
for some to take pity. There was none. I looked for
some to help. I found no helpers. And then
he bore the judgment of God by himself. His sufferings for us,
he suffered by himself. But Paul talks about the sufferings
of Christ that's in us. He who suffered for us is now
suffering in us, in His members. Are you tempted? Are you tempted
especially to give up this self-denial? You say, man, the cross is heavy
and you're just tempted to give it up. You know that's the sufferings
of the cross. He suffered being tempted. And his temptations in regards
to self-denial was extreme. He fasted for 40 days and 40
nights. Can you imagine how hungry he
was? And the devil come to him and said, if you be the Son of
God, command these stones that they may bear bread. You can
eat. Look how hungry you are. You've
already sufficiently denied yourself. He was tempted. He was tempted. You're tempted. So was he. That's the sufferings of Christ.
Are you ever reviled for the sake of Christ? He suffered revilement,
the Scripture says. He was reviled, leaving us an
example that we may follow His steps. You shall be hated of
all nations for my namesake. If they have hated me, they'll
hate you. If they persecuted me, they'll
persecute you. And when the world persecutes
you for Christ's sake, that's the sufferings of Christ in you. Does your enemies and your situation
and your condition threaten you? Do you feel threatened? You know
he was threatened. He suffered being threatened.
And when you're threatened by your sickness, you're threatened
by your situation, you're threatened by your enemies, for Christ's
sake, that's the sufferings of Christ in you. Look over here
in chapter 4 right quickly. And look in verse 8. Here's the
way the Apostle says it. Look in chapter 4. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. Look in verse 14. Verse 8. Look in verse 8. Look in verse
8. We are troubled. That's that
word. We're troubled. We have tribulations. The sufferings of Christ abounded
in us. We're troubled on every side,
yet not distressed. We are perplexed. We're so confused
about something, but not in despair. We're persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down. but not destroyed,
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our suffering
bodies. For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. The sufferings
of Christ abound in us. I'm glad he didn't stop there,
aren't you? Just as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our
consolation also abounded by Christ. And the Apostle Paul
was so certain of this, this is what he said in verse 7, Our
hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the
sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation." One thing
that is an absolute impossibility for Christ to be in you and suffer
in you and then not comfort you after
a while. If you are suffering with Him
now, There is one thing for sure. You are going to reign with Him
hereafter. And you know something about
His sufferings in us? They are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Let me read what
He continued to say here in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 in verse 14. Knowing that He which raised
up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall
present us with you. and eternal weight of glory,
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
The sufferings of Christ in us. One more passage and we will
close. Romans chapter 8 and verse 16. Romans chapter 8 and verse 16. The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children,
then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ. But look at this. If so be that
we suffer with Him. What a seemingly paradox. If
I am truly a child of God, if I'm an heir of heaven, why is
it this way with me? Why am I suffering in my soul?
Why am I suffering in my body? That seems like a paradox, doesn't
it? Let the children of God suffer, that we may also be glorified
together. are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest
expectation of the creature he waits for the manifestation of
the sons of God. For the creature was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected
the same in hope. Because the creature itself also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption and to the glorious
liberty of the children of God.